Texas Senate Giving McLeroy the Bum’s Rush

Well you could have knocked me over with a feather. In my traditional stance as the eternal pessimist, I assumed the worst, that Don McLeroy, dentist, young-Earth creationist, and Chairman of the State Board of Education would eventually receive the necessary two-thirds vote to confirm Perry’s re-nomination to that state leadership position.

And now it looks like he won’t.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“‘The confirmation of State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy is dead in the water’, Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, said Thursday.”

“Jackson, chairman of the Senate Nominations Committee, said McLeroy will be left pending in committee because there is enough opposition on the floor of the Senate to block his confirmation, which requires approval of two-thirds of the senators.”

“‘There are too many other important issues to take up on the floor to waste time on a doomed confirmation,’ Jackson said.”

This comes on the heels of Governor Perry’s own thrust of the knife in the back of the former chairman when he hung the poor man out to dry when he refused to come to McLeroy’s defense, saying essentially, that the fate of his nominee was in the hands of the Senate.

From The Chron:

“You know I have 1500 appointees a year. So uh, we appoint them and they go through the process. That’s the way it’s always worked.”

So with the nomination dead in the water since the Senate will refuse to act, come the end of the legislative session it will be up to Rick Perry to come up with another chairman who must come from the pool of 15 state board members (and now, 14). The question is not which Republican member Perry will nominate, the question is whether he will nominate one of the remaining 6 Republican creationists currently on the board.

My guess is that he will because he needs to cater to his base in his upcoming re-election in 2010.

There are no minuses here because the Senate will not be able to confirm his nomination until 2011, well after the dust has settled.

But really, you know, the science issue is settled for another 10 years so maybe he should search around for someone who would appeal to his base in the area and issues of social studies, whose curriculum is next on the agenda for the Board to review and revise.

Like someone who has a different viewpoint on the War of Northern Aggression, and is of the opinion that Texas can secede from the Union any time it darn well feels like it.