The Texas Observer

Early on the last day of the legislative session, Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) filed a resolution honoring the two former parliamentarians Denise Davis and Christopher Griesel, who resigned on what Burnam calls the Friday Night Massacre of the House Rules.

During the many lulls of today’s floor activity (while the chair and the new parliamentarians figured out how to overrule nearly all the points of order of the day), members offered resolutions recognizing their staffers, interns, spouses, kids and even their neighbor’s staffers. Burnam asked the chair when his resolution would come up.

Perhaps it was some of the text of Burnam’s resolution that made the chair more inclined to ignore it.

WHEREAS, Denise Davis and Chris Griesel stood up to autocratic control of a democratic institution by resigning their posts as parliamentarians; and

WHEREAS, Ms. Davis and Mr. Griesel could have given in to dictatorial pressure but instead stood firm and did what they knew was right, even though it cost them their jobs; and

WHEREAS, democratic institutions depend on respect for rules and precedents, Ms. Davis and Mr. Griesel took a stand for democracy on May 25, 2007, otherwise known as the Friday Night Massacre of the House Rules; and

WHEREAS, by resigning to protest a decision that threatened the integrity of the House, Ms. Davis and Mr. Griesel showed great respect for the Rules of the House, the Constitution of the State of Texas, and the institution of the Texas House of Representatives…

Burnam settled for a resolution honoring their hard work sans those four paragraphs, knowing Craddick loyalists were otherwise poised to object to the resolution’s adoption. In politics, you go for what you want and settle for what you can get, Burnam said.

As a final demonstration of the absolute power of the chair, Craddick pronounced Sine Die, the end of the session, by thanking his two new parliamentarians.

Tonight was one for the history books, capping an incredible weekend of drama in the Texas House. The tension in the lower chamber built steadily throughout this penultimate day of the 80th legislative session — finally culminating in heated floor exchanges, personal privilege speeches from two disaffected Republicans, and, finally, an apparently spontaneous walkout of at least 56 House members that halted the legislating and forced a hurried adjournment until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The bipartisan group of lawmakers trying to oust Tom Craddick from the speaker’s chair has squirmed all weekend under the absolute power asserted by Craddick on Friday. There were minor parliamentary skirmishes all day and night. Just after the midnight deadline to pass bills, Democrats Abel Herrero (Robstown) and Jim Dunnam (Waco) peppered the chair with questions about Craddick’s strict, absolutist rules interpretations.

Austin Republican Mike Krusee then gave a privilege speech. Krusee offered an eloquent defense of the House rules, ending his speech by invoking “one of my heroes,” Ronald Reagan. “Absolute power to deny the right to question authority is not a principle of the Republican Party. Or any party. Not in this country.” He said a wall had gone up between the speaker and the membership. “Mr. Speaker, we must tear it down,” he said to an ovation.

Next came a speech from a visibly angry Pat Haggerty, an El Paso Republican. Haggerty began a mock roll call, reading off members’ names and asking how they would vote on a motion to vacate the chair. The very motion Craddick will not allow. After he was asked repeatedly to stop by numerous reps, Haggerty asked anyone who wants to remove Craddick to take their keys (which lock out their desk voting machines) and walk out. And walk out many did — storming out of the chamber and up the steps to the Capitol’s third floor as House staffers gathered to cheer. It was an odd scene, to say the least.

Without a quorum, the House couldn’t pass any more bills and adjourned.

The walkout seemed unplanned. While leaving the House floor with his key, Rep. Jim Pitts, a declared candidate to replace Craddick as speaker, told a colleague, “I really don’t want to do this. I’ve got a really important bill [coming up].”

What happens next is anyone’s guess. There were a number of bills left pending as the speaker in a press release pointed out.

“Once again, some members chose to divert the House away from important matters and instead tried to drag the members into a Speaker’s race while we are in session. Speaker Craddick made a promise to the members of the House that he would make sure their bills would be heard so their constituents concerns would be met. This evening a number of bills were put into jeopardy - bills that would protect our water, fund our parks and historical sites, lower electric rates, enhance air quality, and require steroid testing in our public schools. It is his intention to take up and consider these and other pieces of legislation before the session ends tomorrow at midnight.”

