The Best and the Worst Legislators
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Catch Smith in action: The House leadership is backing a bill that will allow the state to delay sending some sales tax revenue to Houston for one day—a bookkeeping device to help balance the budget. Smith approaches Appropriations Committee chairman Jim Rudd, wags a finger under the chairman’s nose, and says, “You can’t do that. It’s not your money. It’s Houston’s money.”
Common legislative courtesy was not Smith’s strong point. He called a senior committee chairman and told-not asked-him to give a Smith bill a hearing. (Smith got one-around midnight.) He introduced a bill banning some bars in a colleague’s district without checking with the other member. No wonder the rest of the House started salivating when Smith popped up with an amendment to the appropriations bill. He wanted to cut 1.25 billion from the budget and put it in the rainy-day fund—a savings account for hard times. The trouble is, these are hard times. Legislators came rushing over to Rudd, who was managing the bill, begging for the right to fight the amendment. It was bloody. Smith’s predecessor, respected gubernatorial aide Mike Toomey, scurried around the floor, telling one and all that he didn’t advise Smith or agree with him. Smith got only seven votes.
As the session wound down, Smith once again provided target practice. He needed 100 votes (out of 150) to pass a bill. Opponents could have killed it with a point of order; instead, they chose to make a different point. They worked the floor and got 102 votes-against Smith’s bill.
Carlos Truan
Yak, Yak, Yak
Democrat, Corpus Christi, 54—A lethal combination of ego and incompetence. Deadly to causes that he favors, harmless to those he opposes—but, in either case, infallibly in the way of progress. Says a colleague: “If there’s one person you have to keep stepping over to get something done, it’s Truan.”
Take his number one priority of the session-getting a law school for Texas A&I in Kingsville. Against the wishes of Senate leaders, Truan insisted on including the law school in his bill merging several South Texas universities with the UT and Texas A&M systems. All he accomplished was (1) endangering the vital merger plan and (2) making all the other senators stop what they were doing to squash him. Only when they threatened to take the merger bill away from him did Truan back down.
To make matters worse, he’s noisy: The man simply does not known when to shut up. Once he took so long to praise a bill preventing former state employees from lobbying their old agencies that opponents had time to prepare a killing amendment. “Truan filibustered a bill he was for,” went the Senate joke. Hearing a beleaguered gubernatorial appointee testify that he had walked out on a fellow board member who kept repeating herself, a senator offered some sympathy: “I have to confess—I’ve even walked out on Senator Truan once in a while.”
Every now and then Truan passes a good bill (he tightened state regulation of uranium mining, for example), but more often he is embarrassed because he doesn’t do his homework. He got the Senate to reject two gubernatorial appointments to the Radiation Advisory Board, then decided that one of the nominees was really okay after all. There was worse to come. Late in the session, Truan warned Senator Bob McFarland that he planned to filibuster a McFarland bill. Replied McFarland: “You’d better get permission from the Speaker of the House about that, because we passed it in the Senate this morning. And you voted for it.”
Special Awards
Best Nickname
The Killer Tees, the appellation given to a group of golfing senators who fled the Capitol on sunny afternoons, abandoning committees striving for quorums. Like 1979’s Killer Bees—the senators who disappeared in order to sabotage a presidential primary bill-this year’s fugitives killed bills by their absence.
Rookies of the Year
After a dismal freshman class in 1987, the Legislature received a much-needed infusion of talent from potentially the best group of newcomers since 1981. In the House, although 14 of the 27 new members were Republicans, Democrats appeared to have the corner on future stardom. Some, like Rod Junell, 42, of San Angelo and Sylvester Turner, 34, of Houston, debated on equal terms with veterans. Others, like Karyne Conley, 35, of San Antonio and Parker Mccollough, 38, of Georgetown, won respect by quietly learning the rules and listening to their more experienced colleagues. In the Senate, Republican Teel Bivins, 41, of Amarillo looks like a future star.
Best Repartee
During Rob Junell’s (Democrat, San Angelo, 42) explanation of a bill establishing the proper way to pledge allegiance to the Texas flag, a House colleague challenged him to recite the pledge. Replied Junell: “I pledge allegiance to Texas, Bob Bullock, and Stan Schlueter, so help me God.”
