Triple R -- Rout Rick’s Route and Reroute Rick aka the Trans-Texas Corridor!

A movement has been growing throughout Texas -- the Triple R, Rout Rick’s Route aka the Trans-Texas Corridor.  We’re an urban-suburban-rural movement out to stop Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor and plans to privatize roads through freeway toll schemes.  We are coming together with the political reform and independent political movements led by Independent Texans.  It’s made up of farmers and ranchers from the blackland farmland of central Texas to Oklahoma border at Gainesville, it represents urban and suburban folks in San Antonio, Austin, Waco, McAllen and DFW, and people in hundreds of small towns about to be run-over by the white elephant Gov. Rick Perry and the state legislature snuck in to our living rooms and barns.  The Triple R is linking the fight against these extreme special interest projects, to the long-term strategic fight for political reform and political independence and Texans’ right to statewide initiative and referendum (I&R).  (The definitive opposition information site on the Corridor is at http://CorridorWatch.org).

Carole Keeton “Grandma” Strayhorn has given herself to our cause for over two years.  As Comptroller, she investigated the new “Regional Mobility Authorities” -- the unelected toll authority in Central Texas urban and suburban communities -- and began exposing their conflicts of interest and lack of accountability, demanding that certain members step down. (See  http://www.window.state.tx.us/news/50309ctrma.html). One of them, Robert Tesch, she exposed for having purchased land near yet-to-be-announced toll roads that had appreciated in value some 600%!  Carole also came out early against the Trans-Texas Corridor, that many politicians are now rushing to oppose.  She has pushed for the still secret contract signed by Rick Perry with CINTRA (the Spanish toll road consortium) to develop a full agreement for the Corridor, to be made public.  She has refused to sign a full development agreement with CINTRA, and has pledged to “blow the TTC off the bureaucratic books!” 

What’s more, Carole’s campaign committee has put their money where their mouths are by contributing $15,000 to Independent Texans early in 2006.  In July, Linda Curtis, our founder, decided to take a contracted position with Mrs. Strayhorn’s campaign to simultaneously build for Carole’s campaign and the independent political movement.  What’re more, Linda Stall, co-founder of CorridorWatch.org, decided to leave CorridorWatch (to her Corridor expert husband, David) until November, and is now working as a staffer for Carole’s campaign.

This whole mess about Texas roads is, in our opinion, really all about development, land and perhaps the real driving force behind it -- international trade agreements. (For more on the international trade issue go to:  http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=2508). This land-grabbing toll road scheme was started by Rick Perry and the conformist legislature in 2001 when they voted to put Proposition 15 -- the Texas Mobility Fund -- on the ballot.  It was promoted by politicians in both parties in rural, suburban and urban areas.  It created a new mechanism for financing of roads, which up to that point, was done as “pay-as-you-go”.  It allowed for the accumulation of debt and financing through tolling on roads already funded by the gas tax -- hence the term (coined by Sal Costello founder of the Austin Toll Party) “double-tax toll roads”.  But the ballot language for Prop 15 said nothing about tolling roads already paid for, and it said nothing about the mammoth 8,000 miles of 1/4 mile wide, $184 billion Trans-Texas Corridor that will take over 1 million acres of private land.  Therefore, we believe that some of our leaders were genuinely misled and some were doing the misleading.  

In 2003 Rick Perry called three special sessions on redistricting that caused the most bitter and divisive rift between the two parties in memory.  It was in the midst of this debacle that the legislature passed, nearly unanimously, the more than 300 page HB 3588, which implemented the Corridor and “double-tax” toll schemes.  This was where the rubber met the road -- sort of.  Some legislators were too busy grabbing for power to read the bill and just did whatever the Governor wanted, some realized later they had been tricked.  Some of these politicians are now working with us to undo the damage.  We will be working to help voters discern who these politicians are before they vote in November.

After the passive of 3588, TxDOT moved quickly to hold 254 perfunctory hearings in all counties, in 28 days.  At that point, most ordinary people new little to nothing about the Corridor.  And, at that point TxDOT, wisely, did not release any information about where the Corridor was going!  Not surprisingly, these “hearings” (Carole Strayhorn calls “tellings”, since TxDOT hasn’t been listening), were very poorly attended. 

In March of 2005, Rick Perry signed a contract to develop an agreement for the Corridor, with a Spanish toll road consortium, CINTRA..  This has, perhaps, become the most bitter pill for Texans to swallow as the state will move soon to take our land.  In July and early August, Texans come out in droves to the federally required hearings taking place throughout Texas on the Corridor plan.  They (we) are, rightfully, spitting out the bitter pill!  Followup meetings are being held through August and September, culminating in a mass event called “Hands Across the Corridor”, on Saturday, September 30th, with citizens lining up at courthouses with a cup of dirt from their property to let the Governor know that’s all the land the state will get for the Corridor, as we intend to reroute Rick in November!

There couldn’t be a better cause to highlight the strategic necessity of political reform in Texas.  If we Texans had the right to statewide initiative and referendum (the right to petition to vote on issues like they’ve had in 24 other states for a century), if we had disarmed the parties of their redistricting weapons in favor of a non-partisan independent redistricting commission (as have several states), and if independents had fair access to the ballot, we would have more political tools with which to fight for government accountability.  We could have already voted down these schemes too!  (See more in our “Endorsement” section on the FEET campaign -- Fair Elections for Every Texan.)

Over 4 million Texans -- for now -- have already declared themselves “independent”.  We shop the ballot, we vote for the person, not the party.  In this election, all Texans, regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof, have a powerful way to make change.  We can split our tickets by voting for the Grandma at the top of the ticket and down ballot for our favorite Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and independents.   Join us -- and Carole -- for a new day in Texas politics!

Anti-Corridor Participants in the Triple R Movement are:

For rural Texan's fighting farmer organization against the Corridor go to: 
http://blacklandcoalition.org

More rural Texan's against the Corridor:
http://www.WallerCountyCitizens.org

For surburban/urban Texans' fighting the Corridor go to: 
http://santollparty,.com
http://concernedtaxpayersofarlington.com
http://texastollparty.com
http://TexansAgainstTolls.com
http://stop121tolls.com/