2008 Texas Senate Race

I really can't take sides.  But I have to admit, anyone who helps a DREAMer like Noriega has, is worth voting for.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6050281.html

Cornyn, Noriega focus on economy in Houston debate
By JANET ELLIOTT and JENNIFER LATSON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Oct. 9, 2008, 11:34PM

...The Houston debate, aired live on most public television and radio stations in Texas, provided an opportunity for Noriega to take his underfunded, uphill battle against Cornyn directly to viewers.

Noriega could benefit if voters tie the stock market crisis to GOP policies. Even though many voters do not know him, the "D" after his name could work to his advantage.

An executive with Houston's CenterPoint Energy, Noriega has represented a Houston district in the Texas House since 1999. Before going to Washington in 2002, Cornyn, a lawyer, served as Texas attorney general and a justice on the Texas Supreme Court. Schick is an investor who lives in Spicewood.

The candidates also clashed on health policy. Noriega said that since Cornyn has been in office, health premium costs have gone up 80 percent.

"We're number one in the United States in children that are uninsured. That's unacceptable," said Noriega.

Cornyn said Noriega and other Texas lawmakers have failed to reach 800,000 children who are eligible for government programs but have not signed up.

"Let's cover those low-income children who were intended to be covered in the first place," Cornyn said.

On health care, energy
The debate's format, which featured rapid-fire questions on a host of issues, offered little opportunity for the candidates to engage. But afterward, Noriega challenged Cornyn on the reference to children's health insurance, saying that when Republicans took over the Texas House in 2003, changes in a popular program for working families knocked more than 200,000 children out of the program.

Cornyn maintained that even during a national debate over continuing the Children's Health Insurance Program, "I found that we were having a very difficult time signing up people who were already eligible."

Schick said the government needs to get out of the health care business and reduce spending overall. She has supported replacing the federal income tax with a national retail sales tax.

The candidates took a few questions from reporters after the debate.

"Right now, Senator Cornyn has had kind of a deathbed conversion on energy choices, although he's voted I don't know how many times against renewable energy," said Noriega.

Cornyn unveiled a new ad Thursday that shows him with West Texas wind turbines.

"I believe we ought to explore for and produce American energy wherever we find it," Cornyn said. He supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Noriega opposes.

On immigration, Iraq
On immigration, Cornyn has introduced legislation that would require persons living here illegally to return to their native country before applying for citizenship. Noriega said a "report to deport" program would be unworkable.

"I don't support people being able to stay in place and break ahead of people in line who have waited patiently outside the country for years," Cornyn said.

Noriega aired his first campaign ad Thursday, directly attacking Cornyn as a Washington politician who bailed out special interests but failed Texas families. "I'll be a senator who has your back," Noriega says.

Noriega has served in Afghanistan and along the Texas-Mexico border as an officer in the Texas Army National Guard. He has called for timetables on withdrawing troops from Iraq, and said tax dollars being spent in Iraq would be better used at home. Cornyn has opposed timetables for withdrawal, saying progress is being made.

The two will meet in a final debate next Thursday in Dallas.

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