The Ten Best and (Groan) The Ten Worst Legislators
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Ceverha did chalk up one victory: he forced the resignation of an old foe, Sarah Weddington (a leading proponent of free choice regarding abortions), by revealing that she had taken excessive time off from the governor’s Washington office to travel at state expense. But Ceverha couldn’t find the brakes. Not content with getting Weddington, he tried to cripple the division where she had worked by cutting its funding 70 per cent. He got 2 votes out of 29.
It was vintage Ceverha: unable to stick to merit, driven by compulsion not just to beat his opponents but to discredit everything they are associated with, possessed of a deep incivility. He does not fit into a place where the formalities—“I reluctantly rise,” “Does the gentleman yield?” “Asks unanimous consent”—serve as constant reminders that things are never supposed to get too personal.
During the session’s last weekend, Ceverha couldn’t find the brakes once again. Supporters of a bill extending the life of a controversial state agency wanted to add an antiabortion amendment to attract conservative votes, but Ceverha, who had been trying to pass an antiabortion law for years, would not hear of it. “I consider this to be a slap in the face to me and every other person who has been active in the right-to-life movement,” said Ceverha, exhibiting a pre-Copernican predudice that everything must rotate around him. He proceeded to attack the amendment’s author, a mild, highly regarded South Texan named Ernestine Glossbrenner, for insincerity and insufficient right-to-life credentials.
By the last night of the session, nobody wanted to hear from Ceverha anymore. But they had to. At three minutes to midnight, the indigent health care bill came up for debate. Ceverha took the microphone to talk it to death. Boos and hisses filled the chamber from all sides. At midnight it was over. But it wasn’t. The next morning everyone was back for a special session, courtesy of Bill Ceverha.
Jerry Clark
41, Conservative Democrat, Buna
A dull razor who had the misfortune to be called into service from the forgotten shelf where he had rusted away during previous sessions. The predictable result: knicks, scrapes, and scars everywhere.
Couldn’t cut it as chairman of the House Retirement and Aging Committee, a dumping ground reserved for members out of favor with the Speaker. Inflicted further punishment on hapless members by playing Jekyll and Hyde—courteous and patient on retirement matters but vicious and brutal on aging. Any bills hinting at nursing home reform were DOA; until pressured by Speaker Lewis, Clark refused to let them out of committee. Then, when one somehow escaped his clutches only to be defeated on the floor, Clark celebrated its demise by exchanging high-fives, smirks, and chortles with fellow good ol’boys at the back of the House chamber. Observed a fellow chairman, “He just turned his committee over to [nursing home lobbyist] Pat Cain.”
Out of his depth on the House-Senate conference committee that feuded over the state water package until Lewis threatened it with termination. The only East Texas representative among the House contingent, but you’d never have guessed it. Joined other House panelists in ignoring senators championing East Texas issues like sewage treatment bonds, flood control, and protection of bays and estuaries.
As unresponsive to stroking as a petulant house cat. Sought out by legislative budget staffers to sponsor a crucial retirement bill that would raise almost $30 million for the state; typically, never got around to it, requiring much overworked Appropriations chairman Jim Rudd to resuscitate the bill.
Through those three stories—indeed, through his entire career—runs a common thread. Jerry Clark is not so much evil as he is a throwback to the old-fashioned, pre-Sharpstown scandal kind of legislator who avoids the serious work of legislating at all cost. It is simpler to kill a nursing home bill than to fix it; it is simpler to glower and snipe at senators than to negotiate a water compromise; it is simpler to let someone else carry a bill than to pass it yourself. He does not want to advance the ball; he doesn’t even know how. All he knows is how to get in the way.
Gerald Geistweidt
37, Republican, Mason
The greatest champion of the negative since Kodak. Acts as if “yes” is a four-letter word, change is good only for vending machines, and compromise is a communicable disease.
