More Than One Way to Kill a Commission
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:02 am
While the Senate was considering a financial bill Monday, Sen. Rodney Ellis recognized something familiar in an amendment by Sen. Dan Patrick. The Patrick amendment replicated a bill that lowered property taxes by tinkering with the way land appraisals are done. The bill stalled out in committee because it carried a whopping fiscal note of nearly $2 billion. Ellis knocked off Patrick’s amendment by saying it wasn’t germane.
That opening sortie set off a drama between Ellis and Patrick that surfaced again Tuesday afternoon, in which Patrick became the latest in a long line of people to kill a piece of legislation important to the Houston Democrat , the Innocence Commission.
Since Ellis’ bill to create the independent investigative body died in committee, he and House sponsor Senfronia Thompson can only pass it as an amendment. That’s just what Ellis tried to do Monday afternoon, when a legal fee collection bill came up on the Senate floor.
Ironically, the author of HB 3060 is Rep. Aaron Peña, whose committee was the end of the line for Ellis’ original Innocence Commission bill. On the Senate floor Monday afternoon, Ellis was able to amend the bill to provide for the Innocence Commission’s creation. When he tried to tack on another of his dead bills as an amendment — to increase funding for indigent defense — Patrick took notice.
Shortly after Ellis got rid of Patrick’s amendment, Patrick returned the favor, threatening to bring down the entire bill on a point of order if Ellis didn’t remove his amendments. Like Patrick’s property tax amendment, and plenty of other amendments tacked onto bills in the Senate in the last few days, Ellis’ latest amendments weren’t exactly germane to the bill. Rather than risk the entire Peña bill, which was sponsored by popular Democratic freshman Sen. Kirk Watson, Ellis pulled his amendments.
“It wasn’t a tit-for-tat,” Patrick told the Observer Monday afternoon. Patrick said his opposition to the Innocence Commission was already there, and his move didn’t have much to do with the timing. “It just so happened to come up,” he said, before adding, “So, I’m learning the game pretty quickly.”
“I’ll give him credit,” Ellis said, “for killing the Innocence Commission. I’ll take credit for saving the state $1.7 billion.”
When the Senate took up the sprawling homeland security bill Tuesday afternoon, Ellis once again tried to hitch a ride with his Innocence Commission. Once again, Patrick brought it down on a point of order. These guys seem to be feuding.
With wrongful convictions turning up regularly — most notably in Dallas County, and often in rape and murder cases — Texas has plenty to gain from putting extra resources into fixing the system. it’s hard to imagine anyone being opposed, in principle, to trying to lock up fewer of the wrong people.
“The concept has merit,” Patrick says, “But I don’t think the bill as written is right.” Patrick tells us his objections have to do with details of the Innocence Commission as proposed, including the makeup of its membership. He also has basic objection to the commission: “We already have people who handle appeals,” he says. “That’s what the courts are for.”
Ellis brought the Innocence Commission up once more time, re-introducing it again as an amendment to HB 13. This time Patrick said he wouldn’t pursue a point of order against it, and would leave it up to the will of the Senate. The amendment failed on a 15-15 vote.
A week ago, Ellis’ Innocence Commission bill looked like it had a good shot at getting through. Even last Thursday, it had passed out of the Senate on a 21-10 vote, and sat in a heavily Democratic committee in the House. Since then, the commission has been done in four different times, by a committee chairman, two absent committee members, Sen. Dan Patrick, and now half of the Senate body.
For now, any wrongfully convicted people sitting in prison will have to wait for someone at the Capitol more powerful than Sen. Ellis to have a change of heart.
May 26th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
[…] the Innocence Commission died several times this session, things are looking up for the wrongly convicted. The Texas Forensic […]