The Best and the Worst Legislators
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If by that he means his own, heaven help the bureaucracy. Williamson practically lives in his House office, where he pores over auditors’ reports and keeps a different folder for every state agency. He has a color-coded binder full of lists of what he wants to do, and he crosses out each item in red when he accomplishes it. There were lots of red lines this session. Not even Williamson knows how many riders (instructions to agencies) he stuffed into the budget; he estimates 210. (That doesn’t count the ideas that were too eccentric for his colleagues to swallow, such as his proposal to encourage agency directors to resign so that headhunters can conduct nationwide searches for replacements.) Among the riders that survived is the state’s first “revolving door” law, which will keep the Development of Human Services from contracting with former employees and board members (he wants to apply it to all state agencies next session). He imposed a uniform accounting system on all agencies so future Williamsons won’t have to start from scratch to understand the budget. Somehow Williamson found time to be the principal architect of the House criminal-justice reform effort. His early-session study of prison alternatives was the crucial step in convincing the law-and-order House that building more prisons was not enough.
Not everyone is a Williamson admirer. Lobbyists say that he can be bullying and is too sure of himself, and the more frivolous members feel intimidated by him. But inside the budget process he has total credibility and respect. He is the rare legislator who has changed the way the system works.
Stan Schlueter
Best or Worst?
Democrat, Killeen, 43—Every once in a while a legislator comes along whose skills are so manifold, whose power is so great, whose mind is so attuned to all the nuances of controversy, that he obliterates the distinction between Best and Worst. Add to that the physical dominance of a former Baylor University basketball player, and you get a force of nature called Stan Schlueter. There never was any doubt that he would end up on our list— but as Best or Worst?
The case for Schlueter as Best: the most brilliant use of power since the light bulb. Schlueter extracted every last kilowatt from his position as chairman of the House Calendars Committee. The chairmanship gave him the same authority in his domain that Saint Peter has in heaven: no bill could reach the hallowed ground of the House floor without his blessing. Everyone expected that Schlueter would use his position to further his own agenda, and he did. What they didn’t expect was that he would leave so few fingerprints.
He didn’t exact tribute in exchange for favors or punish the few members who dared to oppose him. He didn’t abuse his power, because he knew that he didn’t have to. His size (six foot five) and his long-standing reputation for neither forgiving nor forgetting an intended injury made most members inclined to please him. All he had to do was let them know how to do that, which he did as often as he could. The button he wore “A Kinder and Gentler Schlueter”—may have been sincere, but no one wanted to be the test case. And when the session was over, he had gotten what he wanted: more prison beds, a reduction of Jim Hightower’s authority over pesticides while saving the Agriculture Department itself, limits on bank foreclosures, new child-visitation laws, vexation for Jim Mattox, and a four-year college for his district.
The case for Schlueter as Worst is the same as the case for Best, but with a different spin: His admirers say that he could have been so much worse; his critics say that he could have been so much better. His admirers say that he was involved in more issues than anyone in the House; his critics say that his agenda was mostly personal—he is an avowed enemy of Hightower’s (pesticides), a real estate debtor (foreclosure), a divorced father (child visitation). His admirers say that his involvement in those areas produced good laws; his critics see in him the same failing that a nineteenth century observer saw in U.S. senator James Blaine: No man has filled so large a space and left it so empty.
So which is it, Best or Worst? We make Schlueter a Best, because he was dominant and ultimately he was fair. But to indicate that this was a close call, we are leaving a symbolic vacancy on the Worst list this year. And just once we would like to see him exercise influence through respect rather than fear and use his enormous intelligence go make Texas a better place.
The Ten Worst
Kenneth Armbrister
Toga Party
Democrat, Victoria, 42—He must have thought that the Legislature was Animal House. Day and night Kenneth Armbrister’s manner was more that of a fraternity brother looking for a toga party than of a senator looking for influence and respect. Invited to dine with the House Calendars Committee one night, he used the occasion to tell racist jokes in front of a black colleague; at another dinner he shouted down the table to a female lobbyist, “Do you know why God created women? Because sheep can’t type.”