The personification of intransigence on the conference committee appointed to negotiate a state water plan. The appointment was unfortunate for Geistweidt, since negotiating involves two things—give and take—and he believes in only one of them. It was also unfortunate for the state, since Geistweidt suffered from political nearsightedness: he couldn’t see past the boundaries of his district. Predictably, showed antagonism toward anything that benefited any part of the state except his own, especially the Senate’s number one priority, guaranteeing fresh water for bays and estuaries. “Why should we release perfectly good water just to protect the crisscross snail darter?” he harrumphed. Then he tried to make senators choose between using water for bays or for Houston, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio, prompting a senator to ask, “Do you represent Houston?” Geistweidt: “No.” Senator: “Do you represent Corpus Christi?” Geistweidt: “No.” Senator: “Do you represent San Antonio?” Again Geistweidt got to use his favorite word. Senator: “Then you’re meddling, Mr. Geistweidt.” Whereupon the senators broke off negotiations. Only after Speaker Lewis threatened to replace Geistweidt and company did the conferees reach an agreement.
Nothing seemed to upset him so much as the prospect of harmony where there might be discord. Business and labor could agree on an unemployment compensation compromise—but not Geistweidt. No sooner had a compromise budget for the Agriculture Department been presented to the Appropriations Committee than Geistweidt made a motion to torch it. When fellow Republican Mike Toomey tried to make cuts in Jim Mattox’s budget more palatable to the committee’s Democratic majority, along came Geistweidt with a motion to make them more punitive. Looks the part of the heavy; scowls, registers disgust, folds his arms, rolls his eyes heavenward, betrays no hint of the person who, away from the heat of the battle, has been known by his colleagues to pick a mean guitar and carry a nice tune.
His closed mind renders his skills useless. On the last weekend, Geistweidt led a floor fight against a bill that completely revamped state water agencies. “You can’t throw a skunk in the room and pass a law saying it doesn’t stink,” he said of the new plan. But he couldn’t follow through. His objections turned out to be procedural, to the very idea of something new rather than to what was being proposed, and the status quo he was defending was a proven turkey. Oratory notwithstanding, he fell ten votes short. In the aftermath another combatant summed up the trouble with Gerald Geistweidt: “He doesn’t like anything. Why is he here?”
Glenn Kothmann
57, Democrat, San Antonino
A monument to the indifference of the people of South San Antonio, who have endured nonrepresentation in the Senate for fourteen years. On the Worst list for the sixth time in seven sessions; hasn’t changed an iota since the first, when we wrote, “Described in the official Senate biography as ‘a man of quiet initative.’ The initiative is imperceptible; the quiet is surely for his own protection.”
Ought to be required to wear a Post No Bills sign. Didn’t pass any, which is hardly a surprise, since he didn’t introduce any. One poor House member, incensed that Kothmann had blocked his noncontroversial bill in the Senate, waited for weeks for a Kothmann bill to come through the House so that he could return the favor. He’s still waiting. Users of the legislative computer who tried to call up Kothmann’s program kept getting the notation “Not Found”—a metaphor for his entire career.
An easy mark for capitol wags. “If there was a no-pass, no-play rule in the Senate, Glenn Kothmann would have been on the sidelines long ago,” said one. “The less said about Kothmann the more accurate it is,” said another. Once Kothmann, who never has anything to say in committee, burped audibly during a committee hearing. “Will the senator yield?” asked a colleague.
Still lazy after all these years. Recruits other senators to pass House bills affecting his district, then flees to the Senate lounge lest a stray question come his way. Even recruited a House member to explain a local bill in committee so he wouldn’t have to do it. Never participates in debate; spends his time on the floor signing letters and talking on the telephone.
His pledge to vote for a controversial bill had to be devalued like the peso. Served up waffles and flakes like a boardinghouse breakfast; the Kothmann segment of the last-night Senate staffers’ slide show featured as background music “First you say you do, and then you don’t/And when you say you will, that’s when you won’t/ You’re undecided now, so what are you gonna do?”
Kothmann did have one thing on his agenda this session: trying to decide whether to run for reelection in 1986. When a potential opponent passed to the Senate a badly needed bill creating three new Bexar County courts, Kothmann malevolently sidetracked it, not once but twice, to a House-Senate conference committee—on which, true to form, he declined to serve. After the session, Kothmann announced his decision—he’s not running. The only question is, Why has he ever run?
Jan McKenna
36, Republican, Arlington
To comprehend McKenna’s passage through the 69th Legislature, imagine the worst driver you ever saw on the freeway. Right—the one switching lanes, honking the horn, lagging and speeding, hitting and running, heedless of the rules. That’s our Jan: a multicar legislative accident looking for a place to happen, a deadly combination of malice, ignorance, and arrogance.
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