The Texas Observer

When Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst released his list of appointees to the Sunset Advisory Commission last week, there was something of a surprise and — at least to the public, something of a mystery.

The sunset commission makes recommendations for reauthorizing legislation for Texas agencies usually every 12 years. Up for sunset in 2009 are the Texas Department of Transportation, the Texas Youth Commission and its ombudsman, Texas Parks and Wildlife, as well as the Texas Departments of Public Safety, Insurance, and Agriculture (along with a host of others).

The surprise was that Dewhurst decided to further stack this critical body in favor of the GOP — despite the fact that the two senators rotating off the commission are Democrats. Dewhurst replaced Sens. John Whitmire (D-Houston) and Elliott Shapleigh (D-El Paso) with Sens. Glenn Hegar (R-Katy) and Juan ‘Chuy’ Hinojosa (D-Mission). That makes Hinojosa the only Democrat on the senate side. He and Rep. Ruth McClendon (D-San Antonio) are the only Democrats on the 12-member commission, period.

Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin) brought up Dewhurst’s partisan move during his speech to Travis County Democrats Friday night as the party held its biennial campaign kickoff dinner.

“He had to work to avoid appointing a Democrat,” Watson said. He told me this week that he thought it was “wrong” to lose the opportunity to keep “a sense of balance” on the commission. “We need to make sure that all points of view are being addressed,” he said.

The mystery was just who in the heck Dewhurst’s public appointee was (granted, he’s a Republican), but he was announced only as “Mr. Michael Stevens (Public Appointee), Houston, Texas, Chairman, Michael Stevens Interests, Inc.” For those who don’t concern themselves with who gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to the top dogs in the Texas GOP, Stevens’ name appears oddly ‘public’ — seemingly civilian.

However, Stevens, a Houston apartment mogul, is one of the Republicans’ top-five money men. He has lots of experience on state boards and commissions, as well as a history of opposition to rail, and an inner-city ‘revitalization’ agenda in Houston.

“He’s a very smart guy,” says Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston). Coleman said the sunset commission appointment process has always been political.

Stevens also serves or has served on the Greater Houston Partnership, the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, the Houston Housing Finance Corporation, the Governor’s Business Council, the Baylor College of Medicine, and the governor’s task force on appraisal reform. That’s in addition to his work in the 90’s for Texans for True Mobility, the group that tried and failed to sideline commuter rail in Houston, as well as his work for former Houston mayor and former TxDOT chair Bob Lanier on the inner city. Roll Call reported that former U.S. House Speaker Tom DeLay turned to Stevens for counsel when he was worrying about being indicted by Ronnie Earle. Stevens is certainly a player on the grand Texas GOP stage.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of recommendations such a Republican squad will have for agencies like TxDOT and the TYC (and the Texas Racing Commission and Commission on Jail Standards). It’s fair to assume that even the basketcase agencies won’t see the sun set on their operations, but, as Watson noted, this should be an opportunity for reform.

Ever write an e-mail when your blood is running hot, click “send,” and then instantly regret it?

We’ve all been there — and whether the letter’s going to a boss, an ex-girlfriend, or the Capitol press corps, the best course of action is always the same: deny everything.

And if you’re lucky enough to have your own communications staff, blame them instead.

Which is how, on the day after Lt. Gov. Dewhurst got on the fighting side of the entire Senate — when he was probably hoping to lick his wounds and move on — he found himself surrounded by reporters and TV cameras in a corridor, denying that he ever called Democrats’ behavior “an outrage against all Americans,” or said Sen. John Whitmire “tried to make himself a victim” Tuesday.

Parts of the letter, e-mailed to newspapers early this afternoon, sound like someone venting frustration after a rough day. The letter runs the gamut from garden variety voter fraud stats (if yours is a Republican fantasy garden) to disbelief that Senate Democrats could be so obtuse. Dewhurst (or whoever really wrote the letter) lists the possible forms of ID allowed under HB 218, and asks, “What’s so hard about this? Seriously, how can any American argue that this requirement is too onerous?”

Whether these sound like words that came from a frustrated Dewhurst or a frustrated staff member is up to you. Here’s the original letter as a PDF.

“There were things in the letter that I hadn’t seen before, and hadn’t written,” Dewhurst told reporters after the Senate adjourned. “It was a real screw-up on the part of the staff,” he said, later adding: “I ultimately take responsibility.” Just so the record is clear — it wasn’t his fault, except it was. In fact, why not just forget the whole thing ever happened? “Let’s not get too hung up on this,” he suggested.