Women staffers and lobbyists braced themselves for sexual innuendo whenver fate threw them in Armbrister’s proximity. In the middle of a Senate session he approached another senator’s top aide and said that he needed...well you’ll just have to guess. His remarks earned him the nickname “TMT,” short for “Too Much Testosterone.” Said one lobbyist, “He wears his hormones on his sleeve.”
No one thought Armbrister was serious-and that was just the point. People stopped taking him seriously, especially when his legislative program turned out to be funnier than his jokes. Mr. TMT carried a bill requiring, of all things, that abstinence be stressed in sex education courses. Another Armbrister bill would allow people to pack concealed handguns. (Both bills died). “Have you heard about the Omnibus Armbrister Bill?” Senate wags asked. “You can carry a gun, but you have to keep it in your pants.”
The gun bill turned out to be no laughing matter for his fellow senators, who knew that it was bad public policy but didn’t want to stir up the National Rifle Association by voting against it. At first Armbrister promised colleagues that he wouldn’t press the issue until he had secured support for its passage. Then, under pressure from the gun lobby, he called for a vote during committee meeting, even though he knew the bill was destined to fail.
The story of Kenneth Armbrister sounds like a comedy; in fact, it is a tragedy. In a Senate that has been drained of talent, he ought to be rising to the top instead of sinking to the bottom. An ex-cop who is smart, tough, and humane, he works hard and wants to be a player. But at this rate he’ll never be anything but a joke.
Al Edwards
The Unkindest Cut
Democrat, Houston, 52—A perennial Worst, skilled only in inventing new ways to bring ridicule upon the Texas Legislature. This year’s device: sponsoring a bill to amputate the fingers of convicted drug dealers.
The unconstitutional proposal didn’t pass, of course, but it did accomplish its primary mission-reaping publicity for its author. Even the lurid tabloid Weekly World News got in on the act, prominently featuring a story about Edwards’ bill (Gutsy Politician’s Sure Cure For Pushers) along with headlines like Baby Born With A Wooden Leg And Elvis Tribe Found In Jungle. Was Edwards embarrassed? Hardly. He had copies distributed to his House colleagues. When the ink stopped flowing, he generated more publicity by announcing that he would postpone a hearing on his bill so that he could invite the family of Mexican drug-cult victim Mark Kilroy to testify. (They didn’t.)
But the spotlight has its hazards. In defending his bill, Edwards attacked lawyers who oppose stiffer penalties because they represent drug dealers. Who do you suppose got caught writing a federal judge to request leniency for a convicted crack dealer? You guessed it—Edwards.
No wonder Edwards became the laughingstock of the session. “Know what this is?” House members chortled to each other, extending a hand with fingers curled. “An Al Edwards handshake.” Later, colleagues gave Edwards a miniature wooden guillotine with a digit-size aperture. During an Edwards attempt to pass a local bill, colleagues were ignoring him as usual until Speaker Lewis called for a vote. Detecting the sudden alarm on the floor, Lewis announced, “This is not the finger bill, members—go ahead and vote.”
Bob Glasgow
Splat!
Democrat, Stephenville, 47—The Flying Wallenda of the Texas Legislature. Bob Glasgow soared to the heights of the Ten Best list last session, then attempted one of the most difficult feats ever performed: fixing Texas’ egregious workers’ compensation system. Glasgow in no way is a bad legislator, any more than the Wallendas were bad acrobats, but when legislators or acrobats lose their balance, what results is an awful mess.
Glasgow’s fatal mistake was to treat worker’s comp as a legal problem, not a political one. Closeting himself, he set out to write a true reform of the worst-of-both-worlds system that costs employers too much in insurance premiums but provides injured workers too little in benefits. He thought that he could produce the perfect bill and make the rest of the world see the light. But the rest of the world-powerful interest groups and the other thirty senators—wasn’t about to let Glasgow be the sole arbitrator. Insurance lobbyists went to him with questions; all he would say was, “It’s taken care of.” Plaintiff’s lawyers tried to find out what he was doing; they couldn’t. Nor, for that matter, could his fellow senators, whose political futures depended upon a satisfactory resolution. “He thinks that the more he frustrates the involved parties, the better his chances are of getting a bill,” said a dubious Bill Hobby staffer.
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