Whether Craddick will have a quorum tomorrow to take up bills is unclear. One note of interest, due to the hasty retreat at the end of the night, the House did not sign the budget in the presence of the House. We are not sure whether failing to do this means there will be a need for a special session.

Stay tuned.

Part of the budget - which is currently being debated on the House floor - allocates $1.6 million to research the Zebra Chip Disease afflicting Texas potatoes. The disease isn’t harmful to human health, but affects the taste of potato chips.

Rep. Yvonne Davis (D-Dallas) questioned Pampa Republican Rep. Warren Chisum’s priorities in funding potato crop research, while neglecting to finance an HIV prevention media campaign, for example.

In an April interview with the Observer, Chisum listed supporting the economy as an essential government role. He mentioned the zebra chip research specifically:

Most people don’t think much about- I mean, a sack of potato chips is a sack of potato chips. But that’s a business for somebody out there. Many thousands of farmers across the state depend on us putting whatever assets we have to in order to stop this zebra chip from going through our potato crops and destroying that industry in the state of Texas. So the government has a role to play there. It’s not just a handout to potato growers, it’s a role that the government should play: to coordinate an investigation to see how to stop that.

San Antonio Republican Rep. Frank Corte seems to have made his first hurdle. He got enough conferees to sign the new version of SB 11, which includes some of the worst parts of both that bill and the governor’s homeland security bill, HB 13. Special thanks to Kingsville Democratic Rep. Juan Escobar, who could have stopped this atrocity, but chose instead to sign the report.

This bill will officially reverse more than a century of Texas tradition, dating back to the constitution of 1876. Fort Worth Democratic Rep. Lon Burnam, who was promised a role in negotiations on the bill, but was then shut out, warns that it “statutorily legitimizes the politicized law enforcement operations in the governor’s office.”

Gone is the language that would take TDEx, a database on millions of Texans away from the governor and give it instead to a genuine law enforcement agency, DPS. The bill also legitimizes “the fusion center” concept. This massive data center will also be controlled by the governor. In the fusion center, the governor will have at his disposal both public and private databases on Texans. This could potentially include everything from what magazines you read to traffic tickets and arrests.

There are several points of order lined up on this bill. But with Terry “Over Keel” Keel and Ron Wilson as parliamentarians, it’s anyone’s guess what a sustainable point of order is these days. It is eligible at 11:58 p.m. In order to take it up, Corte will need 2/3rds of House members to say yes.

Here are a few of the other low-lights in the bill:

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Along with all the rebel motions hurled at Craddick Friday night, there was one parliamentary question that wasn’t just procedural.

After hearing the Clerk of the House read Gov. Perry’s message explaining his veto of House Bill 770, Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) took the back mic. With Houston Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner acting as speaker, Dutton jokingly asked for a show of hands from members who wanted to override Perry’s veto.

Turner laughed as he gave a familiar reply for the night: “That’s not a proper inquiry for the chair,” he said. (A can’t-miss punchline under the dome lately, right up there with “You are not recognized.”)

The logic behind Perry’s veto is laughable, too, but not in the ‘ha-ha’ kind of way.

Dutton’s very short bill would require the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to inform those who’ve served their time that their voting rights have been restored. TDCJ would also have to give them a voter registration form.

Perry, though, said he vetoed the bill because voter registration isn’t any of TDCJ’s business. (Apparently leaf-blowing and fence-building are.) “Their role is to incarcerate and rehabilitate offenders, and we should not divert resources away from this difficult task,” Perry’s statement reads.

Rehabilitation apparently does not involve civic rights and responsibilities.

Dutton, meanwhile, is baffled by the governor’s beef, pointing out that the bill had a zero fiscal note. The point was to make it clear to people when their rights have been restored, something the bill’s supporters point out isn’t being done today. The confusion leads many to assume they still can’t vote, and promotes the idea that they’re not quite full citizens.