Good luck, governor. It was poor timing all around when the letter went out, as five TV crews and a packed press table sat around with nothing to report on except the inflamatory letter. Expecting more fireworks to carry over from Tuesday, an extra-large press contingent was on the floor all afternoon, while Senators caucused in private. The made-for-blogging drama played out quickly online.

By the end of the day, Dewhurst’s office had released a revision, with all the rhetoric of the first letter and half the fun. Accompanying the second draft was an apology of sorts for the first letter, admitting that “the paragraph on Senator Whitmire went over the top.” Dewhurst struck a light note, commenting that Whitmire and Dewhurst are in fact very close friends, and that they go hunting together. “We were planning on letting him use a rifle this year,” Dewhurst writes, sounding very gracious, “so I’m especially interested in Whitmire being real friendly with me.”

“He needs to make sure it happens.”

That’s how GOP chairwoman Tina Benkiser, in a March interview with the Austin American-Statesman, described Lt. Gov. Dewhurst’s job when it comes to voter ID legislation.

At the time, Dewhurst resented being put on the spot, but his handling of the bill Tuesday on the Senate floor showed Benkiser had good reason to worry — not about the Lite Guv’s intentions, but about his ability to get the job done.

If he really didn’t care about passing the voter ID bill, and just wanted to pay lip service to the GOP agenda, he had cover. The Democrats’ 11-member opposition would have let Dewhurst watch HB 218 expire with the session. His high regard for the rules of the Senate, he could say, wouldn’t allow him to break the two-thirds rule, or risk stalling the lawmaking process with a filibuster. Unfortunately, a potential future political rival — Sen. Dan Patrick — was on record against the two-thirds rule.

If, however, what he really wanted was to flex his power at the helm of the Senate and ram the bill through, it would have been easy Tuesday, with Sen. Carlos Uresti (D—San Antonio) home sick with the flu during the morning call. With just 10 Democrats around, the path was clear to bring HB 218 to the floor.

Dewhurst’s lead role in spotlight-grabbing legislation, and party priorities like voter ID, are clear signs of someone positioning himself for higher office. We are probably not the only ones watching this session to get a sense of how Dewhurst would fare not only in a campaign for governor but as governor — leadership style, priorities, accomplishments, ability to work with lawmakers. His handling of Jessica’s Law didn’t impress, but Tuesday he did himself one better, managing to alienate an entire body of lawmakers.

Dewhurst was heavy-handed and combative, and picked an unnecessary fight with the Senate’s most senior member. Worst of all for Republicans, his mismanagement of the floor action cost them a golden opportunity at passing HB 218. With Democrats hunkered down in response to the threat, Dewhurst isn’t likely to see another opportunity like Tuesday’s.

His Tom Craddick impression would have won points with GOP leaders if he’d gotten the bill through. What made the day a total loss for Dewhurst was his inability to stay the course, and be the decider, long enough to get the bill to the floor. Dewhurst was by turns lax in his management of the time-critical situation, and conciliatory with those he slighted. By offering a recount vote after taking the time to argue his point, Dewhurst allowed Uresti to reach the floor and make a buzzer-beater vote to block the bill. As with Jessica’s Law, Dewhurst stalled and postured for a while, then finally caved.

Uresti says Dewhurst knew he was home sick Tuesday morning, because he’d called in to the Secretary of the Senate’s office earlier, “out of courtesy. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do, just to let them know,” he says. Dewhurst must also have known Democrats would rush to get Uresti back to the floor, and he didn’t have all day. Still, he let Democratic Senator Eliot Shapleigh quiz the bill’s sponsor, Troy Fraser, on “the history of this issue… into the 1940s, and all of the history of how this hinders the right to vote,” among other questions.

That exchange alone took ten minutes, before Sen. Dan Patrick raised a point of order against debating the bill without voting to consider it. When the vote did come up, Sen. Glen Hegar wasn’t on the floor to vote with other Republicans, something easily prevented by better communication from the top. Benkiser, and other results-oriented GOP leaders, will want to know why Dewhurst saw fit to take his sweet time to finally bring up the bill, and didn’t have his bloc of Republican votes in line.

Instead, to keep his two-thirds Republican majority, Dewhurst took advantage of Democrat John Whitmire’s momentary absence from the floor when the clerk called his name. Whitmire had registered his vote before leaving, as is common practice in the Senate, but Dewhurst said the vote didn’t count.

