Tag Archives: Texas Legislature

State news

We'll see about character among lawmakers

I think I heard it first from then-U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, an Oklahoma Republican, who I’m sure didn’t coin the phrase that noted that you measure someone’s character by “what he does when no one’s looking.”

Still, Watts’s assessment rang true when I heard him say it and it will ring true likely forever.

Thus, the American Phoenix Foundation is set to release hidden-camera video of Texas lawmakers behaving when they think no one is looking.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/disrupt-narrative

APF has made a name for itself exposing misbehavior among elected public officials. It’s a conservative group. Its aim is to reveal how our elected reps conduct themselves. It’s gone after liberal politicians and those associated with liberal causes, such as ACORN.

The leaders of AFP assure us, though, that they’re going to expose conservative lawmakers saying certain things in public but doing entirely different things in private.

Umm, we’ll see about that.

 

 

State news

Local control? It's a goner in Texas

My head is spinning.

I remember a time when Democrats were considered the party of “big, intrusive, patronizing government.” The bigger the government entity, the wiser were the decisions that came down, or so it went.

While the Democrats were gathering under the banner of Big Brother, Republicans were the champions of local control. Get “big gub’mint” off the backs of the locals, they said. Let the decisions come from city halls and county courthouses.

So …

What’s just happened in Austin?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed House Bill 40, which bans cities from prohibiting the practice of “fracking,” which is shorthand for “hydraulic fracturing,” the use of water to break loose oil from hard-to-get places underground.

http://www.dentonrc.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20150518-hb-40-gets-abbotts-approval.ece

Abbott is a proud Republican. But wait! He and his colleagues in Austin aren’t allowing cities to decide for themselves what’s best for their communities, their residents, their constituents. He wants the state to handle these decisions.

Isn’t that employing the heavy hand of government on us little folks?

HB 40 is in reaction to the city of Denton’s decision to ban fracking inside its city limits. No can do, the Legislature said. Abbott agreed and he signed the bill into law, which takes effect immediately.

“HB 40 does a profound job of helping to protect private property rights here in the state of Texas, ensuring those who own their own property will not have the heavy hand of local regulation deprive them of their rights,” Abbott said in a news release.

The “heavy hand of local regulation”? Hey, the locals know best, don’t they?

Fracking has its critics. They contend it is environmentally dangerous. It destabilizes the bedrock. It consumes a lot of water that — if you’ll remember — is in short supply these days. Yes, it’s also an effective way to extract fossil fuel from the ground.

Back to my original point: The whole notion of our political system’s basic party principles relating to big and small government has been turned on its ear.

I hope my head stops spinning.

 

State news

Say 'no' to 'Tim Tebow Bill'

Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy while playing quarterback at the University of Florida.

His pro football career has been something, well, less than stellar. Still, he remains an icon for his off-the-field endeavors, mainly due to his faith and, get this, because he was home-schooled during his high school years.

Tebow was allowed to take part in extracurricular activities in his hometown of Jacksonville, Fla., even though he didn’t attend school in the traditional sense.

Some Texas lawmakers want the University Interscholastic League to lift its ban on home-school students taking part in extracurricular activities.

Don’t to it, UIL and the Texas Legislature.

https://www.thsc.org/about-thsc/lobby-the-texas-legislature/tim-tebow-bill/

Parents are certainly entitled to educate their children the way they see fit. If they don’t want to enroll their kids in public or private school, they can teach them at home. Millions of students are taught at home as it is.

The idea, though, of allowing home-schooled children to take part in activities in actual schools shouldn’t sit well with the parents of children who are actual students in those schools.

The Texas Home School Coalition Association notes that parents who home-school their children pay property taxes that funds school activities and, thus, are entitled to have their children partake in them.

Is it fair, though, to allow parents to cherry-pick how they reap the benefits of the taxes they pay?

They don’t want their children educated by public school teachers, but insist that they be allowed to play football (as young Tim Tebow’s parents were allowed to do), march in the band, or perform in dramatic productions?

No. Those parents have made their choice on behalf of their children.

 

State news

Still waiting for Senate to act on texting ban

It’s too quiet in the Texas Senate, which is winding down its regular session along with the House of Representatives.

House members have approved an important piece of legislation. We’re still waiting on senator to follow suit.

