Remember last session, when it was the House that looked like a bar-fight and the Senate was the big kids’ table? Not any more. While the Senate was still caught up this morning in behind-close-doors discussion (read: screaming match) about the efforts to overturn the two-thirds rule on voter laws, the House had a quicker and smoother opening session under new Speaker Joe Straus (which probably means there’s a bunch of state reps waiting for Senate to get done so they can start today’s scheduled Sunset Advisory Commission meeting.)
Catching up with Straus yesterday just after he was sworn in, he seemed happy but still a little surprised that he’s actually really speaker. How did he feel the process had gone? “It went great,” he said. “I’ve had outstanding help, so I had nothing to worry about.”
So now he’s got the gavel, what’s up on the agenda? Actually, agenda is probably the wrong word, since Straus is keen to re-enforce that (unlike Speaker Tom Craddick) he’s the manager of the House, not its boss. “I’ve said over and over again, I’m the speaker of the House, but the members will drive policy,” he noted.
Even though the House doesn’t really start tackling legislation head-on for a few weeks, Straus has to get the mechanisms of management in place. “First thing I have to do is get the office organized and continue to talk to members I haven’t spoken to, and talk to some people with a little more detail who I may have had short discussions with. But there’s a lot of work to organize rules when we come back, and then to organize committees, and that’s a big job.”
After all the fuss about how much money was spent on the Speaker’s apartments, don’t expect for the Straus family to completely relocate. “I’m sure I’ll use it, but moving in doesn’t quite describe what I plan to do,” said Straus. Sensible enough, since he lives in North-West San Antonio, and has two school-age girls. “I don’t plan to move into the apartments. I’ll use it, but I’ll stay in hotels and go home some.
Money is a top priority, but he’s going to have bigger numbers than the cost of wood paneling to think about. Priority number one remains the budget, which “drives everything else,” he said. “When you’re as many billions short as we are, then it means a top-to-bottom review of every expenditure and every priority of state government, and looking at what people that are worried about their jobs and are aware of the difficulties in the economy expect us to do. It’s not fun, but it is necessary and I think it’s a good exercise.”
However, there’s a lot of discussion that, as an urban legislator with a good environmental record (good enough that the Craddick boosters outside the House were beating up on him for getting a Sierra Club award), Straus signals a change in the priorities list for the House. Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is talking about legislation that will encourage fiscal conservatives on-board by selling them on investments blong-term savings. That’s something Straus can get behind pretty easily: “I was out there with a major energy efficiency bill last session that had the type of attributes you’re taking about, where there was an investment that needed to be made on the utility side and the rate payers, but there was a three-to-one pay-off on it. So if they’re a good investment that translates into doing good things for the environment, I’d certainly be supportive of that.”
This article appears in January 9 • 2009.