This casual attitude toward voting — members will register votes with the chair more or less whenever they feel like it, not just when their name is called — has been a way of life in the Senate for years and years. Like suspending the two-thirds rule, Dewhurst’s move Tuesday amounted to breaking the rules, and it left other members wondering if their vote would be the next one Dewhurst refuses to recognize.

“To try and sneak this in was taken as a shot across the bow at just about every senator,” says Jeremy Warren, communications director for Sen. Rodney Ellis (D—Houston). “I’d be shocked if it doesn’t reverberate throughout the session.”

Whitmire put it more succinctly to Dewhurst on the Senate floor. “Y’all don’t have to win this way,” the Senator said. At Whitmire’s objections, Dewhurst first tried a lame attempt at saying he was just following the rules. “We called your name several times. I gaveled the vote,” Dewhurst said — an argument about as convincing as “No passbacks, times two!” on the playground.

After threatening to have Whitmire removed from the floor, Dewhurst had a shaky grip on his composure. He mistakenly called Fraser “Dean,” (Whitmire’s title) instead of “Senator,” he slammed the gavel down to coax senators into their seats, and his voice quavered as he offered a second roll call vote.

All of which allowed Uresti to make it onto the Senate floor just in time to vote with the Democrats. He had missed seeing just how badly Dewhurst bungled things before his arrival, so Uresti says he was surprised that when he walked to his chair — his two raised fingers killing consideration of the bill — he heard a few members whisper, “Thanks for being here,” and “Thanks for making it,” as he passed. They were Republicans.

Back in April we wondered whether long-overdue water legislation promoting conservation and environmental flows would get caught in the crosshairs of a fight over designating new reservoirs. Damn, we hate being right.

Here’s how Speaker Tom Craddick explained the situation in a statement a week ago: “The House already passed two of the three major components of SB 3, environmental flows (HB 3) and water conservation (HB 4), and we are waiting on the Senate to act on them. There is only one major statewide water issue left for the House to consider, reservoir designation, which is more controversial in nature.”

He goes on: “SB 3 is broad in nature and has the potential to extend well beyond its intent. Additionally, it was amended in committee with changes deemed negative by reservoir advocates. If the Senate would send over its [stand-alone] reservoir designation bill [SB 675], there would still be an opportunity to reach a possible compromise on this issue.”

So, Lite Guv Dewhurst wants the House to take up his water omnibus bill, SB 3, while Craddick prefers a piecemeal approach. Dewhurst is holding up HB 3 and HB 4 in the Senate and Craddick has SB 3 as a hostage in the House. Now, don’t get bogged down in the alphabet soup of bills here. Suffice it to say, this a silly standoff that’s jeopardizing the non-controversial conservation and environmental flows components. Putting off this much-needed and sensible water policy, which has virtually no public opposition, for another two years is utter folly.

Craddick and Dewhurst don’t disagree on the issues; they both favor new reservoirs and are not opposed to the conservation and environmental flows components. This is all about politics and who gets the credit for major legislation. Dewhurst wants to have a big, impressive water package he can campaign on when he runs for governor. Craddick is just being doltish.

“What’s going on here is a little bit of jockeying for bragging rights between the House and the Senate and the leadership of the bodies,” said Ken Kramer of the Sierra Club.

Craddick probably also fears what may ensue if SB 3 were to hit the floor. In the Democratic-controlled House Natural Resources committee, SB 3 was stripped of four reservoirs, including the controversial Marvin Nichols and Lake Fastrill, and language was added that would require reservoir builders to make encumbrance payments to landowners flooded out of their property. The water suppliers and Chamber of Commerce types in North Texas - the main forces behind the reservoirs - hate this concept because it could make building new lakes prohibitively expensive. They want their dams and don’t give a damn that the rest of the state views Dallas-Fort Worth and the surrounding ‘burbs as greedy, St. Augustine-lawn-loving water hogs.

A floor fight would almost certainly ensue over these issues, pitting Dallas-Forth Worth representatives like Rep. Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas) against rural East Texas lawmakers such as Rep. Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton (R-Mauriceville) and Rep. Stephen Frost (D-New Boston). Amendments would fly like confetti. At this point in the game - with his power in tatters - that’s probably more than Craddick could stomach. Craddick has until next Tuesday to schedule a debate for SB 3.

Kramer says he’s still optimistic. “I really believe that at the end of the day we’re going to have [passed] at least the environmental flows legislation and I hope the conservation legislation.”