The guv apparently is worried about showing preferential treatment to former inmates — there goes Texas again, spoiling its prisoners with special goodies. Perry calls it “unseemly” that Texas might make a special effort to help former inmates vote. “It is imperative that they take personal responsibility for all aspects of their life, including their right to vote,” Perry’s statement said.

It’s the same logic that was invoked time after time in hearings and debates over voter ID — if these people want to vote so bad, they ought to figure it out themselves.

Dutton said Saturday he’s seriously rallying support for a veto override. The bill passed the House and Senate with more than 80 percent approval in each chamber — well above the two-thirds necessary to toss the veto back in Perry’s face. We should know soon whether the support’s still there.

House Bill 13, the governor’s homeland security bill seemed finished. Rep. Lon Burnam called several points of order on the bill as it came to the House after leaving the Senate. The bill’s author, State Affairs Chairman Rep. David Swinford, fronted a press conference afterwards to complain. It’s worth quoting Swinford at length to get the full flavor.

“With the work that we’ve had with Lon today and yesterday, I’ve asked him what specifically he had problems with, and I was told that we didn’t work hard enough with the ACLU with this bill. And I have to tell you that we made a decision that we were more interested in the safety of our children than we were the safety of the drug thugs. And we made that call because I’m a grandfather, and I’m pretty close to kids, so if that’s the reason we lost this bill, I think that’s a very sad commentary on us taking care of the citizens of Texas.”

Then, as is his wont, he started to sob. (In fairness, this time he caught it early.)

“I am not upset about this bill. I am upset because the time we spent on the border, and seeing that they are winning and we are losing. And that concerns me greatly. This will have a big impact. The crime and the drugs are moving, looks like, about 50 to 100 miles inland every year. So two years from now if this bill doesn’t come about, you can expect them to be taking over a lot more communities.”

After the press conference, Senate sponsor Sen. John Carona made noises about trying to convince his colleagues in the upper chamber to strip off their amendments and just accept the House version. Apparently, that didn’t fly.

But by golly, Rep. Frank Corte, the House’s number one law-and-order-civil liberties-be-damned legislator is trying to ride to the rescue. According to sources on the conference committee, Corte is trying to shovel some of the worst provisions in HB 13 into his SB 11 (another awful homeland security bill). In particular, Corte wants to put the fusion center, a fancy name for a huge intelligence database that will house both private and public information on Texans, into the governor’s office.

Stay tuned to see if Corte succeeds.

Contrary to what was reported last night, the so-called “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act” was really only mostly dead, and as we all know, there’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. So today Rep. Craig Eiland (D-Galveston) moved to reconsider last night’s vote to take up HB 3678. With a couple of extra supporting votes today, the bill squeezed through the two-thirds rule and got a vote. When it came to voting on the actual bill (rather than suspending the necessary rules to take it up), the support mushroomed from 94 to 108 votes. Members not wanting to be accused of voting against God, perhaps?

This time, the bill’s author Rep. Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Land) moved to concur with the Senate amendments, saying there was no time for a conference committee to work out the differences. It’s no secret that Howard liked the Senate version better, since it doesn’t have the amendment Rep. Yvonne Davis (D-Dallas) added on the House floor. The provision would have ensured that no student could use religious speech to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion or sexual orientation. Howard has made it clear that he thinks the amendment would make the bill unconstitutional.

Rep. Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) pointed out another change in the Senate version of the bill - more “may” turned “shall” language that would now require schools to allow students to speak at football games and morning announcements. The bill previously left the public forums to the school’s discretion.

Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Center) again said that not allowing for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation would be discriminatory against the majority religion - Christianity.

The bill’s supporters referenced more affronts to children’s religious freedom at school - no candy canes or green and red napkins at Christmastime. Hochberg referenced the enforcement provision added by the bill’s authors - lawyers who profit from lawsuits - that would have made it easier for schools to get sued on this issue. “They saw a lot of opportunities for lawsuits,” Hochberg said. The provision was removed by the Senate sponsor and so isn’t in the final version, but speaks to the authors’ true intent. A student’s right to express religion, after all, is already protected by the First Amendment.

Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) said he would officially start a fundraiser for the ACLU - because this bill’s going to court.