Point Austin: First Bread, Then Circus

Now the fun begins.

That's one way to look at the instantaneous return of the Lege, in a "special session" called by Gov. Rick Perry nominally for the purpose of redistricting, and more specifically to formally adopt the "interim maps" drafted by a San Antonio federal court to replace GOP-authored maps that the courts had concluded discriminated against minority voters. It's not entirely clear why the rush – since the courts are still reviewing the Texas maps and might start the whole process over again – but Attorney General Greg Abbott thinks approving court-drawn maps will strengthen his hand in the ongoing litigation. In response to earlier Democratic objections, Abbott wrote, "I am left to wonder, however, if it is the position of the Texas House Democratic Caucus that the three federal judges who crafted the interim plan included racially discriminatory features."

The problem with Abbott's supercilious response is that the judges, in issuing the interim maps, made it clear that they were doing only enough to enable interim elections. "This interim plan," they wrote, "is not a final ruling on the merits of any claims asserted by the plaintiffs in this case." Nevertheless, Perry, Abbott, and the GOP figure they've done alright under the interim maps – packing-and-cracking minority districts sufficiently to maintain Republican dominance for another decade – so they'll hope to dance through the courts with what brung 'em.

Of course, badly outnumbered Democrats will be bringing the thunder as best as they can, and a few disgruntled Repub­licans may press for changes of their own. Austin's Kirk Watson (Senate Dem Caucus chair) engaged in a testy exchange with Lite Guv David Dewhurst over the lack of a "two-thirds rule" in the special – mostly to create a legal record – and Dewhurst brushed it away. With rushed public hearings scheduled in both chambers already this week, we'll soon find out whether Pandora's Redistricting Box can be opened and closed without the demons escaping.

The Bare Minimum

Of course, there are plenty of folks who would prefer to blow open the box altogether. Legislators on both sides have been busy congratulating themselves for a "bipartisan" session, most notably in the agreements to create a water infrastructure fund (if November voters approve) and to return some funding to the public schools. Neither measure would have been possible without 1) a marginal increase in the number of House Democrats, whose votes became necessary to touch the Rainy Day Fund; and 2) the explosion of natural gas production, a fracking throwback to the days when the state lived entirely off hydrocarbons.

Before we all sing "Happy Days Are Here Again," it's worth emphasizing that our state leadership did the bare minimum to keep the public schools from entirely imploding, under the shadow of yet another pending court decision unlikely to be kind to the state's inadequate and unconstitutional funding system. As the Center for Public Policy Priorities' Eva DeLuna Castro told the Dallas Morning News, the persistent underfunding of education and health care for a growing state is "like a middle-aged person trying to fit into the clothes they wore in high school."

So the schools will just have to muddle on, and the governor has already made it abundantly and repetitively clear that there will be no expansion of Medicaid, despite millions of Texans without health insurance (not incidentally ceding billions in federal funds to other states). He's been coy about adding anything else to the session call, leaving to others the demand for partisan fireworks. GOP back-benchers disappointed at a relatively calm 83rd are demanding action on their "anti-abortion" obsessions: protection of "pain-capable unborn children"; restrictions on abortion clinics and doctors; and petulant insistence that any national health care insurance exchange (that they don't want to participate in) not cover abortion.

In other words, having been denied their morality melodrama in the regular session, they've asked Perry to revive the play.

Let the Games Begin!

Trying to shore up his badly Cruz-bruised right flank for his re-election campaign, Dewhurst has echoed the outcry for more "pro-life" legislation – comically adding to the Perry's honey-do list such pro-life notions as more guns on college campuses and a ban on enforcement of federal gun regulations.

What else does Dewhurst want? More "school choice" (i.e., multiplying charters and – dream on – vouchers); more drug-testing for welfare recipients (an expensive, pointless, but symbolically punitive exercise); a constitutional cap on state spending (to make certain that the state's grown-up clothes never fit).

There's more where that came from, of course, but we'll have to wait until the opening redistricting act concludes before we learn if Perry is on board with the rest of the circus. He might well decide that the right-wing agenda serves more political usefulness as a wish list than an action memo; it should leave plenty of room for more fundraising letters from Texas Right to Life on behalf of those "80,000 tiny Texans" who won't ever get to vote Republican. Those observers who are disappointed at the relatively sedate regular session can only hope that the governor will let the dogs out and re-confirm Texas' reputation as the "National Laboratory for Bad Government."