UPDATE: Rep. Puente told the Observer earlier today that SB 3 is expected on the floor either this Friday or early next week. He said certain groups have reached a compromise on the reservoirs issue, relieving the stalemate. Specifically, the Texas Farm Bureau, the Cattlemen’s Association and other landowner interests have found a middle ground they can live with in regards to property owner protections. Puente expects enough votes to put Marvin Nichols and Lake Fastrill back into the bill. “It’s an ominous and omnibus bill,” Puente remarked. That’s because every rep with a foundering water bill is going to try to attach it to SB 3.

Last week, Jessica’s Law was gathering dust in the Senate without popular support from senators, and the budget conference committee was stalled because Lt. Gov. Dewhurst hadn’t named his conferees. Skeptics wondered, as BurkaBlog reported, if the lite guv wasn’t holding the budget hostage to his “Texas tough” pet project.

Dewhurst put an end to such ridiculous speculation today, by naming his delegates to the budget conference committee (Ogden, Zaffirini, Duncan, Whitmire and Williams) on the day after senators passed House Bill 8, Jessica’s Law, 30-1. Glad we cleared that up.

The House sent HB 8 over to the Senate in early March, after it was rushed through the committee process and passed overwhelmingly on the floor. The hype quickly deflated once the ball was in Dewhurst’s court. From March 6 to April 24, the bill sat untouched in the Senate, while its sponsor, Sen. Bob Deuell let Dewhurst do his best to take the lead.

If this is one of the accomplishments Dewhurst is planning to campaign on someday, it’s also given us an interesting look at the kind of governor he’d make. Largely unresponsive to prosecutors and victims’ groups, for one. For another, he proved capable of sucking the wind from of a measure that was fast-tracked through the House. Until yesterday, he was just about the only one in the Capitol who couldn’t get his enhancement bill passed.

After months of insisting that the bill include 25-year mandatory minimums for child sex offenders, he softened his stance a little over the weekend, giving prosecutors a choice in whether to pursue the longer penalty. The death penalty language in the bill was reworded over the weekend as well.

To be eligible for the death penalty under the Senate’s version of the bill, a criminal must twice commit a child sex crime with a weapon involved, or by kidnapping — a “super-aggravated crime”, as Shannon Edmonds of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association puts it. “Frankly, I think most prosecutors would be fine if the death penalty wasn’t in there at all,” he says.

The circumstances for offering the death penalty are different in the House version, which ties it to repeat cases of “continuous sexual abuse of a child.” In practical terms, it’s unlikely either will produce many new death sentences, but nobody really knows for sure because states only recently started to make some sex offenses capital crimes. “There’s no way to know how the cases are going to flesh out in court, or how often they’re going to apply,” Edmonds says.

Applying the death penalty at all in child sex abuse cases is of dubious constitutionality (though probably even less constitutional under the House version), and across the country just one person has been sent to death row under a Jessica’s Law-type penalty. The Supreme Court ruled against the death penalty in a rape case 30 years ago, but has yet to hear a case where the crime involved a child. Smart move, then, to play up the less measurable impact of the law as a deterrence in the official press release.

Still, walking away from this legislative ordeal with the the death penalty in there at all is a win for Dewhurst, who can tell voters in 2010 that he’s the toughest one of all. Who’s going to remember three years from now how weak he looked trying to get the law passed?

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst shared the stage with Gov. Rick Perry at a “Pastor’s Policy Briefing” of the Texas Restoration Project on the night before they were inaugurated. Modeled after similar organizations that have sprung up in Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Florida and Minnesota, the Texas Restoration Project is designed to get pastors and congregations on the religious right involved in the political process. If Dewhurst runs for governor, he’ll be depending on organizations like this to help put him in the Governor’s Mansion.

About 1,500 pastors from around the state were scheduled to attend the briefing, but only about 700 showed up because of bad weather. The project picked up the bill for hotel, dinner and breakfast, a hefty tab that could run into thousands of dollars. The organizers of the Texas Restoration Project have consistently refused to say who the project’s
funders are.

In his speech, Dewhurst heaped praise upon the pastors, saying that without their support Texas would have been unable to pass laws aimed at curbing abortion and keeping prayer in the schools. But no mercy should be extended to child molesters, he said. “And God forbid, if these monsters molest a child a second time, prosecutors can seek the death penalty. Two strikes and you’re out forever.” The transcript from the speech follows.

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