Coach of the Year
When Hugo Berlanga (Democrat, Corpus Christi, 40) came to the House in 1977, the cumulative influence of Hispanic legislators was zero. Now they are an integral part of the power structure. The main reason for the change is Hugo Berlanga. His skills are seldom visible; he is neither a good debater nor a master technician. But no one in the House has a shrewder understanding of politics and power. After Berlanga’s early support for Gib Lewis helped decide the 1983 Speaker’s race, Lewis made him speaker pro tem, a symbolic position that protected him from Hispanic infighting. Berlanga used his position to repeal the unwritten rule that minority legislators always serve on committees that emphasize minority concerns. Instead he picked out the most talented Hispanics and asked Lewis to appoint them to the big three committees that deal with the budget, taxes, and major state issues. They learned how the system worked, accumulated power and prestige of their own, and in several cases surpassed Berlanga in raw talent. But none will leave a larger legacy. Hugo Berlanga taught them how to play the game.
Prisoner of War
An announced candidate for lieutenant governor, Chet Edwards (Democrat, Duncanville, 37) was surrounded by a hostile Senate, whose 31 members included 17 supporters of his Democratic primary opponent, Comptroller Bob Bullock. Edwards fought for consumer causes (stricter insurance rules, lower loan-shark interest rates), but his enemies shot him down whenever they could; an Edwards proposal to strengthen the law protecting buyers of defected automobiles was slaughtered, 24-3. When Edwards achieved a rare triumph, blocking a controversial gubernatorial appointment, colleagues squelched his moment of glory by questioning his competence as chairman of the Nominations Committee. Other senators constantly accused him of posturing for the press and never missed an opportunity to make him look bad. Typical: When Edwards spoke against a Carl Parker bill, Parker agreed to a delay, but only “in view of the fact that some of my colleagues need to get before the media one more time.”
Most Valuable Players
The Legislature’s most important work takes place in glamourless committees and subcommittees, far from the spotlight of the floor. Here are a few key members sharpen their pencils and shape ideas into legislation, disputes into compromises. These are the members who excel at making the wheels turn.
Senate
Cyndi Krier, Republican, San Antonio, 39
House
Robert Eckels, Republican, Houston, 32
Al Granoff, Democrat, Dallas, 41
Ken Marchant, Republican, Carrollton, 38
Jim Parker, Democrat, Comanche, 44
Nick Perez, Democrat, El Paso, 46
Alan Schoolcraft, Republican, San Antonio, 37
Jerry Yost, Republican, Longview, 47
Great Moments in Oratory
Thanking colleagues for reelecting him, Speaker of the House Gib Lewis (Democrat, Fort Worth, 52) proclaimed: “The office and responsibility that you have bestowed upon me fill me with a deep sense of humidity.”
The Coelacanth
The coelacanth is an ancient fish, thought to be extinct for 60 million years until a fishing boat caught a live specimen in its nets off Madagascar. The Legislatures living fossil is Delwin Jones (Republican, Lubbock, 65), who was last spotted in these waters in 1972, the year he was defeated for reelection. As hatchet man for soon-to-be-convicted (for bribery) House Speaker Gus Mutscher, Jones had written a redistricting bill designed to eliminate Mutscher’s enemies (it did), pass court scrutiny (it didn’t), and get himself reelected (oops). Sixteen years later Jones resurfaced—returned to office at long last. Only this time he seemes to have mutated into a pussycat, his prehistoric rootes evident only when he was elected chairman of the freshman caucus and proposed that the position of secretary of the caucus be filled by “all the girls,” meaning his female colleagues.
Worst Timing
Five days after the Alaskan oil spill in Prince William Sound, the house adopted a resolution urging Congress to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development.
Best Source of Bad Jokes
An unsuccessful attempt to prolong the life of the vestigal state Indian Commission generated lines like:
“I have a lot of reservations about this bill.”
“Since the Indian Commission doesn’t have anything to do, can we let them regulate ticket scalping?”
“Did Renato Cuellar [a toupee-clad Democrat from Weslaco] offer an amendment to keep his wigwam?”
Best Boondoggle
During the floor debate over funding for an intercity bullet train, Senator Bill Haley (Democrat, Center, 45) offered a tongue-in-cheek amendment routing the Houston-Dallas line “through a city of approximately 6,000 located 15 miles west of the Sabine River and whose primary agricultural income is chickens, timber, cattle, and watermelon”—a description that fit only his hometown of Center.
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