Lubbock’s Stanley & Griffith sound as left-wing Democrats

Robert Pratt

One of the things that so often frustrates voters, especially in Texas outside the huge cities, is that they know their local communities to be rather conservative, fiscally responsible areas and yet time after time they find that some local elected officials, who ran as conservatives, talk and vote the same as left-wing big-government Democrats.

Take the folk of Lubbock who are having a big election for city council and in district 3 have three strong candidates running each of whom has a wide-base of community support. Many wondered why the regular Chamber of Commerce televised debate was canceled during one of the most competitive races the city’s had in a while. Well, it could be because the person the Chamber crowd does not want win might have benefited.

That group’s candidate questionnaire results might cause some real shock amongst the city’s rather conservative voters. The written Q&A has populist candidate Maurice Stanley advocating twice for a twelve percent increase in the local sales tax to support a host of undefined government projects.

So Maurice Stanley, in writing, advocates a major tax increase on every person who buys something in his city – what does the Chamber’s man Jeff Griffith advocate? Well none other than a light rail project for Lubbock! That’s right, Griffith is says he wants a “light rail project to come to fruition.”

That leaves Deanne Clark as the only candidate who talks about restraining government spending, getting a handle on debt, and who even approximates a conservative. Don’t believe me? Read the words of all three candidates.

We get big tax and spenders in local office because we vote for them when we allow ourselves to be uninformed.