The Ten Best and The Ten Worst Legislators
Nineteen people you voted for and one you didn’t.
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Sponsored other important pro-business legislation, including a bill to tighten eligibility for unemployment benefits and a stillborn proposal to allow companies to self-insure for on-the-job injuries, but maintained his credibility by not advancing blatant special-interest trash. Few conservatives have kept such a close eye on the line that divides defensible public policy from just helping your buddies.
Like Democrats Phil Gramm and Charles Stenholm in the Texas congressional delegation, Messer considers philosophy more important than party and doesn’t hesitate to say so. Sided with Republican efforts to unseat Dallas liberal congressmen Jim Mattox and Martin Frost; when U.S. House majority leader Jim Wright of Forth Worth came to a private meeting on their behalf, Messer responded with a ringing denunciation of the national Democratic party that left Wright red-faced and speechless.
Not a mossback—voted to eliminate the ceiling on welfare payments and to give Prairie View A&M a share of the Permanent University Fund—but still viewed by die-hard liberals as their most dangerous adversary in the House. It doesn’t help them sleep any easier to know that Messer is already being touted as a future Speaker.
Pete Snelson, 58, conservative Democrat, Midland. Not flashy, but a devotee of Grover Cleveland’s maxim that honor lies in honest toil. Involved in more worthy projects than any member of the Senate this session, and in no unworthy ones. Regards special-interest legislation and bad ol’ bills as untouchables; in the words of a business lobbyist, “It’s awfully hard to find any flies on Pete.”
Took over as committee chairman of Education, a frustrating area of policy that is a legislative Big Thicket. Other senators have wasted whole careers trying to find a way out of the swamp; Snelson not only kept his bearings but actually emerged with a few alligator hides. Passed the best social legislation of the session, an early childhood intervention program to help children with learning disorders achieve normal development. Also shepherded school finance and a “back-to-basics” curriculum bill. Walked the session’s shakiest tightrope over bilingual education. With Texas under a court order to expand the program, Snelson knew the Legislature had to respond with a bill to keep the schools from falling into the clutches of the federal judiciary; at the same time he opposed any program that didn’t have the primary purpose of turning Spanish speakers into English speakers. Under threats from bilingual proponents to abandon their bill and leave Texas at the mercy of the courts, Snelson found a compromise, building a bridge while everyone else was sill staring at the chasm.
As if that weren’t enough, Snelson took on the added burden of redistricting the Senate; his plan managed to satisfy 24 of the 31 pickiest people in the universe. Succeeded because his virtues are straight out of Psychology Today: openness, honesty, no hidden agenda.
Said by Senate insiders to be Bill Hobby’s personal choice as the best in the Senate this session, which figures: Snelson mirrors Hobby’s strengths and weaknesses. He is someone with total integrity and sweeping policy interests, but he has no taste for hand-to-hand combat; he may not sponsor bad bills but neither does he fight them. It’s time he—and Hobby—got started.
Craig Washington, 39, Democrat, Houston. How to do justice to Craig Washington? Only by saying that he had the best session of any legislature in recent memory, a session for the ages. Washington is that rarest of political animals, an idealist without illusions. He’s tough, shrewd, dauntless, but blessed with an uncanny grace of manner, an ability to disguise the seriousness of his work with charm. A spellbinding orator who never pontificates or harangues, he wins admirers even when he loses battles.
Started the session with a hoard of political chips he won by supporting Billy Clayton during his Brilab trial and later in the Speaker’s race against John Bryant. Still had enough left at the end to win significant concessions for urban Democrats during the redistricting struggle. Never ducked a tough issue in between: fought against raising interest rates and astounded consumer spokesmen along the way with his quick mastery of complex credit laws; resisted the worst of the law-and-order bills; put the sole floor amendment on Clements’s wiretapping bill; attacked the only abortion bill to reach the floor.
Unwavering in his concern for the downtrodden, but never parochial; few legislators could boast such a far-ranging program. Much sought-after as a sponsor of business legislation, because his mere association with a bill helped lend it legitimacy; brought the question of pari-mutuel betting to the House floor for the first time in twenty years; sought to rescind the governor’s authority to approve paroles. No less impressive in defeat than in victory; hushed the House with an I-know-I’m-gonna-lose-this-one-but-someday-you’ll-know-I’m-right speech on the doomed parole bill.
