From The Austin Chronicle, 1/2/04:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-01-02/pols_roundup4.html
Top 10 Legislature Stories
1) The Texas Redistricting Massacre:
Whatever the final outcome, the 78th will be long remembered as the
Lege that broke the decennial dam on no-holds-barred partisan warfare.
Tom DeLay gave us the gift of angry hearings, busted quorums,
legislators in full flight and bitter exile in two states, and now a
court case that may determine whether what Lite Guv David Dewhurst
called "contagious flu" will spread from Austin across the entire
country.
When they call Texas the National Laboratory of Bad Government, this
is exactly what they mean.
On the other hand, 51 Democratic House members and 10 senators proved
something else: Even in politics, some things are still worth fighting
for.
2) Watch Us Make Nothing Out of Something:
Determined to fill a $12 billion to $15 billion hole (officially only
a measly $10 billion) with "no new taxes," Gov. Perry and the
Republican leadership balanced the books on the backs of school
teachers and their students, the poor, the elderly, and the weakest
among us -- and still had to smuggle in nearly $3 billion in fees,
fines, penalties, and other shell-game maneuvers that get us nowhere
close to solving the school and health care funding crises.
Can they screw things up any worse?
You have to ask?
3) So Sue Us:
The business lobby, desperate to insulate major industry from legal
liabilities, hired three dozen spanking new Republican freshmen,
elected a speaker, and still feared it might not be able to cram "tort
reform" -- aka caveat emptor, suckers! -- through a reluctant Lege.
So it grafted that weed onto medical-malpractice insurance reform, and
used the specter of impoverished doctors to terrorize the pols and
their constituents not only into med-mal and liability limits, but a
constitutional amendment that promises an eventual
get-out-of-the-courtroom free pass for every moneyed interest in the
state.
4) You Want Ethics, It'll Cost You:
Borderline sleaze and blood-splattered walls tainted the process, but
hey, we expected nothing less on the subject of ethics.
In the end, legislators passed a stripped-down version of the bill (HB
1606) that Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, introduced and defended
throughout.
The bill -- watered down, inevitably, in the speaker's back room --
stops lawmakers from lobbying before state agencies, makes campaign
finance disclosure a wee more transparent, and adds a tad more muscle
to the Ethics Commission. Craddick's horse-trade?
University tuition deregulation, clouding future access to higher
education.
5) Spreading Official Ignorance:
Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, called his anti-abortion HB 15 the
"Woman's Right to Know Act."
What a kidder, that Corte.
The new law effectively limits accessibility to health care by
imposing a 24-hour waiting period for women who lawfully seek
abortion, thereby encouraging a return to backstreet desperation.
Women who can spare the time are expected to wile it away perusing
"informational" brochures featuring junk-science scare stories about
breast cancer and replete with color photos of fetuses during various
stages of development.
Hey, Dr. Frankie: Why not legislative take-home videos of
colonoscopies and prostate surgery?
6) One Man, One Woman, Lots of Votes:
San Antonio Republican Sen. Jeff Wentworth, perennially threatened on
his far-right flank, went trolling for homophobes with his Defense of
Marriage Act (SB 7), modeled after the federal law.
The law declares that Texas -- in dire anticipation of invading armies
of leather boys and sapphic celebrants -- will not recognize same-sex
marriages or civil unions approved by other states.
True marriage, Wentworth says, is "between one man and one woman."
Not necessarily permanent, not necessarily faithful, not necessarily
even civil.
But by God, sacred, if you know what's good for you.
7) Talton the Terrible, Foiled Again:
Make no mistake.
Rep. Warren Chisum remains the House's leading anti-gay legislator,
but at least he's polite about it.
Pasadena Republican Robert Talton, on the other hand, is mean, snarly,
rude, and, um, incompetent.
Not even the State Affairs Committee's Republican majority could go
along with a bill that would have prohibited gays and lesbians from
becoming foster parents.
"Quite frankly," Talton drawled before a packed committee hearing, "ah
don't look at those that may be homosexuals as parents."
Fortunately, even the new Republican majority can count abandoned
children.
8) Muddying Sunset Valley:
The Lege mostly left Austin alone this session, but its neighbor to
the southwest took a beating at the hands of Jeff "Lowe-Down"
Wentworth, whose district includes Sunset Valley.
HB 1204 -- which calls on cities and counties to streamline their
development regs in extraterritorial jurisdictions -- is not bad on
its face.
But Wentworth added some stealth language specifically written to help
Lowe's secure approval on a big box that Sunset Valley didn't, and
doesn't, want.
Never let it be said that the Lege doesn't listen -- to those who
underwrite the Golden Rule.
9) Unsocial Services:
Couched as a "reorganization" of the state's health and human services
programs, HB 2292, the omnibus bill crafted by Burleson Republican
Arlene Wohlgemuth, effectively gives the have-nots the shaft and the
people who serve them the boot.
The new law streamlines (read: dismantles) the state's many social
programs, and its provisions are already having catastrophic effects
in rural and urban areas across Texas.
This worst is yet to come.
10) Obi-Wan Leaves the Galaxy:
Standing up for principle is a rare thing in politics, especially in
these days of Republican jihad.
When his own party declared bipartisanship obsolete, former Lt. Gov.
Bill Ratliff -- nicknamed "Obi-Wan" by his colleagues -- decided he'd
had enough, and left the Texas Senate after 15 years.
Bill, we didn't always agree with you, but we respected you.
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And that was life and politics deep in the heart of 2003 Texas.
Harry
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