At issue is a statewide ban on texting while driving a motor vehicle. The House did the right thing. One House member told me one day recently that the Senate — quite possibly — might let the issue wither and die.

The bill needs to become law. I have heard precious little from the Senate on this idea. Let’s get busy, senators.

My wife and I drive occasionally from Amarillo to the Metroplex — and back. Neither of us likes to send to text messages in the first place. But some communities have ordinances banning the activity while operating a motor vehicle; others do not.

Motorists need so know the activity is against the law all over the state, not just in some communities.

The 2011 Legislature passed a bill and sent it to Gov. Rick Perry’s desk. The governor vetoed it, calling it too intrusive. The 2013 Legislature didn’t bother to send a bill to the governor.

This is not a revolutionary concept. Texas is one of just six states that haven’t enacted this law. It’s time to join the crowd.

I’m waiting patiently for the Texas Senate do the right thing.

My patience, though, does have its limits.

The clock is ticking, ladies and gentlemen.

local news, State news

Red-light cameras 'unconstitutional'? Guess again

James Watson has filed a lawsuit against cities in Texas that deploy red-light cameras to catch those who run through intersections against signals that tell them they should stop.

Amarillo is one of them.

He got popped by a red-light camera in Southlake. So, to make his point, he’s going after other cities that use the devices as well.

This lawsuit needs to be thrown out on the plaintiff’s ear.

Watson contends that the cities’ ordinance violates the Texas Constitution and state law by depriving motorists of the “presumption of innocence, the right to trial by an impartial jury, the right to cross-examine witnesses and the right against self-incrimination.”

Oh, my.

What, then, do we do about police officers who catch motorists running through red lights? Do the cops who write the tickets also deny motorists the presumption of innocence and all those other rights that Watson lays out in his suit?

Amarillo City Attorney Marcus Norris said he believes the court will reduce the issues once it reviews the lawsuit. My own hunch is that the court might reduce them to zero, as in tossing the case out.

The lawsuit is as specious as they come.

If he hadn’t run the red light in the first place in Southlake, he wouldn’t be in a jam.

Count me as one who still strongly supports the red-light cameras in Amarillo. I do not want the Legislature to eliminate the law that allows cities to use them. Nor do I want the city to back down on its use because of complaints coming from a vocal minority of residents.

State news

Texas to keep Daylight Savings Time

We’ll all need to catch up on our sleep over the winter after all.

Texas legislators have defeated a bill to toss out Daylight Savings Time in Texas. The House of Representatives rejected a bill by Rep. Dan Flynn to revert solely to standard time in Texas, joining Arizona in staying away from having to spring forward and fall back every year.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/house-votes-keep-daylight-savings-time

I’m one who never quite has understood the problems people have with the time change. It’s been around off and on for many decades. It was brought back in force in the 1970s as a way to conserve energy. Longer daylight hours in the summer months meant using less electricity. What’s so terrible about that?

It’s interesting to me that Amarillo’s House delegation split their votes on this deal. John Smithee, who represents Randall County, voted “yes” on Flynn’s bill; Four Price, who represents Potter County, voted “no.” I don’t know why that’s important. I just thought I’d mention it to illustrate that occasionally the two Republican lawmakers do not vote in tandem.

I’ve gotten used to the time change since I was in my 20s. It’s no big deal to me.

Then again, I’m not a farmer or a rancher.

As Flynn told his House colleagues: “The only one who knows if it is sun up or sun down is the rooster.”

Whatever. It makes no difference to me.

State news

Anti-sodomy law still on the books? Get rid of it!

I just learned something today that I probably should have known already.

It’s that a law banning sodomy in Texas remains on the books, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state’s anti-sodomy law to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Let me stipulate here that I am not comfortable writing about sex, so I’ll be discreet.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/06/house-committee-takes-hate-crimes-anti-sodomy-law/

The anti-sodomy law was a vestige of the state’s prejudice against homosexual behavior. It banned same-sex intimacy. The Supreme Court then stepped in and said the state cannot ban such behavior, given that what two people do in the privacy of their home is, well, no one’s business but their own.

I thought the court’s striking down of the law meant the end of it. The state couldn’t enforce an unconstitutional law. Silly me. I was wrong.

The Texas Tribune reports that Texas isn’t alone among the states that still have anti-sodomy laws on the books. Eleven other states have these outdated laws.

