The Ten Best and Ten Worst Legislators
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Among the committee’s grosser excesses: it jacked up one pork barrel program from $2 million to $20 million, proposed to pay off a junior college’s bank loan, and scattered new public jobs around the state – in committee members’ districts. No one carried away more booty than Presnal himself, who saw that Texas A&M and Bryan got everything possible. The final bill had more blubber than a fat farm; one member of the Clayton team called it “the worst appropriations bill that’s ever been reported.”
Dismayed Clayton by his abdication of responsibility; the House came close to outright rebellion when a move to send the bill back to committee failed by only five votes. The House was then treated to the unprecedented exhibition of the Appropriations Committee chairman leading the assault on his own bill; rarely in politics is so much dirty linen given so public a washing.
When not up to his elbows in pork, was up to his neck in hot water. Sponsored a bill prohibiting a bank from moving from one county to another, even with state banking board permission – an effort to block a Hearne bank from moving to the Bryan area, where Presnal owns stock in a bank. Tried to split the private employment industry’s regulatory board from the Bureau of Labor Standards; the move collapsed following the revelation that Presnal’s brother lobbies for employment agencies.
Not a bad person, but just natural furniture who should never have been expected to be anything else, not even when given the most powerful position in the Legislature. Seldom has mediocrity been so well rewarded since Caligula appointed his horse Consul.
Joe Tom Robbins, 42, Republican, Lubbock. A wire-to-wire worst. Like the comic book character Jow Btfsplk, seemed to attract disaster. Jumped the gun six weeks before the session started by getting arrested in Austin for public drunkenness and impersonating a police officer while celebrating the end of an orientation session for incoming legislators. By the time the Legislature convened, was already written off as a joke; spent the session alone at his desk, avoided assiduously by other legislators as though he were carrying bubonic plague.
Nor did things get any better. The first legislator to be spotted violating the House rules by voting for an absent member; everyone does it, but the hapless Robbins naturally got caught. A local bill implementing one of his major campaign issues proved so unpopular back home that he had to drop it. Another of his bills would have provided mandatory imprisonment for first offenders; had Robbins’ bill passed it could have produced the memorable result of ensnaring the author as one of its first victims.
Continued to bumble his way through the session. Took a firm – and courageous – stand in committee against recalling Texas’ ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, then tried to mend fences with anti-ERA forces by voting against a pilot program for displaced homemakers; he only made both sides mad. A local bill he carried for Texas Tech had to be lobbied through the committee after the bill’s backers were warned, “Don’t let Robbins testify, he’ll screw it up”; when the bill came up on the local and uncontested calendar, Robbins was nowhere to be seen, and another member had to pass the bill for him.
The two most prevalent comments among other members and lobbyists: “I don’t know him” and “I feel sorry for him.” Overcame long odds to make the Ten Worst list: didn’t even run in the Republican primary, but the winner left town and the loser voted in the Democratic primary, making him ineligible to represent the GOP. The local party had to name someone to face a highly favored Democrat, and some inspiration led them to pick Robbins. What they got was, in the words of one amused lobbyist, “probably the first member in history who was already a lame duck the day he was sworn in.”
Clay Smothers, 42, conservative Democrat, Dallas. One newspaper described him as a black Archie Bunker; a black Theodore Bilbo would be more accurate. An old-fashioned demagogue who proved that harangues and diatribes know no color boundaries.
On the Ten Worst list not for what he said, but for the way he said it. Represents a legitimate constituency – conservative blacks – who badly need a rational voice in the political arena; Smothers, however, wasn’t it. Never took the microphone expect to prattle about his pet peeves, such as homosexuals and the Equal Rights Amendment (“I am against blacks, Mexicans, women, Indians, and queers talking to me about their rights”).
Betrayed as a demagogue by his failure to do his homework. Trying to rebut arguments that capital punishment discriminates against minorities, claimed that death row was predominantly inhabited by blacks because most murder victims are black – then was embarrassed when someone pointed out that no blacks are on death row for killing other blacks. Before a vote on increasing welfare benefits, took the microphone to denounce welfare cheats – only to be informed that Texas has the lowest rate of welfare fraud in the country. Enrages other blacks not so much by what he says, but by violating legislative courtesy in refusing to yield to their questions.
