Texas Election Coverage: Vote Cactus
So it turns out that elections matter. Here we have the results of the recent Republican monopoly in Texas. <a href="https://cactusjungle.com/archives/blog/exit.php?url_id=1898&entry_id=1733" title="http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/02/24/0224texascactus.html" onmouseover="window.status=’http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/02/24/0224texascactus.html’;return true;" onmouseout="window.status=”;return true;">The Austin Statesman</a> has a story to tell:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Texas regulations against cactus poaching and enforcement are lax compared with oversight in Arizona, which requires legally harvested wild cacti to be tagged, according to state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso….<br />
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"I’ve been on properties where you see mostly holes where plants were dug up," said Terry Martin, a professor of botany at Sul Ross State University…. Shapleigh has authored legislation that would require individuals who harvest or sell plants to provide proof that the plants come from their own land or that they have written permission from the property owner where the harvesting took place.<br />
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In 2003, Gov. Rick Perry vetoed the legislation…<br />
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In 2007, a similar piece of Shapleigh cactus legislation died in a House committee.<br />
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State Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, said he didn’t give Shapleigh’s bill a hearing in his Agriculture and Livestock Committee because "it seemed like everything he was worried about we already had rules to address."</span><br /></div><br />Thank you for your consideration.<br /><br />
