Texas state Sen. Kel Seliger wanted to chair the Senate Education Committee. He really, really wanted it.
But the chairman’s gavel went to someone else after Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst announced chairmanships for the upcoming legislative session. The new education chairman is right-wing firebrand Dan Patrick of Houston. It’s too early to predict what will happen, but Patrick isn’t exactly a friend of public education in Texas.
I sincerely hope public education doesn’t take too big a hit in the 2013 Texas Legislature.
Seliger, an Amarillo Republican, would have been a better friend of public education than Patrick. Seliger wasn’t exactly skunked in the chairmanship sweepstakes. He is the new chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee; with Amarillo College and West Texas A&M University in his district – along with Frank Phillips College and Clarendon College – in his sprawling Senate district, Seliger will have no shortage of local interest in what his new panel will consider.
But the Amarillo lawmaker would have been a great fit for the Education Committee chairmanship. Why? Because he decidedly is not part of the extreme wing of his party. Patrick, though, is a firebrand who on occasion has been known to shoot from the hip.
Hard to know precisely why Dewhurst passed Seliger over for the Education chairmanship. One theory is that Dewhurst was stung by his U.S. Senate Republican primary loss to tea party golden boy Ted Cruz and that he’s trying to make nice with the conservative wing of his party.
If so, that’s too bad … not for Dewhurst, but likely for the cause of public education, the health of which remains vital to Texas’ future.