Texans interested in who their next governor and lieutenant governor will be witnessed major party candidates for those offices engage in live, one-hour broadcast debates last week.
Fellow state Sens. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, and Dan Patrick, R-Houston, opponents in the race for lieutenant governor, faced off in Austin on Sept. 29. Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, and Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott competed on stage in Dallas on Sept. 30, each striving to succeed longtime Gov. Rick Perry as the state’s chief executive.
All four candidates held to traditional party lines on such bellwether topics as health care, transportation, education and border security.
Republicans Patrick and Abbott identified themselves as anti-abortion and pro-border security while Democrats Van de Putte and Davis spoke in support of legislative solutions to expand women’s access to health services, foster a less fear-based treatment of border issues and bolster a public education system weakened by $5.4 billion funding cut last session. On the topic of taxation, Patrick floated his idea that the adoption of a one- or two-penny state sales tax increase would reduce local property taxes by a corresponding amount.
Election Day is Nov. 4, with early voting set for the week of Oct. 24-31.
Ebola case is confirmed
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state’s public health laboratory in Austin on Sept. 30 confirmed Dallas hospital patient Thomas Eric Duncan tested positive for the disease, Ebola.
Duncan, who traveled from West Africa to Dallas on a commercial airline flight, was admitted into isolation on Sept. 29 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
Early symptoms of Ebola include sudden fever, fatigue and headache. Symptoms may appear anywhere from two to 21 days after exposure. Spread through direct contact with blood, secretions or other bodily fluids or exposure to contaminated objects such as needles, Ebola is said not to be contagious until symptoms appear.
Officials urged health care providers to ask patients who have fever about recent travel to Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria. According to the Associated Press, the disease Ebola is capitalized because it is named after the Ebola River in the African nation of Zaire.
Ed Sterling works for the Texas Press Association and follows the Legislature for the organization.
