Carole Keeton Strayhorn: Fire and Brimstone!

State Comptroller and aspiring GOP candidate for the Governorship Carole Keeton Strayhorn went on a rampage earlier this week, furious that the Texas Residential Construction Commission is useless when it comes to forcing homebuilders to repair defects in new-construction homes.

The commission, according to their website, serves to "provide Texas homeowners and the residential construction industry an opportunity to resolve differences through a neutral dispute resolution process and ongoing education," though lately they seem to be spending more of their time protecting the home builders who actually lobbied for its creation back in 2003.

Fuming, Strayhorn snarled, “If it were up to me, personally, I would blast this Texas Residential Construction Commission builder-protection agency off the bureaucratic books!" (Exclamation mark and snarling added for dramatic flourish). We can sympthatize as well, seeing as how the comptroller office's recent study found the TRCC basically doing little or nothing to address homebuyer complaints:

Of 102 homeowners surveyed by the comptroller, 86 percent said their builder failed to fix construction defects after going through the state process. And 45 percent said they were unsatisfied with the dispute resolution process.

And then, on the other side, Texas Builders Association director of regulatory and legislative affairs Jay Dyer accused Strayhorn of being "bombastic."

Bombastic? As far as we're concerned, that's a pretty nice compliment.