A Children’s Treasury of Jonathan Stickland’s Adventures in the 84th Lege

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Above: Rep. Jonathan Stickland speaking at the 2015 Lincoln Day Dinner for the Tarrant County Republican Party in Fort Worth, Texas.

 

When news came on Thursday that state Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford) had been physically ejected from a meeting of the House Committee on Transportation by its chairman, state Rep. Joe Pickett (D-El Paso), over what the latter alleges was a bizarre and pointless plan to falsify witness lists in support of one of Stickland’s bills, it was totally unsurprising to Stickland’s many fans at the Capitol. And yet the tale was also totally delightful—like a cool mountain breeze, or the sun on a warm winter day.

In a session replete with clown shows—Kory Watkins’ annexation of state Rep. Poncho Nevarez’s office seems so distant now that it feels as part of a lost childhood, like a Madeleine cake—Stickland has delivered over and over again, one of the state’s most unbeatable and unproductive generators of tomfoolery. He’s underappreciated, though. Thanks to the intense resentment he’s garnered from his fellow legislators and lege-watchers, people aren’t giving him enough credit as a wholly unique practitioner of Lege performance art.

To that end, and to lend a sort of scientific respectability to the admittedly unscientific art of Stickland-watching, I propose a new metric to be introduced in the evaluation of his near-constant gaffes and schemes: the Stickland Number. We can find the Stickland Number by dividing the volume of Stickland’s shenanigans, judged on a scale from 1 to 10, by the extent to which the shenanigans helped Stickland advance his policy priorities, as judged on the same scale, like so:

(Stickland’s shenanigans / Stickland’s impact)

Here’s just a few of the many wonderful things Stickland has done for the benefit of the Austin press corps during the last four months:

—Jonathan Stickland: Winter is Coming

The session started off pretty slow for Stickland, actually. Yes, he was the Legislature’s only real friend of the open carry wackos who freaked everyone out in January. He spoke at their rallies. He raged against committee assignments when they appeared to threaten his bill, and he was accused of baiting the loonies threatening Nevarez.

Not much came of it, but it’s still a crucial part of Stickland’s origin story for the 84th, like when Bruce Wayne’s parents got shot. “We’re told we need to respect the process,” Stickland told the Houston Chronicle, “but I can’t respect the process if it doesn’t allow all legislation to be heard.” Foreshadowing!

Shenanigans: Mild. 2.
Stickland’s impact: His bill was dead anyway. 1.
Stickland Number: 2.

—Jonathan Stickland, Proud Ex-Baby

Stickland recovered from early setbacks with a great plan to make a stand: He took a sign from Texas Right to Life and posted it outside his House office.

News and pictures of the sign eventually appeared in national news outlets, giving some Americans their first taste of Stickland. Lucky them. But before long, Stickland’s nemesis, state Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Ft. Worth), came round to take down the sign—or, as Stickland has it, his sign was “ripped down and thrown in my staffer’s face.” The walls of the Capitol, Geren said, are not there to be decorated like some teenager’s bedroom. Geren, the head of House Administration, denied charges that he had aggressively intimidated Stickland’s staff. “If Stickland wants to act like a child, that’s fair, but I did not rip it down,” he said. But Stickland was having none of it, he told the Austin American-Statesman:

“I think the Kumbaya is about to be over,” Stickland said. “It’s time to start telling the voters where we stand. I think people are beginning to get anxious.” […] “We are about to start cutting each other to shreds,” he said.

Shenanigans: Stickland won some nice press with this. “Cutting each other to shreds?” 6.
Stickland’s impact: Nothing was accomplished. 1.
Stickland Number: 6.

—Jonathan Stickland’s Night of the Long Knives
Shortly after signgate, the House met to consider its budget. Stickland was ready for battle. Past is prelude. He’d finally shiv House leadership, and they’d come to understand their mistake, in time. He warned the Dallas Morning News of the trouble to come:

“A lot of people are frustrated that their legislation isn’t moving. They’re going to try to put their bills on the budget,” said Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, who filed several amendments on illegal immigration. “It’ll be a bloody day on the House floor,” he said.

While the night was long, no blood came. Most votes were not even close. Stickland gave up, or he was outmaneuvered. One exception: at 2 in the morning, Stickland took to the back mic to make one of the more important and principled stands against big government we’ve seen thus far this session. He wanted to cut the budget for the feral hog abatement program.

