July 1979
The Ten Best and The Ten Worst Legislators
GLORY BEE! The world at last has gotten a glimpse of the Texas Legislature as we have come to know and love it. Thanks to the Killer Bees, the twelve senators who eluded a statewide search for four days after walking out in opposition to an early presidential primary, everybody now knows what we’ve been saying all along: nobody, but nobody, plays hardball quite as hard as our Legislature, nor has so much fun in the process. Imagine, if you can, a dozen gray-flanneled New England congressmen dodging the FBI, or a band of California legislators going underground in Chinatown … impossible.
But the flight of the Bees may have been a last hurrah for the old days and the old ways. The Texas Legislature, in its 132nd year, is going through a belated change of life. The good-old-boy approach to politics isn’t enough anymore; today’s Texas legislator is more at home with semicolons than six-packs. Consider the issues that tested the 66th Legislature: tax relief, new interest ceilings, penalties for usury, manufacturers’ liability for defective products, the dilemma of how to finance and controlled college construction, wage levels for constructing public projects, weakening the consumer protection law, revising workman’s compensation, plus Sunset, the Legislature’s first real attempt to get a handle on the bureaucracy, plus the presidential primary, plus some perennials (school finance, appropriations, property tax administration) and some leftovers (revisions of strip-mining, clean air, and consumer credit laws).
As if that weren’t enough, the Legislature had to deal with the state’s first Republican governor in a century. Bill Clements asked for initiative and referendum, a ban on state income taxes, wiretapping authority for police, and some other goodies; about all he got was increased budgeting authority. Still, as Texas’ best practitioner of political theatrics since John Connally, Clements managed to come out looking good despite getting virtually nothing he wanted, as opposed to his predecessor, Dolph Briscoe, who usually got everything he wanted and looked terrible.
With all this to think about, any legislator who didn’t have a grasp of finance and credit, who didn’t understand the state’s intricate property tax system, who didn’t know the law, was doomed to the sidelines. For some reason, the murkier the waters, the more lawyers seem to be able to see; and with the waters of the session muddied by so many complex issues, lawyers dominated the session. Although the Legislature’s 181-member roster includes only 75 attorneys, our Ten Best list includes 8. Even the other two have attended law school; they are, not coincidentally, the hardest working members of the House and Senate.
Our criteria, as always, transcended any consideration of political philosophy, for both conservatives and liberals use the same standards to judge their colleagues. A good legislator is intelligent, quick to understand, well prepared, open-minded, and independent. He knows the distinction between firmness and fairness and makes good use of both. He is effective because of his colleagues’ respect, not their fear. He thinks about what’s right—and he is smart enough to know he may be wrong. A bad legislator is more difficult to define: indolence, stupidity, and ineffectiveness can be overlooked if a legislator has enough sense to stay indoors during emergencies. It’s the driver who’s so oblivious that he blocks the road who frequently ends up on the Ten Worst list along with, of course, those occasional ogres who take pleasure in running over people.
We did look closely at one nonpartisan issue in making our determinations. This was the first year of the Sunset process, where state agencies must periodically justify their existence. Every agency up for review this year, 26 in all, would cease to exist if the Legislature did not reestablish them. This provided a golden opportunity to make an agency like the State Board of Morticians more responsive to the public and less a creature of the industry it regulates. In contrast to issues like higher interest rates, where it was debatable where the public interest really lay, Sunset was one of those issues with the public interest on one side and taking care of your friends on the other—and we judged it accordingly.
The Best and Worst lists represented a consensus of our own observations of floor and committee action combined with interviews of legislators, staff, Capitol press, lobbyists, and state agency birddogs who keep their noses close to the Legislature. Our Best list includes six liberal Democrats, two conservative Democrats, and two Republicans—disproportionately strong showings by liberals and Republicans, but a dismal performance by conservatives. Perhaps the state’s political talent, like its population, is piling up in the cities and their suburbs, but the more likely explanation is that conservative Democrats lost too much talent through retirement last season: they were like a football team whose best players had graduated—still a couple of years away from a good year. Chances for a comeback are good, because most of the freshman talent had a decidedly conservative Democratic tinge. Ed Howard (42, Texarkana) was in a class by himself in the Senate, and Bill Messer (28, Belton) and John Sharp (28, Victoria) were the best newcomers in the House. All are conservative Democrats. Lloyd Criss (38, La Marque) was the top liberal arrival, and Ed Emmett (29, Kingwood) led the Republicans. The Worst list was more balanced: four conservative Democrats, three liberals, three Republicans.
