{"id":49967,"date":"2021-12-29T00:55:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-29T00:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49967"},"modified":"2021-12-29T00:55:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T00:55:17","slug":"legislative-turnover-on-tap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49967","title":{"rendered":"Legislative turnover on tap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Personnel turnover either freshens governing bodies or it poisons them, depending on who succeeds the members who are exiting the stage.<\/p>\n

The Texas Legislature is on the cusp of seeing an astonishing turnover of veteran senators and House members. At last count, 28 House members are either retiring from public life or are surrendering their seats to seek another public office. Five Texas senators aren\u2019t seeking re-election. As the story by Gromer Jeffers Jr. points out in the Tuesday Dallas Morning News, several \u201cmoderate Republicans\u201d are among those who are leaving the Senate. They include, Jeffers wrote, my old pal Kel Seliger of Amarillo and Larry Taylor of Friendswood, as well as Jane Nelson of Flower Mound, who was described in the Dallas Morning News story as the \u201cfifth-most centrist Republican in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who will replace these individuals? Given the huge partisan divide in both legislative chambers and the radical elements in both major parties, it doesn\u2019t necessarily bode well for the future of good government.<\/p>\n

Retiring state Rep. John Turner, a moderate Dallas Democrat, said the significant turnover in the Legislature \u201cjust heightens the polarization.\u201d He talked about Republicans becoming more conservative and Democrats \u201closing some of their moderates\u201d and how the vacancies could be filled by those with more radical agendas.<\/p>\n

Will there be a bipartisan battle between culture warriors as a result? Time will tell. Suffice to say that we remain concerned that the 2023 Texas Legislature is going to become an even more divided and divisive body than its 2021 version. That version was quite divided, indeed. Let us recall how House Democrats fled the state to prevent House Republicans from enacting a controversial bill that sought to restrict voter access for many Texans. Democrats called it \u201cvoter suppression,\u201d but Republicans called it \u201cvoter protection\u201d against possible future fraud.<\/p>\n

Redistricting has played a part in the turnover. Some legislators are leaving because their colleagues created legislative districts that favored candidates from the other party. Some lawmakers are seeking higher office. Democratic state Rep. Michelle Beckley of Carrollton, for example, is now running for her party\u2019s nomination for lieutenant governor; her House district now favors the Republican candidate. State Rep. Scott Sanford of McKinney is retiring for the same reason, as his newly redrawn Collin County district favors the Democratic Party candidate.<\/p>\n

Legislative turnover isn\u2019t necessarily a good or bad thing by itself. If the newly constituted Legislature takes over in 2023 with the state\u2019s best interests in mind, then we well might benefit from an electoral cleansing. If we welcome more rigid ideologues into the Legislature, then we are in for a rough ride.<\/p>\n

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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Personnel turnover either freshens governing bodies or it poisons them, depending on who succeeds the members who are exiting the stage. The Texas Legislature is on the cusp of seeing an astonishing turnover of veteran senators and House members. At last count, 28 House members are either retiring from public life or are surrendering their … Continue reading Legislative turnover on tap<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4552,4653],"class_list":["post-49967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-term-limits","tag-texas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49968,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49967\/revisions\/49968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}