Government, he said, couldn’t solve our problems—not even the hog problem. Long live hog, said Stickland. Feral hogs are a collective, like the Borg. But Stickland wanted us to fight them as individuals. Foolish. Only seven reps voted with Stickland, meaning the hog blood, at least, will continue to flow.

Shenanigans: Stickland gave up. 2.
Stickland’s impact: Same number of dead hogs as before. 1.
Stickland Number: 2.

—Jonathan Stickland is No Cheap Date, Charlie 

After the budget fight, Stickland begin using a new tactic. This would be much more effective. The House has something called a Local and Consent calendar, through which uncontroversial bills can be passed quickly. Stickland’s plan was to slow it down for no real reason and ask a lot of questions whenever he saw a potentially problematic bill, then let it pass anyway, something that would surely win him many friends in a chamber where most people are counting down the seconds till they can go back to The Cloak Room. Could anything drag Stickland away from the back mic? Our long-suffering superhero’s archenemy had a plan:

CHARLIE GEREN used OATMEAL COOKIE! It’s not very effective

Shenanigans: Should Geren stop bullying Stickland? Probably. Should Stickland step to the mic less? Also probably. 4.
Stickland’s impact: All involved lost precious minutes of our lives, like sands slipping through the hourglass, as we march relentlessly toward the grave. 1.
Stickland Number: 4.

—Jonathan Stickland Gets Respect

When an open carry bill finally came up for a vote in the House, Stickland was incensed. The bill required a license to carry a gun in public. He had planned for months to offer an amendment to nuke the gun license.

But House leadership wouldn’t recognize his amendment, claiming it wasn’t germane to the bill, a procedural requirement. Was it really, or were the guys in charge kicking Stickland in the shins? Stickland took to the mic to protest.

He railed against House leadership in a 10-minute angry tirade, asking state Rep. Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton), manning the House dais, why he had been railroaded all session long. In one beautiful moment, he was asked by Bonnen to bring his objections to the front of the House, to discuss them with the parliamentarian. His answer: “How has that worked out for me so far?”

But at one particularly climactic moment in his speech—essentially, Stickland saying, “No, YOU’RE out of order!”—the tide turned in Stickland’s favor. Cheering and applause could suddenly be heard in the House. It was like a movie.

But it wasn’t from the legislators. It was from elementary school kids in the gallery, during a Capitol tour. With presumably no idea what the fight was about, they found themselves moved solely by Stickland’s passion. Finally, somebody who speaks his language.

Shenanigans: Stickland at his most cinematic. 5.
Stickland’s impact: Children are our future, but they can’t vote. Also, amendment killed. 1.
Stickland Number: 5.

—Jonathan Stickland and the Battle of Pickett’s Charge

Things came to a head on Thursday. Has our heat-packing hero met his match?

As with any good bout, the battle began with one pugilist messing with the other’s head. When Stickland tried to derail a Pickett bill giving Federal Reserve security officers limited law enforcement powers in Texas, which was set to sail through the Local & Consent calendar—yes, he’s still doing that—Pickett came prepared. He walked to the back mic to give Stickland a large-font printout of his bill with two carefully drawn stick figures—one labeled “good guy” and one labeled “bad guy”-to illustrate the intent of the bill.

Inappropriate? Maybe. But that was nothing compared to what happened later in Pickett’s committee. Pickett and another rep slowly came to the realization that a lot of the people who signed up as witnesses to support one of Stickland’s bills, a ban on city red-light cameras, weren’t actually at the Capitol or even in Austin. That means someone had to sign them up—a potentially illegal act. (All witnesses who testify or register positions on bills have to sign up personally and swear an oath the information they provide is correct.)

When Stickland came to the mic to introduce his bill, Pickett began calling the fake witnesses on the phone, revealing that they couldn’t have signed themselves up to testify on the bill. And then, sputtering fury commenced. Pickett and Stickland began arguing. And Pickett had Stickland physically ejected from the meeting by House security. You can watch one video of the ejection here. (The meeting was taped officially, but that hasn’t been released yet.)

This is the quintessential Stickland Event: A tremendous amount of preparation and planning and noise and fury for no reward at all, even if the thing had worked. The number of witnesses had no material bearing on whether the bill would ultimately be passed. And because of the false sign-ins, a House ethics body is now investigating, with potentially serious consequences for those involved. (Stickland denies he knew anything about it.)

Shenanigans: Be more chill, man. 9.
Stickland’s impact: Bill dead, as it probably was already. Did Stickland or his staff expose him or his supporters to perjury charges? 1.
Stickland Number: 9.

I, for one, am excited to see what the next month holds.