Looking Out for the Little Guy: You won’t find any special interest
legislation
among the bills he has filed. Unless of course, you count the sick, elderly, poor, and handicapped as special interests. Now in his third
term in
the Texas House, Rep. Elliott Naishtat (D-Austin) says he keeps
one
question in mind when
considering legislation: “If I file this legislation, will it have a
positive
impact on the low income people and Hispanics in Eagle Pass, Texas?”
A VISTA volunteer in Eagle Pass in 1967 and ’68, Naishtat worked on
health and
human services issues in the poverty stricken border town. “I’m working
on the
same issues now,” he says. But his job has gotten tougher this session.
Politics are meaner, the attitude toward his constituents less
benevolent.
Naishtat says much of his time this session has been spent on the
welfare
reform and juvenile justice bills, trying to make them “less
punitive.”
Naishtat, a lawyer, works during the off-session on guardianship
cases. He and
Sen. John Montford (D-Lubbock) are pushing for the creation of
the
Guardian Resource Board, which would then create and oversee a
non-profit
agency to coordinate and develop guardianship services for minors and
adults
who are unable to care for themselves. Montford’s version, SB 103, has
passed
the Senate. Naishtat’s, HB 2705, is still in committee.
Naishtat was able to get 39 bills signed into law last session –
“more than
anybody else,” he’s quick to add. He won’t pass that many this session,
but
several of his measures have passed the House, including HB 1659, which
would
allow the governor to appoint a client or parent-of-a-client to sit on
the
Texas Board of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.
Like other members of the local delegation, Naishtat expects most
of the
Austin-bashing bills to pass. Speaking of Rep. Susan Combs (R-Austin),
he says,
“It’s hard to fight off this kind of legislation when one of the main
supporters is a member of the Austin delegation.”
DOWN ON THE FARM: Farmworkers, agribusiness, and pesticides are the key
issues
for the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) as it undergoes
the sunset
review process.
Farmworkers contend that the agency’s laissez faire attitude
towards
pesticides endangers them. Further, they say, TDA has a conflict of
interest
because it represents both agribusinesses and farmworkers. Farmworkers
want the
Texas Department of Health, not TDA, to be responsible for
protecting
them from pesticide exposure.
The sunset process provides an opportunity for farmworkers to press
their
claims. Every 12 years, most state agencies must go through the process
to
justify their continued existence. Sen. Ken Armbrister’s
(D-Victoria)
massive agency renewal bill, SB 372, would allow TDA to continue
operating. But
he’s opposed to transferring pesticide regulation away from the agency.
“That
is not going to happen,” he said last week after a Senate Natural
Resources
Committee hearing on the matter.
But several groups, including Texas Rural Legal Aid (TRLA) and
the
Texas Center for Policy Studies (TCPS), want TDA to be more vigilant in
its
pesticide control practices. Bill Beardall of TRLA, who
testified before
the committee, pointed to a 1991 case where the TDA was placed briefly
under a
“corrective action plan,” according to Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA)
officials, because it had a backlog of pesticide monitoring cases.
TCPS officials contend that TDA filed “inconsistent and
contradictory” numbers
on EPA-required inspection reports involving highly toxic pesticides,
including
Compound 1080 and sodium cyanide. In a report released April 11, TCPS
said that
TDA’s actions have been so weak that the EPA “may have to withdraw its
approval
of all of TDA’s enforcement role for the federal pesticide laws.”
Farmworkers, environmental groups, and organic growers were able to
add five
reform amendments to SB 372 before it passed out of the Senate
committee,
including one which would transfer pesticide oversight to the
Department of
Health. The bill now goes to the full Senate, but Armbrister has
pledged to
keep all pesticide responsibilities within TDA. Stay tuned. – Lee
Nichols
THE CLEAN TEAM: In yet another bit of momentous legislation, Rep.
Barry
Telford (D-DeKalb) sponsored HR 548 last Thursday. The purpose:
“Honoring
Mathews Cleaners.”
BULLOCK AND THE LOBBYISTS: Radio ads paid for by Better Austin Tomorrow
are
asking citizens to call Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock. In the ads,
singer Jerry Jeff Walker tells Austinites to call Bullock and encourage
him to
block Austin-bashing legislation. The group has also done a mailing
asking
citizens to send postcards to Bullock. Are they doing any good?
“I don’t care,” Bullock said of the campaign, a day after the Senate
passed SB
1017 by Sen Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio), which would prevent
Austin
from enforcing water quality regulations in the Barton Springs Zone.
“They can
call me or mail me all they want,” he added.
The crusty Senate boss says only two city officials have bothered
to talk to
him about the Austin-bashing legislation: Mayor Bruce Todd and
Councilmember Brigid Shea. “Bruce Todd came in here at the start
of the
session. And then he went and cried all over it,” Bullock says. “You
can quote
me on that.” Shea phoned, imploring Bullock not to do anything that
would hurt
the city. Bullock paid no heed. “It’s the will of the Senate. And
yesterday one
of your own senators [Gonzalo Barrientos] was bashing the city.”
The City of Austin will pay the lobby firm of Adams &
Zottarelli $445,000 over the next three years to protect the city’s interests at
the Lege.
Have they paid Bullock any visits? “They have made no attempt to
contact me,”
Bullock says. “I haven’t heard from [Don] Adams or that other fella.”
Angelo
Zottarelli? “Yeah, that’s him,” he says. And what of John
Hrncir, the
city’s chief lobbyist and director of intergovernmental relations?
“Never heard
of him,” Bullock says.
HOME IS WHERE THE PHONE IS: Rep. Glen Maxey (D-Austin) isn’t
giving up
on an amendment to the House telecommunications reform bill (HB 2128),
which
would have added a provision requiring local phone companies to provide
voice
mail boxes so homeless people could get telephone messages.
The idea is to make it easier for homeless people to find jobs, and
eventually, homes. Such a program could be used by people who are
homeless for
a whole variety of reasons, including battered women and disaster
victims,
Maxey says. Voice mail also makes it easier for social workers to keep
in touch
with their clients.
Maxey’s spokesperson, Hugh Strange, says that a statewide
program in
Texas would cost around $200,000, but would be cost effective. In
Seattle,
homeless people with access to voice mail boxes spend less time on
welfare –
two months, as compared to six for those without the service. Maxey got
the
idea after reading of similar programs in cities including Seattle,
Toronto,
San Diego, St. Paul, and Minneapolis. Strange says the Seattle program,
launched in 1991, costs less than $100,000 a year. Some 68 percent of
program
participants find jobs within two months.
“I did talk to a Southwestern Bell lobbyist, and he thought it
sounded like a
good idea,” Strange says. “Apparently, they’ve got a lot more voice
mail boxes
than there’s a demand for, and they indicated to me that they wouldn’t
have a
problem donating some of those non-money generating boxes.”
The House voted 67-15 to table Maxey’s amendment after hearing
objections from
Republican legislators. Maxey hopes to get an urban legislator to carry
the
amendment in the Senate. – Andrea Barnett
This article appears in April 28 • 1995 and April 28 • 1995 (Cover).