The Ten Best and The Ten Worst Legislators
(Page 5 of 7)
As idle as a car engine permanently in neutral. Sat by and watched his committee deteriorate into the most inept panel in the House. So many Agriculture and Livestock bills were shot down on the floor that sometimes it seemed as though the committee was conducting a skeet shoot: bill-killers like Ron Coleman and Bob Davis would say, “Pull,” and the committee would send up another clay pigeon. Among the targets: a proposal to regulate plant nurseries, a prohibition against purchase of agricultural land by nonresident aliens, and a ban on meat imports that was so badly drafted it would have prevented Texas beef that was processed out of state from being shipped back in. “When a committee loses that many bills on the floor,” said a veteran legislator, “it means the chairman and the staff aren’t doing their job.”
Virtually invisible outside of committee—except in the House post office where, as an ex-postmaster, he liked to tell employees how to go about their business. Had no influence on the floor, where, said a colleague, “He’d vote against the roll call if he could.” Shunned the microphone as though it contained colonies of fire ants.
True to character, tried to avoid holding a hearing on a farmworkers bill he opposed—but his committee objected. After the hearing Green refused to call for a vote, and without waiting for a motion, sent the bill to its death in a subcommittee and gaveled the meeting to a close. It was the worst abuse of power of the session, and from the unlikeliest source: the one time he was unable to avoid action, he got in trouble.
Bill Hollowell, 50, conservative Democrat, Grand Saline. First served in the Legislature during 1957-1967; it’s changed but he hasn’t. on the Ten Worst list not just for his archaic states-rights rhetoric—when he gets up to speak, members put a small Confederate flag on the podium—but also because his work on the House Appropriations Committee repeatedly required undoing by his colleagues.
Could have performed a true public service by joining the small minority of fiscal conservatives on the committee who resisted logrolling and porkbarreling; instead, wasted his energies trying to inject his prejudices into the state budget. Succeeded in prohibiting the Commission on the Arts and Humanities from spending money on jazz festivals; the restriction was removed on the floor, but not until it became the only piece of legislation all session to be openly condemned as racist. Tried to abolish a federally funded program to encourage the use of food stamps—had he succeeded, the state would have been disqualified from the entire federal food stamp program.
Other programs Hollowell shot at and missed: UT faculty salaries (he described UT’s endowment as a “slush fund”); abortions for welfare mothers who are victims of rape or incest (he made good his threat to vote against the entire appropriations bill if the state was allowed to be, as he put it, a “coconspirator to murder”); the Land Office’s environmental management division (“We don’t need any more management of the environment”); and the state program to combat child abuse. Hollowell was also rebuffed when he insisted that the state provide legislators with free license plates, exactly the sort of excess everyone else knew was out of step in a belt-tightening year.
Once respected—in spite of such antics—for doing his homework, Hollowell showed signs of slipping this session. Railed against an insignificant election bill because he read an analysis saying that before the law could take effect, it would have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice. As the bill’s sponsor pointed out, this was nothing new—it’s been happening since 1975, when Congress put Texas under the Voting Rights Act.
Like the chorus in a Greek tragedy, he kept issuing sober precepts of morality that the actors ignored. Opposed a constitutional amendment allowing churches to hold bingo games with “Jesus chased the money changers from the temple. I have no indication that Christ ever changed his mind. I cast my vote for Him.” The House, perhaps with more current information, cast its vote for bingo.
Despite his outbursts, House liberals have a soft spot for Hollowell because he accepts no campaign contributions and its totally free of the lobby. It only goes to show that integrity is not enough.
Tom Massey, 48, conservative Democrat, San Angelo. Public Enemy Number One, the most hated member of the House as the result of his high-handed, arbitrary chairmanship of the Committee on Calendars. In his previous incarnation last session, Massey made the Ten Worst list for his high-handed, arbitrary chairmanship of the Public Education Committee. Unfortunately, Clayton’s solution to the Massey problem was to take last session’s localized disease and allow it to infect the entire House. Massey had the most sensitive job imaginable—life or death power over which bills reached the floor—and proved singularly unfit for it.