They all should be repealed.

I find it incredibly hypocritical for legislators who contend that government shouldn’t interfere in people’s lives to retain a law that interferes in the most intrusive manner imaginable.

The highest court in the country ruled in 2003 that states could not punish people for engaging in same-sex intercourse, as Texas did.

The Legislature needs to finish off this law once and for all. Time’s wasting, ladies and gentlemen.

 

political news, State news

Be on guard, Texas lawmakers

What? You mean the Texas Legislature has members who behave badly when no one’s looking?

Well, I’ll be dipped in sesame seeds. Who knew?

It now appears that a group calling itself the American Phoenix Foundation is going to release some secret video it says captures lawmakers doing things they shouldn’t be doing.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/05/lawmakers-filmed-secret-recordings/?mc_cid=d5b6bd6410&mc_eid=c01508274f

This could be interesting. It also could get some of these operatives into some serious trouble.

The group is a conservative outfit that in the past has targeted liberal politicians associated with liberal causes, such as ACORN. It’s been accused of smearing politicians and using “selective editing” techniques to make the subject of the video and/or audio seem even worse, according to the Texas Tribune.

State Rep. Pete Geren, R-Fort Worth, put the American Phoenix Foundation’s status into perspective. He said one of the individuals filming lawmakers “appeared to be a stalker” and added, “There are some sleazebags in politics, and these guys are going to fall right in that bracket.”

So, the American Phoenix Foundation is going to employ sleazy tactics to uncover sleazy behavior.

Is this an ends-justifying-the-means kind of tactic?

Here’s an interesting wrinkle to the story. John Beria, a spokesman for the foundation, said the group plans to target conservatives and liberals equally.

According to the Tribune, “Beria said there was no ideological bias in its months-long undercover operation in Austin, and he said some of the most interesting findings center on conservative Republicans who act one way at home and quite another in the state capital.”

We’ll see.

State news

Drug-test elected officials? No, but the idea still intrigues

State Sen. Eddie Lucio has this goofy notion that Texas ought to require all elected officials submit to mandatory drug testing.

The Brownsville Democrat has inserted it into an amendment, which means the Senate could consider it before adjourning in a few weeks.

Dallas Morning News blogger/editorial writer Rodger Jones is adamantly opposed to the idea.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/should-every-elected-official-across-texas-be-drug-tested.html/

I guess I share his opposition — to a degree.

But the idea of drug testing elected officials has a certain element of poetic irony to it, if you think about it for a moment.

City council members, school board trustees, college regents, state legislators, county department heads and statewide officeholders all have the authority to require testing of regular Texans. You know, folks like you and me.

Why not, then, require them to do the same thing? Why not subject the leaders who make these policy decisions to the very same hassles they place on the rest of us?

Jones writes: “… government gets horribly Big Brother-ish in presuming to extract samples from one’s body and laying out test results for all to see. Elected officials are private citizens first, public servants second. There should be a zone of privacy for them, just as there should be a zone for welfare recipients. Government should not stick its nose into our private affairs.”

Private citizens first, public servants second? By my way of thinking, elected officials take on a sort of co-equal standing. They are both private citizens and public servants equally, again in my view. How does one particular standing trump the other?

So, if they’re public servants and they hand out policy decisions that affect the lives of actual full-time private citizens, why is it unfair to require them to do the same thing they demand of others?

Jones is spot on about one point, though, in his opposition to Lucio’s idea. It’s impractical. It would create many thousands of urine samples and require government to test them for drugs.

It’s too expensive.

Still, a part of me wishes we could do such a thing.

 

State news

Not making nice in Legislature

Texas legislators are ripping a page out of the congressional playbook.

Some of ’em are treating others of ’em badly in public.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/pickett-tosses-stickland-out-committee

It’s not supposed to be like this, gentlemen.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, tossed Rep. Jonathon Strickland, R-Bedford, out of a committee hearing because Strickland falsely signed up witnesses for a hearing.

Then the House of Representatives removed evidence of the argument from the record.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/house-takes-its-dirty-laundry-internet

As R.G. Ratfcliffe notes in his Texas Monthly blog, Strickland might have committed a crime if he did as Pickett alleged he did.

But holy cow, man! How ’bout behaving like grownups in public.

You fellows do work for us — and some of us out here might not like what we’re seeing.