Roberto Alonzo

First off, I would like to extend our deepest sympathies to Rep. Alonzo and his family.

Stace at Dos Centavos wrote last night:

Tragedy has struck the family of Texas State Representative Roberto R. Alonzo of Dallas. While details about the accident and final funeral arrangements are still rather sketchy, what is known at this time is that Rep. Alonzo's older brother, 58-year-old, Mr. Ramon Alonzo and his 4-year-old grandson Elisha T. Alonzo (Rep. Alonzo's nephew) were on a family fishing trip Saturday afternoon, Dec. 20, in Crystal City, in South Texas. The grandson accidently fell in the water, the grandfather jumped in to try to save him, and both tragically drowned.

In the aftermath of staggering deficits among straight-ticket voters in Texas’ largest metropolitan areas, several state Republicans have endorsed ending the practice, claiming it unfairly influences the outcome of elections.

To that end, state Rep. Joe Straus (R-San Antonio) filed a bill for the 2009 legislative session that would end straight-ticket voting.

“There are people on both tickets who you know don’t belong in public office,” Straus told The Dallas Morning News. “That should offend open-minded people from both parties. I can’t imagine an argument against this.”

Republicans were overwhelmed in November by straight-ticket voters in Texas’ big cities. In Harris County (Houston), where Democrats completed a near-sweep of judicial races (22 of 26 Republican incumbents lost), Democrats had an advantage of nearly 50,000 among straight-ticket voters, or 53 percent overall.

In Dallas County, where Democrats did complete a judicial sweep in 2006, Democrats enjoyed an advantage of more than 100,000, or 60 percent overall, among such voters – an even larger amount than in the 2006 sweep. In Travis County (Austin) and Bexar County (San Antonio), 64 and 56 percent of straight-ticket voters supported Democrats, respectively.