Every bill that came to Calendars for scheduling had already been approved by a working committee; yet Massey insisted that his panel was a supercommittee with the right to judge each bill anew and even force amendments—though Calendars conducted no hearings, heard no testimony, made no studies, and under House rules had a purely procedural role. The journey from committee to the floor through Calendars became the most hazardous since Viet Nam’s Route 1 from Hue to Da Nang. The very first bill filed this session was approved by the Agriculture Committee on February 23 and arrived in Calendars the next day. It was never seen again.
Liked to characterize himself as a bill killer whose committee blockaded what he called “bad, sorry bills”; House members, however, characterized him a little differently: “He’s a sorry, no-good liar,” groused a Clayton team loyalist after Massey rescinded a promise to schedule a bill. In fact, it was bad, sorry bills that had the least trouble slipping through Massey’s net; once he even interrupted a hearing to ask a lobbyist if he wanted a bill on the next day’s calendar. Thanks largely to his work, an unprecedented number of bills were overwhelmingly defeated in floor debate; several got fewer than 20 votes out of 150.
So intoxicated with power that he almost lost control of his own committee by claiming to have jurisdiction over local and uncontested bills, which are the province of a different scheduling committee; refused the request of several legislators to look at his committee logs, forcing them to appeal under the Open Records Act, a breach of legislative decorum no less vulgar than spitting on the House floor.
By the end of the session almost no one would deal with Massey anymore. One measure of his standing came on the last night, when Massey, who considers himself something of an authority on water law, tried—with some justification to kill a local Harris County water district bill because he had been excluded from compromise discussions. When the results appeared on the voting board—Massey lost by over a hundred votes—the House broke into spontaneous cheers.
Bill Meier, 38, conservative Democrat, Euless. The most notorious carrier since Typhoid Mary. Carried a legislative program so anti-consumer it did everything but make caveat emptor the eleventh commandment. Passed the session’s most maligned bill, which he claimed would balance the state’s deceptive-trade law; his remedy was about as balanced as the federal budget. Would also have had the second most maligned bill, but critics were silenced prematurely when he couldn’t muster the votes to restrict the consumer’s right to sue for injuries caused by defective products. Handled yet another controversial bill raising the ceiling on home mortgage interest rates.
Masqueraded as one who would advance the cause of conservatism; in fact, his cause was himself. Unlike John Dean’s, Meier’s ambition was not blind. Widely thought to covet the lieutenant governor’s job if Bill Hobby moves on in 1982, and chose his legislation accordingly: his bills were backed by realtors, auto dealers, retailers, and savings and loan associations—prominent groups in every community, a natural statewide constituency. Followed a pattern he’d established as chairman of the fledgling Sunset Commission before the session began, when he gutted recommendations for more public accountability in order to score points with lawyers, CPAs, morticians, and other potential blocs of votes.
It wasn’t just the bills he carried that earned Meier his stigma; it was how he carried them. Unlike House sponsors of the same bills, ignored fair play and compromise; knew which side his bread was buttered on and developed too fond an appetite for the dish. Agreed to negotiate but refused to yield, like a child who reluctantly comes out to play but won’t share his toys. Knew the Senate was “so lobbied it was wrapped,” in the words of a lobbyist who helped tie the bow; once his colleagues had committed themselves to support his deceptive-trade bill, he held their feet to the fire—even though some of them didn’t like the heat. Had Meier budged just a little, his colleagues could have taken credit for improving the bill; instead, House members got the opportunity and made the most of it. Meier’s intransigence won him admirers among the lobby, but some of his colleagues were not so pleased.
The sad thing is that Meier represents a double loss: not just a bad senator but a good one gone to seed. One of the Ten Best in 1973 when we praised him as open-minded, highly accessible, and never dogmatic. My, how things change.
Bob Price, 51, Republican, Pampa. If the Senate were a horse race, nobody would bet on him. Slow out of the gate, weak down the stretch, a nice guy who, true to form, finished last.
Senate staffers and lobbyists collected and swapped Price stories like old coins; most involved his work in committee, where every meeting seemed like his first. In the Human Resources Committee, he professed bafflement at the strange look of bills, with repealed language crossed out and new language underlined—despite the fact that the same procedure is used in Congress, where he served for eight years.
My Library