Has a unique knack for getting members to do something just because they know it’s right. His proposal to abolish the constitutional ceiling on welfare spending passed without a single opposing speech. Gave a one-man show on how to amend the appropriations bill—winning more money for the deaf, for welfare recipients, and for abused children—when he faced down Republican heavyweight Bob Davis in a memorable head-to-head duel. After Davis complained that a child-abuse caseworker had unduly harassed one family in his district, Washington warned members, “For lack of one apology by one caseworker, this entire appropriation will be lost. Then who will hear these children’s cry?”
But no list of accomplishments can fully capture Washington’s mastery of the House floor. One had to be there to feel his full impact: the sheepish grin on a member’s face as he realized he could not avoid the trap into which Washington’s questions were leading him; the admission Washington coaxed from the sponsor of an anti-abortion bill, who confessed he wasn’t terribly concerned whether his bill was constitutional or not; the pleasure other members took in a masterly Washington stroke, as when he killed a bill allowing magistrates to carry guns wit the inspired ploy of amending it to extend the same privileged to legislators.
Washington wants to run for the Senate, which obligingly drew him a district. But during redistricting he took a stand of great political courage that could hurt his chances. Fighting to save the seats of white liberals from Republicans, Washington went against the political tide by urging that minority voters be split up to maximize their influence, rather than packed together to maximize minority representation. “What counts is not black faces or white faces but votes,” Washington said. If his courage costs him a Senate seat it will be the people of Texas who lose.
William Wayne Justice, 61, Democrat, Tyler. Involved in more major issues than anyone else—crime, education, redistricting—and victorious on every occasion. A Best by one measure only: his overwhelming impact on the session. Did more to shape the appropriations bill than any member of the budget committees; did more to shape legislative districts than any member of the redistricting committees. And he did it all without once setting foot in the Capitol.
The catch, of course, is that Justice is a member of the federal judiciary, not the Texas Legislature. But no one who walked the halls of the Capitol during the closing days could have doubted his impact on the session. The Senate was at an impasse over his bilingual decree. The entire state budget was stymied by a dead-lock over his order to shape up the prison system. A conference committee worked frantically to fund college construction, spurred by reports that black colleges were considering a suit in his court to break up the Permanent University Fund. Dozens of legislators pored over redistricting maps drawn to stand up to the inevitable challenge that will be brought in his court; the lawsuit, rather than political philosophy or party, was the factor that most shaped redistricting from beginning to end.
But Justice’s real impact on the legislative process is like an iceberg—90 percent below the surface. Yes, the Legislature did something for prisons and bilingual education that it otherwise might not have done, but because it did that, it failed to do other things. Judges do not have to deal with the fundamental fact of public affairs—the finite pot—and so do not have to consider that if more money goes to prisons, less money goes to something else. In order to satisfy Judge Justice and still stay within state spending limits, the Legislature was forced to cut back on mental health and public education and at least a dozen other areas scattered throughout the budget. They have to make the tough choices; he doesn’t. Were Justice in the Legislature, he would never be able to legislate as effectively as he does from the bench.
THE TEN WORST
Larry Browder, 41, conservative Democrat, Coldspring. A dismaying example of the sort of smarmy, glad-handing politician who perpetuates the booze-and-buffoonery image of the Legislature. Never missed a party; seemed more interested in keeping up with the social calendar than the bill calendar. Said a disappointed Clayton ally: “We expected more of him. His lifestyle has affected his reputation.”
Regarded service in the Legislature as a cornucopia from which he could extract goodies. Upon entering Austin restaurants, looked not for a table but for a lobbyist to pick up the tab. Constantly reminded lobbyists who had failed to contribute to his campaign of their sin of omission. Said a veteran business lobbyist: “When I see him out dancing, I head for the other side of the room.”
Tried to be a good ol’ boy but was more boy than good. Sponsored some of the session’s most puerile bills, including one to abolish Austin as a city and replace it with a district governed by the Legislature. (Browder fumed that while Houston and San Antonio entertained legislators lavishly, Austin gave them only cookies, crackers, and parking tickets.) No less silly were his game and fish bills, which legalized everything short of dynamiting fish and stripped the state of its regulatory authority; when state biologists protested, Browder responded with a bill to slash their agency’s budget.
Actually displayed some talent during occasional lapses into seriousness. Unlike Senate wit Carl Parker, however, Browder never figured out when humor was called for and when it wasn’t. He tried to joke away the most hard-fought issue of the session—raising the ceiling on interest rates, which he fought—but the joke ended up on him. His facetious, dilatory amendment had no place in the middle of a lengthy floor fight and contributed to a subsequent vote by weary House members to shut off debate before more worthy amendments could be offered. “He’s done some things a first-termer just ought not to do,” said a former legislator, “and other things a tenth-termer ought not to do.”
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