In addition to the Ten Best and Ten Worst, there were some near-misses in both directions. Three House committee chairmen deserve honorable mention: Gib Lewis (42, Fort Worth) ran the best committee in the House (Intergovernmental Affiars) and was effective on the floor—unfortunately, too often on behalf of the beer lobby; Bennie Bock (42, New Braunfels) orchestrated the first override of a gubernatorial veto since 1941 and guided park programs through the Environmental Affairs Committee; and Bob Simpson (35, Amarillo) deviated from tradition by running the Insurance Committee as something other than an arm of the insurance industry. Down in the trenches, two committee workers were exceptional: losing Speaker candidate Buddy Temple (37, Dibboll), who instead of nursing his wounds tried to find solutions to some of the session’s thorniest problems on the State Affairs Committee; and Lee Jackson (29, Dallas), whose urban Republicanism was a force on both tax relief and Sunset. In the Senate, Pete Snelson (56, Midland) emerged from the pack on Sunset and education, and Ron Clower (38, Garland) finally lived up to his potential by leading resistance to a separate presidential primary.
On the negative side, a couple of dirty tricksters earned dishonorable mentions. Senator Peyton McKnight (54, Tyler) tried unsuccessfully to get a Houston law firm to fire a woman lobbyist who dates one of his political enemies. In the House, Tim Von Dohlen (35, Goliad) earned the title of most distrusted member: once he used his position on the traffic-directing Calendars Committee to hold up a member’s bill, already approved for floor action, for more than a month while he maneuvered to get his own bill on the same subject out of committee; when he succeeded, he slipped his bill onto the House schedule first—only to have his ears pinned back when the House voted to substitute the rival bill.
Four Bests repeated from 1977: John Bryant, Ron Coleman, Lance Lalor, and Babe Schwartz, who extended his winning streak to four sessions. Jim Nugent and three-time Best Max Sherman moved up in the world, to Railroad Commissioner and West Texas State University president respectively. Wayne Peveto, after twice making the top ten for his efforts to reform property tax administration, finally passed what remained of his much-compromised bill—alas, not very much. Lynn Nabers was a first-rate member when he was interested, which wasn’t often; John Wilson, on the other hand, was always interested but never had a chance—he’s running for Speaker against Clayton in 1981. As for Ray Farabee, whom we expected to replace Sherman as the Senate’s best and most independent member, he still could, but first he has to try.
On the Ten Worst list, only Tom Massey was fitted for a second straight black hat. DeWitt Hale, Chris Miller, and Joe Tom Robbins were ineligible; only Hale’s retirement was voluntary. Bob Davis became the first to make the leap from Worst to Best in one session. Charles Evans didn’t come quite that far, but he was much improved in his new role as chairman of the House committee overseeing Sunset. House Appropriations Committee chairman Bill Presnal ran a tighter ship this session under orders from Fleet Admiral Clayton. We wish we could say that Tom Creighton and Clay Smothers were better; actually, others were just worse. And where is perennial Worst Glenn Kothmann? Well, he sent us word that he wasn’t one of the ten worst. So be it: we accept his plea bargain of eleventh.
The Ten Best
John Bryant, 32, liberal Democrat, Dallas. Opposition standard-bearer in the House, the spiritual leader of the Gang of Four, whose fiery conscience was matched only by his temper. Got off to a terrible start: threw a fit at labor lobbyists, usually his allies, for their support of a utility bill he opposed; appeared to mislead the House—that’s legislative parlance for lying—during the tax relief debate; then violated an unwritten code by suggesting his colleagues had been influenced by the timber lobby’s lavish wining and dining.
