D Magazine recently featured state Senator John Carona in an article that took a deeper-than-usual look at the man that represents the west-half of District 1. (Senator Bob Duell represents the east half.) Sen Carona has been a good friend to Garland and North Texas. He is a man of strong principle. Read the full article.
 
D Magazine calls John an "old school Republican." We could use a lot more old school Republicans ... and Democrats.
 

 

John Carona still has the bulk and rolling shoulders that he once used to plow through a defensive line for Bryan Adams High School. For a hefty man, he moves quickly, always on the go. But there are times when Carona stands still, and at those times he is like a wall.
 
Within days of the opening of last year’s session of the Texas Senate, where Carona has served for 14 years, Tommy Williams of the Woodlands proposed a suspension of the Senate’s two-thirds rule to take up a highly controversial voter ID bill that the GOP wanted to push. The two-thirds rule protects the minority by requiring broad agreement in setting the Senate’s agenda for the session. The Legislative Reference Library of Texas calls it “an honored tradition” that “fosters civility, a willingness to compromise, and a spirit of bipartisanship” in the Senate. These days, “compromise” and “bipartisanship” are not words that flow naturally from Republican lips. With Democrats hotly opposed to the bill, Williams wanted to make it clear from the start that the Republican majority would get its way without them.
 
The 19 members of the Senate GOP caucus unanimously agreed to suspend the two-thirds rule—almost.
 
The lone holdout was John Carona. For one thing, he argued, newly elected House Speaker Joe Straus wouldn’t consider voter ID because Democratic members had helped elect him. So suspension of the rule in the Senate was nothing more than an empty gesture. Why outrage the other side of the aisle at the beginning of a session for no good reason?
 
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John Carona is the last of the old-school Republicans. He believes in making government work. He believes that every dollar out should be matched by a dollar in. The old Republican maxim, repeated over and over for decades, was that government should be run like a household: spending should match income. The metaphor seems quaint in a world of credit-card debt and subprime mortgages, when households, like their government, came to believe money is free and that home values would always magically rise and that whatever cannot be paid for in cash can be paid for with debt. This something-for-nothing economic fantasy has crashed to the ground. But the political fantasy that undergirded it will take longer to fade.
 
Read the rest at D Magazine online!
 

 
UPDATE: The article above mentions Sen Carona is exploring a run for Dallas mayor, hence the title to this post. On Saturday (Mar 20), I had an opportunity to visit with Sen Carona. I didn't spend much time on the subject, but I asked him about the rumors he might choose to leave the Senate for some other office. He told me that he didn't have any plans to seek another office and that he was focused on the Senate.