KAREN FELTHAUSER FOR STATE REPRESENTATIVE CAMPAIGN

Contact:

Karen Felthauser for St. Rep. Campaign                       Phone: 512-218-4943
P.O. Box 153                                                               Email: writeinfelthauser@austin.rr.com
Round Rock, TX 78680                                               Web: www.writeinfelthauser.org 

PRESS RELEASE---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

KAREN FELTHAUSER ANNOUNCES HER CANDIDACY CHALLENGING MIKE KRUSEE FOR THE 52^ND DISTRICT SEAT OF THE TEXAS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

Williamson County Democrat Files as Write in Candidate for District 52, Cites Toll Road Plans and Education Cuts as Motivation For First Run at Public Office.

Karen Felthauser filed on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004, with the Secretary of State’s office to run as a WRITE-IN candidate for State Representative for the 52^nd district. Her declaration of WRITE-IN candidacy was filed with 615 validated signatures from Williamson County’s District 52 residents. Ms. Felthauser, along with twenty seven campaign volunteers, circulated her petition for candidacy over the last month, speaking with residents throughout the district. Her organization also registered a number of new Williamson County voters during the petition drive.

An active member of the education community for many years, Ms. Felthauser is a certified teacher, a member of Education Round Rock, the Texas Federation of Teachers, The Texas State Teachers Association and two PTA’s. She is the mother of 5 and the wife of Jim, a software engineer.

Ms. Felthauser issued the following statement after receiving certification of her candidacy from the Secretary of State’s office on Friday, Sept. 4:

“I choose to run because I don’t believe the current representative adequately addresses the very real needs of Williamson County’s District 52 residents. These needs include a rational approach to funding of new highway systems, an end to excessive cuts to education, and access to affordable healthcare.

While I firmly believe in the necessity of transportation development in our rapidly growing district, I strongly believe the decision to fund this development with privately owned toll road schemes is ill conceived and unnecessary. This is an area best addressed by good government, not by “for profit” companies. Converting roads our citizens have already paid for with their hard earned tax dollars to tolled roads is not acceptable, and is not fair.

During the last legislative session, legislators cut 2.3 billion dollars from education. Williamson County School Districts, as well as those across the state, have been facing unacceptable cuts to their education budgets. We have seen increasing class sizes, fewer electives offered, sports programs being forced outside the school day, coaches being asked to teach more academic classes, and elementary teachers forced to teach two grade levels at the same time. The level of state funding for public education is down to 38% - the lowest level since WWII. This is just unacceptable in these times of foreign competition for U.S. jobs.

Lastly our legislature has cut 200 million dollars from the Children’s Health Insurance program. Since the federal government matches each dollar invested by the state with $2.59, this was, in reality, an effective cut of  $718 million from the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The CHIP’s program, besides removing many previously covered children, cut the funds for the dental and vision portions of its coverage. In the richest country in the world, in one the richest states, this has left many children without dental or vision care.

Many of our current representatives have stood in front of us boasting of having not raised our taxes. But what they have really done is push expenses for necessary services down to the local level with regressive, backdoor taxes. This is forcing high property taxes, outrageous toll road schemes, and skyrocketing college tuition. I believe Texas can do better than this. Money spent on education, health care and an improved transportation system for our citizens is an investment in our future.