Bill White Deserves Your Vote for Governor of Texas

DALLAS -- Bill White, 56, is a moderate Democrat running for the position of Texas Governor. In what is traditionally known as a "red state", White has shown to be neck and neck with current Texas Governor Rick Perry for the upcoming Nov. 2nd election.

After much consideration and review of each of the candidates for Governor of Texas, I have decided to cast my vote for Bill White. White was the Mayor of Houston from January 2004 to January 2010. He was awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2007 for his exceptional efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Dallas accepted 20,000 Katrina refugees seeking assistance, Houston accepted close to 150,000. Mayor White set up both short term and long term housing and assistance in Houston for the thousands of New Orleans residents fleeing Louisiana.

Bill White stands on a platform to improve education and transportation in Texas. White understands that our failing school system, dropout rates and illiteracy rates, are hurting our kid's chances of finding jobs and success. This personally affects me because I work for a school district, one that is better than most in Texas. I see in my school district the kind of efforts we need to put in around the state in order to properly educate our students. Rick Perry touts the Texas schools as "strong", but it is simply not factual.

Bill White wants to use the best performing schools in Texas to help replicate their success in all the schools. He wants to expand Pre-K programs and add more summer programs to help students retain what they already learned. White wants Texas teachers to be the best in the nation, and will push to compensate them for quality work. The Texas State Teacher's Association has endorsed Bill White for Governor of Texas.

In regards to transportation issues in the state of Texas, specifically in the Dallas area where we have many toll roads, and more planned; White is not a proponent of toll roads and does not view them as a solution to transportation issues in Texas. Toll roads personally affect me and my pocketbook on a weekly basis. To get anywhere in the north section of Dallas, I must either sit in slow moving traffic or pay ever increasing toll fees to get to where I want to go. Spending money on tolls for roads that my tax paying dollars already paid to build makes no sense. Governor Perry is all for the toll roads and we can look forward to more of them if he is re-elected.

Rick Perry has a perfect us against them mentality that is shameful to behold. He rallied Texans to support a hateful anti-gay marriage bill. His own website boasts, "The Texas Defense of Marriage Act signed by Gov. Perry in 2003 mirrors the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and stipulates that the state does not recognize a marriage or civil union between persons of the same sex, regardless of the jurisdiction in which it is created. Texas further prevented challenges to the state statute by adopting a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and woman."

The last time I checked gay Texans pay just as much tax as their heterosexual counterparts and should not have a Governor who views them and treats them as second class citizens. When asked by the Dallas Voice newspaper as to whether he intends to continue supporting the LGBT community, Bill White responded, "I will try to represent all Texans and I expect to be attacked for this."

The Dallas Morning News has endorsed Rick Perry in every state election he has run for, until now. They have officially endorsed Bill White to be the new Governor of Texas, saying in part, "White is right when he says that leadership has little to do with delivering a speech and much more to do with having a sense of mission. White is a man with a mission, a leader who will bring a purposeful determination to the governor's office." I agree with them and I intend to support Bill White, the candidate who will best serve Texas as our new Governor.

Source: Author's opinion, Dallas Morning News,Office of the Governor-Rick Perry,Bill White for Texas.com