Senator Bill Ratliff is considered one of the most powerful members of the Texas Senate. A starched-white-shirt conservative, the Republican from Flower Mound introduced a bill last session that would have forced the state to divest its holdings in companies that publish rap music. It passed the Senate but was pummeled in a House committee. So Ratliff, the chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, quietly attached the following rider, known as Rider 174, to the state budget bill:
Taking effect Sept. 1, the legislation prohibits the state and any entity of state government from using state funds to invest in a private business concern that owns 10% or more of a company that records or produces any song, lyrics, or other musical work that explicitly describes, glamorizes, or advocates acts of violence, drug use, gang activity, misogyny, or hate crimes.
The budget bill, which appropriates money to every agency in the state, takes months of work to produce. And invariably, it’s not completed until the final days of the session. So by the time the $87 billion spending bill got to a conference committee charged with hammering out the final details, there were only about two weeks left in the legislative session. After Ratliff added his rider, the bill went back to both houses for approval. But neither House could excise the rider without sending the entire bill back to the conference committee, and with time running out, both houses approved it. And Gov. George W. Bush was left with little choice but to sign it. – R.B.
This article appears in March 20 • 1998 and March 20 • 1998 (Cover).