I don’t want to queer the deal by pointing it out, but El Paso finally has an effective voice in Austin.
I’m not talking about Joe Pickett, or Jose Rodriguez, or Marisa Marquez. They’re fine, but they’re pretty powerless to much improve El Paso’s lot in the capitol. At best, they’re marginally effective at making incremental changes.
No, I’m talking about Paul Foster. Mr. Foster and Rick Perry must be bff’s. They come from similar backgrounds, Mr. Foster from Eastern New Mexico, and Governor Perry from West Texas. They probably both cruised the parking lots of their respective Sonics in their teen years, shot doves from the tailgates of their pickup trucks, and went to the whorehouses in Acuña (back before everything was immortalized via smart phones and the intertube).
And now they’re locked in a symbiotic embrace, with Mr. Foster donating to Governor Perry’s campaigns, and Governor Perry, maybe, keeping the Texas Commission of Environment Quality out of Mr. Foster’s centrally located refinery. And if Mr. Foster wanted the State AG to back off from an investigation of walking quorums via private email, all he’d have to do is speed dial the governor and whisper in his ear. And the governor would talk to his minions, and his minions to their minions, and so on down and up the line, and then the AG might decide that governmental transparency and the Rule of Law were overrated.
If, I said. Maybe. I’m just speculating here, trying to guess the hands from the cards that are on the table.
I could be wrong. Ojinaga was probably more convenient than Acuña.
Based on all the road closures and orange cones I’m seeing around town, I thought you were going to say that Ted Houghton was our effective voice in Austin.
Could be. But maybe Mr. Houghton is just the means to an end.
More Highways = More Cars = More Driving = More Money for Western Refining
Could just be a coincidence. Could be.