According to Ray Allen, a Grand Prairie Republican rep and a licensed firearms instructor, under the concealed weapons bill Gov. Bush signed into law in 1999 it is legal to pack on the floor of the House and Senate. That should be a cause for concern in a biennial session held while the economy is going into the tank, revenues are diminished by the $2 billion tax cuts pushed through the 75th and 76th Legislatures by then-governor and presidential campaigner George W. Bush, and senators and state reps are redrawing the boundaries of districts in which members of the Texas Senate and House and U.S. Congress will run two years from now. If there were ever a year when legislators ought to be asking their colleagues, “Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” this is that year.
The nine-member, three-county Greater Austin Delegation includes such extremes in ideology that it might be prudent to exclude all nine from the generous provisions of the state’s right-to-carry law. Tension is not likely to be so high in the clubby Senate, where the ideological distance between Democrat Gonzalo Barrientos and Republican Jeff Wentworth is not that great. But the urban-suburban split in the House delegation is wide, with Rick Green, R-Dripping Springs, Terry Keel, R-Austin, and Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, defining the right (in Green’s case, the extreme ideological right) of the Republican Party, while Glen Maxey, Elliott Naishtat, and Dawnna Dukes — all Austin Democrats — define the left of a conservative Texas Democratic Party. Further exacerbating the division is the fact that Maxey and Naishtat’s offices are bill mills, turning out an astounding volume of legislation, most of which Green, Keel, and Krusee would rather see defeated. Republicans will be working the redistricting process to move a majority of suburban Republican voters into one or two of those Democratic districts — or into the district of progressive freshman Democrat Ann Kitchen. (Dukes’ East Austin district is probably the safest of the group.)
So as our president-elect might say, “Read behind the lines.” Republicans hold a 16-15 advantage in the Senate, and Republican Lieutenant Gov. Bill Ratliff is its presiding officer. Democrats hold a 78-72 advantage in the House, where Speaker Pete Laney’s legislative and electoral agenda for the past two sessions has been directed by his desire to hold onto a majority so the Republicans would not have complete control of redistricting. This legislative session is about many things — but in the end, redistricting is the big issue on each legislator’s agenda. During the first week of the session, I spoke with the members of the Austin delegation about what they hoped to achieve this session, and specific bills they had filed.
(Note: Filed bills listed in these pages are as of Jan. 8.)
This article appears in January 19 • 2001.