Strictly a headline seeker and a publicity hound. Lost previous races for the House (1970), Senate (1972), vice president (finished fourth in the 1972 Democratic balloting after nominating himself), Dallas City Council (1973), State Board of Education (1974), and mayor of Caney City (1975): what unlucky star caused the 65th Legislature to be the first political body rewarded with his presence? Smothers’ next goal: lieutenant governor, just to prove that a black can win a state-wide race. Perhaps Texas hasn’t come far enough for Barbara Jordan to break the ice, but surely it has come too far for Clay Smothers.
SPECIAL AWARDS
Bridge Over Troubled Waters
On his first day on the Texas Legislature in 1973, George T. “Mickey” Leland (32, Houston) wore a Tanzanian national dress coat and beads. With his blue eyes, goatee, and red Afro, he prompted many Texas politicians to muse on the apocalypse; it turned out to be closer to the millennium. When, at the close of the 1977 session, Leland addressed his colleagues wearing a three-piece pin-striped suit, he stood before the House as its best-like member – and more important, its conscience. In the course of pragmatically changing his own dress, this former Black Panther ally has enlarged and expanded the political process by bringing the turbulent issues of race and poverty off the streets and into the House chamber.
His style is his strength: he throws verbal barbs at his fellow legislators for what he feels is their indifference to humanitarian issues, then heals the wounds with the balm of humor. Leland misses few opportunities for either passion (which gets him in trouble for being too emotional) or horseplay (which pulls him out before he gets in too deep). If someone needs to speak up for Texans on welfare or to quiet a demagogue with a water pistol, count on Mickey Leland for both.
Like all politicians, he doesn’t always win, but unlike a long line of Texas liberals, white and black, he does win his share – especially on the powerful Appropriations Committee, where he fought successfully for black colleges and the first increase in welfare benefits since 1969. He is a voice in the political process for people who had none, and he uses it without selling out or alienating his conservative colleagues. He has only begun to grow; no one in the House would be harder to replace.
Missing In Action
Two of the Legislature’s more able members, both of whom have appeared on previous Ten Best lists, came nowhere close to making the list this time. In fact, for much of the session, they were nowhere close to Austin.
Craig Washington (35, Houston) is an overpoweringly strong, charismatic member – on the rare occasion he is in town. He put on one of the best performances of the session during its last two hours, narrowing Clayton’s procedural options on school finance with a devastating series of parliamentary inquiries. But for much of the session he was nowhere to be seen – unless you happened to look in Houston, where Washington was practicing law. He missed the roll call so frequently that on his return from a long absence he was introduced to the House as “a distinguished former member.”
Sarah Weddington (32, Austin) played hookey with more style. Early in the session she repeatedly “walked” to avoid key votes; later she was out running errands during debate on her own amendment to raise welfare payments to children; finally, when the going got tough in the final two weeks, she opted for a vacation to China. The reaction of her constituents, like the cuisine she was savoring, was hot and sour.
There were also combat casualties most notably 1979 Speaker candidate Buddy Temple (35, Diboll) and his chief lieutenant Luther Jones (30, El Paso). Since Clayton is seeking a third term, both Temple and Jones spent this session as prisoners of war.
Furniture
The term “furniture” first came into use around the Legislature to describe members who, by virtue of their indifference or ineffectualness, were indistinguishable from their desks, chairs, and inkwells. It is now used, casually and more generally, to identify the most inconsequential members.
The Furniture List for the 65th Legislature:
HOUSE
New Furniture:
William Blanton, Carrollton
Betty Denton, Waco
Tom Martin, George West
Pete Patterson, Brookston
Lou Nelle Sutton, San Antonio
Robert Valles, El Paso
Used Furniture:
Jim Clark, Pasadena
Tony Garcia, Pharr
Joe Hernandez, San Antonio
Elmer Martin, Colorado City
Ed Mayes, Granbury
T. H. McDonald, Sr., Mesquite
David Stubbeman, Abilene
Ruben Torres, Brownsville
Leroy Wieting, Portland
Reupholstered Furniture:
Charles Finnell, Holliday
SENATE
Betty Andujar, Fort Worth
Frank Lombardino, San Antonio
Lindon Williams, Houston
My Library
