| @DanPatrick conducts reconnaissance at Colony Ridge to get grasp on last-minute special session issue for governor. Aerial surveillance shows infrastructure development for community that mushroomed as Operation Lone Star reflection. |
Dan Patrick Search for Problems to Fix
Comes Up Empty in Conspiracy Probe
Capitol Inside
October 2, 2023
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has seized the lead on a novel state probe into a conspiracy that Texas lawmakers are set to tackle with Governor Greg Abbott's last-minute plans to add the fastest growing community in the history of the Lone Star State to the agenda for a special session this month.
With no advance warning, adequate time to prepare or clues from the governor on what he wants the Legislature to do on an issue that's foreign to them, Patrick decided the state had no more time to waste if the growing hysteria among conservatives about Colony Ridge wasn't delusional. So the Texas Senate president launched a solo search last week for problems for the Legislature to solve when it takes aim at the housing development near Liberty after it convenes a week from now.
Patrick began his investigation with some quick reconnaissance from the air and on the ground - complete with interviews of local officials and the booming subdivision's developers. But the results of Patrick's independent mission may not be exactly what his supporters had envisioned amid fears of Colony Ridge as a staging ground for a migrant takeover in the USA.
Patrick's findings - whether through unintended coincidence or calculation - does more to invalidate the fears on the right than it does to confirm them. The lieutenant governor's report and photographs from the aerial surveillance give the impression that Colony Ridge is a phenomenon that GOP leaders and lawmakers completely missed while focussed on the failed migrant fighting initiative Operation Lone Star at the Rio Grande.
Colony Ridge - based on Patrick's own words and pictures - is a stunning reflection of the Texas border security's only meaningful statistic. Abbott and the Republicans who control the Legislature have poured historic sums of taxpayer money into a border security effort that hasn't forced a single migrant to return to Mexico since its inception two years ago. The only stat that really matters has been stuck at zero from the start.
Colony Ridge is a direct reflection of the Republicans' failure to prepare for the inevitable while trying to create the appearance of border security instead. That's what the governor and his GOP allies at the Capitol would see between the lines of the lieutenant governor's report if they cared at all about the truth and took the time to look.
Patrick fueled the frenzy two weeks ago when he portrayed Colony Ridge in a radio interview as a sign of a cartel overthrow of the country in the making. But the report on his investigation was surprisingly objective for a leader who'd never pretended to be fair and impartial before a stint in September as the Senate judge in the House's failed bid to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Patrick's findings were no less than astonishing. Patrick quoted the lead developer - a major Abbott donor named William "Trey" Harris - as saying that that Colony Ridge has about 40,000 residents now after getting off the ground 10 years ago. Harris informed the lieutenant governor that the community could have more than 100,000 inhabitants in the next 10 years or less. The population could mushroom past the 200,000 mark eventually. Colony Ridge would rank among the 20 largest Texas cities at that point even though it's never been incorporated.
Patrick learned in an interview with the local school superintendent that the district has more than tripled in enrollment in the past 10 years with 80 percent of the growth attributed to Colony Ridge. The Cleveland ISD has three new elementary schools and almost six dozens portable buildings for classes that have recently opened as well.
With the DPS as his guide, Patrick's photo essay captures the mind-boggling magnitude of the development's growth with the elimination of forests for the expansion of highways to accommodate the subdivision's historically growth. Republicans with inquiring minds could find a more flattering portrayal of Colony Ridge in Center Square - a publication that's been one of Abbott's favorite sources on the far right for news and information in recent years.
Center Square depicted the all-time Texas boomtown during the weekend as a self-sustaining community that would be a model for the future if its residents had all been white. Patrick said he doesn't think that Colony Ridge has a sufficient amount of law enforcement personnel to keep with world record growth that would have been unfathomable in Texas or any other state at any time in the past.
But Patrick found no actual examples of crime or other major problems for the GOP-controlled Legislature to eradicate when it convenes next Monday without any apparent objective or gameplan for whatever Abbott hopes to accomplish with the addition of a conspiracy theory to a call for the first time ever here.
"Some reports claim Colony Ridge may have become a magnet for people from around the world who are not U.S. citizens," Patrick wrote. "With the Biden administration allowing millions of people to cross the Texas border, many ask if this community is going to become its own enclave with a population bigger than a mid-size city inside the state of Texas."
But Patrick elaborated. "This should not come as a shock to anyone," he added in the preliminary assessment on Colony Ridge.
The arch-conservative publication Center Square interviewed residents who say the fear mongering about migrants is rooted in racist lies and ignorance. Center Square spoke with people who moved from Houston to Colony Ridge for a safer place to raise their families.
The question that Patrick posed in the Biden blame game sidebar is timely, legitimate and fair. But Patrick failed to recognize that Colony Ridge is a consequence of the Republicans' naivety on immigration and the epic waste of public funds they've spent in an attempt to fight back a migrant tsunami with an Operation Lone Star production that's been purely for show.
Patrick told GOP Speaker Dade Phelan to gut it up and be a man when he and other House leaders refused to admit they'd failed with an impeachment that they billed as an act of historic courage when it was doomed from the outset in the upper chamber. But Patrick and the other Republicans who've helped Abbott bankroll Operation Lone Star will get a chance to show they have what it takes to admit they were wrong on the epic white elephant that it's turned out to be when the confront the most vivid consequence of their failure to prepare for a migrant surge that they've fought with props instead.
Patrick is the only Texas lawmaker who's had the courage to face the truth about themselves. Patrick confessed this spring that he'd made a mistake when he advocated appraisal caps as a property tax reduction tool as a state senator before his election to his current post in 2014. But Patrick is clearly running the show on Colony Ridge - and he's given Abbott even more reason to panic with an investigative report that found nothing illegal or broken for lawmakers to fix in special session.
more to come ... |
