It seems everyone in the House has been dusting off their copy of the parliamentary rules. After lying low and letting his proxies take the flack for him on Sunday, Speaker Tom Craddick came back to the floor for sine die – and immediately faced criticism for bending the rules he said he was enforcing. The open of session soon became a series of parliamentary rules challenges – all whittling away at his last vestiges of authority,
First of all, Rep. Paul Moreno, D-El Paso, pondered the term “limited resolution,” saying he’d never heard it before Craddick had used it.
Then Reps. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, and Delwin Jones, R-Lubbock, took on the terms of motions Craddick had agreed to hear. Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Southlake, wanted to introduce a House committee resolution, which would make a technical adjustment to the Sunset Safety Net Bill. Bit of a big one – this one would bolt Texas Department of Criminal Justice onto the bill. Technical adjustments are supposed to be minor adjustments, typos and such. Coleman and Jones pointed out that transferring a whole massive agency into the bill was scarcely a clerical error and that this was too massive to be included on the last day.
“It was like a big ol’ typographical error,” Truitt explained, but Coleman was not having it, saying that neither House nor Senate had put the prison system in there.
Then, Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, said the rules say that no official press release can bad-mouth a rep or state official – which he said a press release put out by Craddick that morning attacking his critics did.
Then, Rep. Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, asked whether the speaker was stretching the rules by passing conference committees on a day reserved solely for technical corrections and reconsidered bills. In a leading question, he asked whether this meant all motions could be reconsidered – like, say, a motion to vacate the chair.
Then, Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, had his shot at the parliamentary process, asking whether privilege statements could be scrubbed from the records – like, say, Dan Haggerty‘s from last night. Rep. David Leibowitz, D-Helotes, countered, saying that Branch couldn’t ask for it to be retroactive.
At this point, Rep. Sylvester Turner ran in, took up the gavel, and Craddick scampered. Mysteriously, as soon as he disappeared, so did all the parliamentary challenges.
This article appears in May 25 • 2007.
