1) “I’m pleased to say that there were more smiles in the House chamber for this opening day swearing-in than I’ve seen in recent years.”
– Austin Rep. Elliott Naishtat on new House speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio (Jan. 16 issue)
2) “[T]he safest place for a woman to live is married to a man.”
– Texas Freedom Network‘s “Just Say Don’t Know” report quoting one of various abstinence-only sex-ed programs taught in Texas public schools (Feb. 27)
3) “They can’t take our dollars for granted the whole year, then treat our people with such disrespect that one weekend. … We’re going to encourage folks to make our dollars talk.”
– Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder on Highland Mall’s closure during Texas Relays weekend (April 10)
4) “To paraphrase W.C. Fields, all in all, I’d rather be in St. Louis.”
– Brewster McCracken, in his concession to Lee Leffingwell after taking a beating in the polls (and a verbal beating from St. Louis residents offended by his campaign ad slighting the Midwestern city) (May 15)
5) “We did not go into a box of Cracker Jacks and pick the first thing that came out.”
– AISD board member Cheryl Bradley (r), accusing the Texas Education Agency of “micromanaging” the hiring of a new Pearce Middle School principal (Aug. 14)
6) “As one of his shareholders and regular customers, I think John should stick to Whole Foods, because he certainly offers no formula for Whole Health Care Access.”
– U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, on Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s Wall Street Journal op-ed decrying “socialist” health care reform and instead proposing “free market”-based reforms (Aug. 21)
7) “I regret we ever established a schedule.“
– (Now former) Capital Metro CEO Fred Gilliam, in reference to the scheduled, then delayed, start date of MetroRail (Oct. 2)
8) “Make no mistake, this is a difficult decision and one I would rather not have to make.”
– Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, on moving to dismiss murder indictments against the two last defendants in the 1991 yogurt shop murders (Oct. 30)
9) “Guezz I am so smart I scare myself.”
– From an internal Austin Police Department e-mail sent by Detective Chris Dunn, trying to gather evidence to justify a police officer’s fatal shooting of Nathaniel Sanders II. Dunn has since been fired. (Nov. 13)
This article appears in 2009.