The Dewhurst I Knew

Newspaper endorsements are a tricky thing. After all, editorial boards are entitled to their opinions, and we've willingly taken enough flack for ours. However, the Austin-American Statesman's recent editorial backing Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst described an incumbent that, well, didn't quite match our memory of the president of the Texas Senate.

In their Oct. 3 editorial, the Statesman board said:

Dewhurst is effective in his own way and understands and respects the Senate and the senators.

Wait, what? No, it gets better:

Although he occasionally flits to the hyper-partisan right – his decision to break Senate rules to accommodate an unnecessary and divisive voter identification bill that threatened to derail business in both chambers was ill-advised – he avoids cheap political theatrics.

Now this isn't quite how we recall it around here.

First up, last session Dewhurst was AWOL from the Senate floor enough of the time for it to draw comment, and it was left to Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, to really run the day-to-day operations. At the time, the Houston Chronicle noted that Dewhurst "may be the Senate's presiding officer, but [Eltife] appears to be the guy driving the legislative train."

Behind the scenes, the real power was widely seen as being in the hands not of Dewhurst, but of Senate Finance Committee Chair Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, and House members on both sides of the aisle confided during the session that his committee was somewhere that good bills went to die. More importantly, Ogden played a critical role in creating the need for a special session that Dewhurst doubted should happen.

As for the idea that voter ID "threatened to derail business," it didn't just threaten. It did it.

And what about that "respects the Senate and the Senators" line? Isn't this the same Dewhurst who abruptly rejigged the Senate committees three months ago to favor hard-line Conservatives? The same Dewhurst that excluded redistricting expert Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, from the new redistricting committee? The same Dewhurst that put Senate noses out of joint by not inviting them to his wedding?

As for how "he avoids cheap political theatrics," would that be the same lite guv that has put his name to the succession of law suits spewing from the attorney general's office against the federal government? And would it not also be the same lite guv that thought it was cool to scare students out of producing a play he had never seen?

This from the same Statesman that joked in 2007 that the lite guv works on "Dewhurst time" and has previously raised more serious questions about a lack of disclosure in his financial disclosures.