Business, As Usual

Texans feeling curious -- or apprehensive -- about what the 78th legislative session will bring might consider the narrative arc of the Farmers Insurance Group melodrama.

In Act One, a great shadow fell across the land, in the form of skyrocketing homeowners insurance rates imposed by the handful of major firms that dominate the Texas "free" market. In Act Two, a couple of would-be local heroes who happened to be running for governor -- Rick Perry and Tony Sanchez -- beat their breasts mightily and vowed to defeat the shadow and heal the land. Needing a high-profile villain, incumbent Rick Perry nominated Farmers, and Farmers responded in character -- snarling, twirling its mustache, and threatening to gather up its ill-gotten swag and flee the state.

In Act Three, Perry won the election (along with many other GOP candidates lavishly supported by Farmers and its fellow insuracorps), and the state and Farmers quickly settled their differences. The state won a grandiose headline ("$100 Million Settlement!"), minimal refunds, and a minor rate rollback, and Farmers won no penalties, no admission of wrongdoing, and the right to continue doing business pretty much as it had done before.

In short, the Farmers theatricals turned out to be a great deal of sound and fury signifying -- not much.

There's a good chance the legislative session will follow roughly the same script. On all the state's high-priority issues -- the budget, homeowners insurance, health care, school finance -- business, as usual, sets the terms and limits of the debate. Moreover, with a groaning budget deficit, even if legislators should actually desire to address these issues like serious people -- a dubious proposition -- the state will have officially insufficient resources to do so. Since many new lawmakers (of both parties) won by convincing voters that we can eat our seed corn and have it too, expecting dramatic action this session to set Texas's troubled house in order is, well -- let's just call it the triumph of hope over experience.

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Harbingers of the Season

On the Lege scene, most of the serious December action is confined to "late-train" fundraisers recalling the opening scenes of The Godfather -- much public celebration while the lobbyists, checks in hand, line up in the back rooms. But there have been a handful of auguries of things to come once the session begins for real Jan. 14. Accompanying the Farmers settlement was the corroborating appointment of business lobbyists (several straight out of the insurance industry) as advisers and gatekeepers to the Big Three: Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov.-elect David Dewhurst (who will preside over the Senate), and House Speaker-in-Waiting Tom Craddick, R-Midland.

Then last week, Craddick proposed to "save" $844,000 by abolishing the House Office of Bill Analysis -- returning to the pre-1999 practice of leaving legal analyses of most bills to the legislators or committees of origin. In practice, that often produced misleading or inaccurate summaries by the industry lobbyists who actually drafted the legislation. The OBA was created after Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth, R-Burleson, killed 52 bills at one point-of-order stroke on the House floor in 1997 -- the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has quoted Craddick remarking at the time, "I think the structure down here probably needs to be changed." It was. Now he's changing it back.

It's a reasonably good bet that the cost/benefit trade-off for legislative time and effort wasted on 52 (and more) defective bills easily tops $844,000. That makes Craddick's gesture, like his appointments, both symbolic and real: It's hunting season, and anything that might get between the lobby and its legislators is fair game.

With the mid-March filing deadline three months away, it's a little early to confirm trends in pre-filed legislation. Less than 10% of the 5,000 or so potential bills are on file, and several of the big-ticket items -- e.g. school finance or the budget itself -- won't make official entrances for some time. But in the interests of early disclosure, and to give you a few more things to worry about over the holidays, the Chronicle has compiled a thumbnail preview of expected highlights and lowlights of the upcoming session.