Where was the Legislature when the D’s walked out?
Just like Moses in the old joke: in the dark.
In the heady wake of the Democrats’ breathless run for the border, it would be lovely to believe that the rebellion and solidarity of the Ardmore 51 on congressional redistricting is a turning point in Texas politics. It’s far, far too soon to tell. Nevertheless, it was indeed inspiring to hear El Paso Rep. Paul Moreno — the House’s grand old warrior of the back mic, its patron saint of hopelessly lost causes, and official Killer D No. 51 — declare to his fugitive colleagues, “You haven’t made my political day, you’ve made my political life!”
By Friday, of course, it was back to stubborn reality. CSHB 3398 (Tom DeLay’s Chainsaw Redistricting Massacre) having died unmourned at midnight, the House re-established its quorum and (pausing momentarily to declare sopapillas and strudel the Official State Pastries — would nobody speak up for kolaches?) returned to business as usual. Mary Denny, R-Aubrey, proffered her HB 2150, an early-voting bill thoughtfully designed to make early voting on weekends — the most convenient time for most working people — as difficult as possible. Timoteo Garza, D-Eagle Pass, attempted to amend the bill to help us working folks; the amendment was unceremoniously tabled, and HB 2150 passed 85-58. Welcome back to the Texas House, Democrats.
A little later in the day, the Double-Barreled Darling of Lampasas, Suzanna Gratia Hupp, faced off on the front mic against Speaker Pro Tem Sylvester Turner on the back mic. The subject was SB 501 (Armbrister), enabling concealed-handgun permit holders to carry their pistoleros pretty much wherever they goddamn please — including public buildings like city halls, public hospitals, and police stations — despite any municipal policies and postings to the contrary. Turner on home rule vs. Hupp on the Constitution is not a fair fight. Turner vs. Hupp on virtually any subject known to humankind is not a fair fight. But it mattered not a whit, because no Texas politician ever lost an election by voting in favor of armaments, while the reverse is simply not true.
Hupp prevailed, 122-21. Welcome home.
Deep Thoughts
All right, all right, Terminator Hupp is not going to blow up your local police station anytime soon (although if I were a City Council member, after Sept. 1, I’d be a trifle more alert during zoning hearings). Where are we on what the deep thinkers of respectable newspapers call the Major Issues?
Medical malpractice: This once graceful child, now grafted, burdened, and twisted with the grotesque hunch of “tort reform,” has returned from the Senate as HB 4 and HJR 3, given a good scrubbing and new coat of paint by Sen. Bill Ratliff, but remains pretty much the same malformed beast so eagerly cloned on Day One by the corporate lobby. The bill will almost certainly do nothing to bring down insurance rates for doctors or thereby increase health care availability. But on its face — by establishing hard caps for noneconomic damages in tort cases, no matter how egregious the circumstances, and slashing liability for products that meet “government standards” — it will make it much easier for corporate accountants and insurance actuaries to do risk-benefit analyses in order to calculate whether improving their products’ safety is “worth” doing. Most won’t be.
And to add insult to tort, the election date for the constitutional amendment proposed in HJR 3 will be held Sept. 13 instead of Nov. 4 — a nicely unfunded mandate for the counties and another cynical but handy way to hold down turnout. The lobby thinks of everything.
Homeowners insurance: This official state emergency is still spinning its wheels, and Insurance Commissioner José Montemayor is shortly due to issue the results of his survey into industry-rating practices. The persuasive buzz, alas, is that whatever comes out of the hopper is unlikely to do much either to lower rates or to regulate coverage (see HB 4 above).
School finance: Total gridlock. The governor punted, the House waved a magic wand, the Senate posed with the lieutenant governor for a photo-op. Results: zilch. All we know is that there will be a special session: When and under what circumstances is for the moment, anybody’s guess.
The Cupboard Is Bare
Next week, Old Mother Carole Keeton Strayhorn Hubbard is likely to announce that sales taxes have gone the way of franchise taxes: down the rabbit hole. This week she finally blinked, endorsing a cigarette tax, although the governor, the speaker, and even Lite Guv David “I’m the Good Guy” Dewhurst remain defiant. It says here that when the comptroller issues her revised revenue projections, and the arrows continue to plunge downward, the governor will buckle and anoint yet another special session to attempt to balance the unbalanceable.
It will be no cause for celebration. It has been no secret that the national and state recession has been locked in since last fall and that the state’s budget crisis was readily apparent then and bleedingly obvious by January. The growing financial crisis was not simply unaddressed by the new Republican leadership. It was welcomed, as an excellent excuse to roll back more than a decade of progress in shared public education, in community health care and social services, even in more-humanitarian criminal justice. Most of these reforms have never been truly embraced by the Texas state government. They were mainly imposed, in one way or another, by long-overdue federal mandates or bitterly contested court decisions, and now the reinvigorated opponents of those mandates and decisions have nearly completed a generation’s march of reaction against them, here and in Washington.
Whatever comes out of the already miserly state budget proposals — if you don’t believe me, ask Bill Ratliff — should the long knives come out again, the result will be even more mean-spirited and shortsighted. The new Texas leadership, and the moneyed interests that sponsor most of them, are gambling that the citizens won’t notice the inevitable effects of this intentional abandonment of community, until it’s far too late to stop the rollback.
I wish I could believe they’re wrong. 
This article appears in May 23 • 2003.
