Homeland Security on the Down-Low
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:41 am
Today, House Bill 13, the governor’s Homeland Security legislation, will finally be heard on the House floor. The bill was supposed to hit the chamber on Monday. Instead it was sent back to committee for a few quick changes before being kicked out again. This is at least its third iteration.
Once again, there was practically no discussion about a piece of legislation with enormous policy implications. Throughout the session, Perry, with Speaker Tom Craddick’s help, has tried essentially to cobble together an entirely new agency with broad power—the so-called Texas Department of Homeland Security—with no real debate.
What has remained consistent through every draft of HB 13, is that it gives Rick Perry, and every governor that follows him, unprecedented law enforcement and intelligence capability with scant oversight.
Yesterday, Houston Rep. Jessica Farrar released a thorough critique of the bill. Among the points she makes:
Despite ostensibly being moved to the Department of Public Safety, the Office of the Governor continues as “project manager” of TDEx, the database that could eventually include information on nearly every Texan.
Perry’s office will also control something called the Texas Fusion Center. This is an intelligence center that will merge data from law enforcement and the private sector.
The governor will appoint a Border Security Council. This council will be responsible for doling out hundreds of millions in federal aid for border security. How this money is used will be determined by the governor not law enforcement professionals. The governor’s office of Homeland Security will determine whether the money is spent wisely, in essence, auditing itself. (We’ve seen how well Homeland Security did with that in the case of Northrop Grumman.)
Despite the serious questions that remain about this bill it will likely pass in some form. Why? State Affairs Chairman Rep. David Swinford (R-Dumas) has included language that appears to require local law enforcement to turn in undocumented immigrants. In fact the language doesn’t much change the status quo, but Republican legislators anxious to appear tough on immigration might swallow the bait. Count on bill supporters (see: Craddick loyalists) to scaremonger the terrorist threat as a way to steamroll legislators into supporting HB 13. Finally, border reps who are desperate for more money for the region have been promised that if they support this legislation the money will finally come. (It doesn’t seem to matter that they have fallen for this bait and switch in session after session with the same miserable result at the end of the day.)
A prime example of the desperation thinking on the border comes from one of the bill’s cosponsors, Rep. Juan Escobar (D-Kingsville). Escobar, a former senior border patrol agent, should know better. When asked why he supported the legislation, he took the lipstick-on-a-pig defense, saying that some of its provisions had improved from previous versions. “I had to be able to go back and say I worked to make it better,” he said.
Escobar cogently suggests that some of the concerns around the legislation might be due to Perry’s Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw. “The problem might be the person that’s in there,” he said.
Regardless of what happens, there will likely be a spirited debate on this bill with a number of amendments. Among the likely amendments will be one that fully removes TDEx from the governor’s office and another that makes the post of Homeland Security Director Senate confirm-able.
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:28 am
Escobar and others defending this piece of junk should be embarrassed. I’d hope even the Craddick Ds and more libertarian Rs would realize this is going too far and join Jessica Farrar and Co. to kill it.
Forget partisan politics - from a pure public policy perspective this is a huge clusterf#@k. It will make law enforcement on the border less focused on real problems and more focused on political grandstanding. Surely we have enough of that already?
BTW, the language about enforcing immigration laws was taken out - the current version says police can’t enforce immigration laws unless they comply with federal statutes that require agencies to get special certification that no Texas police agency has so far received.
Great HB 13 posts this a.m., especially on the Noriega letter - keep up the good work!
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:05 am
I’ve worked at some level of government most of my adult life and have seen a lot of bills come and go. In my opinion, this piece of legislation is nothing more than political grandstanding that creates additional (and costly) bureaucracy; which fails to serve anyone, except those in the upper levels of Texas government.
If it passes, it could be very expensive to maintain and is ripe with abuse. It has nothing to do with the security of our state, but simply greases the palms of some of the politicians involved.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:28 am
You left out a key fact. Border security is one of the highest, if not THE highest, priority for border legislators. The immigration debate is also big, and is of course intertwined, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that residents of the border are demanding action.
It almost seems as if people in Austin - who don’t live along the border and have probably never visited and talked with the residents - want to see this bill go down simply to make a statement about immigration, rather than trying to help solve a major problem.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:49 am
If the bill passes by two votes, then by all means pile on Escobar and Guillen. But if it is another 85-65 affair, as I suspect it may be, don’t delude yourselves into thinking Swinford removed those toxic immigration provisions on his own. This legislation is hitching a ride on Craddick’s steamroller. I understand not everyone agress with the strategy of trying to get a seat at the table, but do disagree with respect to the good intentions of border representatives. Constituents in Rio Grande City don’t know Steve McCraw from Liberace, but they do know that their police don’t have the resources to fight the epidemic of violent crime *and* enforce immigration.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
[…] he was forced to bid adios, yet again, to HB 13. A point of order ejected the long-suffering (and rightly so) bill back to committee Thursday night. There will be more on the blog this weekend about that odd […]