The Best and Worst Legislators 1993
Every legislative session is different, but the Seventy-third Legislature was really different. When it was bad, it was awful. There were raucous debates over sodomy and handguns, attacks on sex education, and a rodeo war between Mesquite (honored as the Rodeo Capital of Texas) and Pecos (honored for its Oldest Rodeo in the World).
At times, though, the Legislature resembled a serious body interested in making Texas a better place. This occurs more often than the arrival of a new Ice Age, but not much more often. The Legislature was unable to pass any good education laws, but it did do the next best thing: repeal the bad laws. In fact, it repealed most of the education code. Two years from now the Legislature will have the chance to rebuild the education system from the ground up. Lawmakers dealt with overcrowded prisons by starting a system of state jails for nonviolent offenders. Presumably people caught violating the sodomy law will be sent there, although one lawmaker said the punishment should be hanging. There wasn’t anything funny about a constitutional amendment providing property tax relief. To get it, Texans will have to vote for an income tax.
Two things made the legislature a more serious place. One was the 1991 ethics law, which eliminated a lot of nighttime wining and dining. The other was the unique geography of the session. A renovation project moved most representatives and all senators out of the Capitol. The result was an instant loss of camaraderie. Instead of going out, people worked. Very unusual.
The decline of the social side of the Legislature had an effect on our selection of the Best and Worst. Everybody felt more isolated this session. The usual consensus about who was being naughty and nice did not exist. The Legislature started to resemble Congress, a place where members know only their small corner of the political universe and talk to their staffs instead of colleagues.
In choosing our lists, we sat in on committee meetings, listened to floor debates, and interviewed staff and members. Our criteria for the Ten Best list (which includes twelve legislators this year, since three share one slot) included integrity, initiative, effectiveness, and commitment to a public purpose. On the Ten Worst list, we looked not only for the absence of these qualities but also for a lack of respect for the legislative process of compromise and good faith. And did we ever find it.
Ken Armbrister
High Water Marks
Democrat, Victoria, 46. They said it couldn’t be done, but Ken Armbrister did it. He forged an agreement on the session’s most hotly contested issue—allocating the waters of the Edwards Aquifer. Last session he made the Ten Best list as a detail man; this session he again played the role of the Senate’s human data bank, but he also proved he could see the big picture.
The aquifer struggle resembled something out of the Balkans, filled with warring factions who hated each other. Farmers asserted the right to pump all the water they wanted for irrigation, and city dwellers asserted the right to pump all they wanted for swimming pools and lawns. The issue was as much a clash of cultures and lifestyles as it was a question of policy. Into this holy war stepped Armbrister at the request of Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock. He proved to have the perfect training for the job—a stint as a Little League coach, which gave him the ability to inspire teamwork among people acting like rowdy, self-absorbed eight-year-olds.
Armbrister insisted that the participants drop their philosophical diatribes and specifically address what they liked or disliked about his bill. When a farmer began ranting about the sanctity of property rights to underground water, Armbrister listened politely and then asked if the witness had read his bill. No? End of discussion.
Finally, with time running out in the session, Armbrister worked around the clock to produce an agreement for creating a water district that would divvy up the Edwards. He kept House and Senate negotiators up all night, never called a break, and created a sense of momentum as the dog-tired panel went through the lengthy bill, item by item. One by one the other members of the conference committee began to wilt, but not Armbrister; a feisty ex-cop, he runs a security service, and the wee hours are his home turf. By sheer effort of will, Armbrister fashioned a deal just before dawn.
Only one thing prevents Armbrister from being in the very top rank of senators. He sometimes plays errand boy for the lobby. This session, for example, he passed a controversial bill allowing a few developers to escape a tough Austin environmental ordinance that was applied retroactively. Whether the bill could be justified or not is beside the point, which is that the great senators never touch blatant special interest bills. It’s one detail Armbrister has overlooked.
Hugo Berlanga
Take a Vow
Democrat, Corpus Christi, 44. To borrow a line from Mark Twain, reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. After five heady sessions as right-hand man to Speaker Gib Lewis, Berlanga seemed consigned to oblivion when Pete Laney took over as speaker and removed him as chairman of the powerful Calendars Committee. Instead of quietly accepting a secondary role, Berlanga made a presession vow: “I’m going to prove there’s life after Gib Lewis for Hugo Berlanga,” he told a medical lobbyist. He made it good. Short, combative, and intense, Berlanga turned his consolation chairmanship of the previously inconsequential Public Health Committee into a power base for public good. When a bill requiring nonprofit hospitals to provide more charity care stalled, Berlanga addressed opponents with his trademark tough-guy preface—“Lemme tell ya somethin’”—and warned them against killing the bill. They capitulated. He also embarked on a campaign to have medical schools use their income from patients to train more family physicians. Just when it looked as if the universities had blocked Berlanga’s efforts to audit their fees, he made a deal in the Senate and won that battle too.
On the House floor Berlanga was ubiquitous. He passed a slew of public health bills, including one establishing a register of birth defects, which will pinpoint environmental problems. He added beneficial amendments to the controversial handgun bill (by requiring more firearms training and a longer Texas residency before a permit to carry a gun could be issued) and to the bill setting up a new commission to administer the lottery. He waged a surprisingly close fight for school vouchers for disadvantaged students, losing by just five votes. His debate with a Hispanic opponent—Why, Berlanga wanted to know, do you send your children to private schools but oppose vouchers that would give other parents the same choice?—was one of the memorable confrontations of the session. Said a lobbyist watching from the gallery: “Hugo didn’t just gut him; he field-dressed him.”
With his political savvy and his focus on big-picture issues instead of piece-of-the-pie politics, Berlanga ought to be a role model for younger minority legislators. But while he has always been successful, he has never earned the full respect of his colleagues. In the past he had a reputation as someone who did more for his friends; interests than for the public interest—and to make matters worse, his friends had some pretty unsavory interests, such as gambling and booze. His closeness to Gib Lewis, and the frequency with which he exploited it, inspired jealousy and contempt. The jealousy lingers, but any doubts about his ability have been put to rest.
Elton Bomer
Tough Enough
Democrat, Montalba, 57. He drew the black bean, the hardest, most thankless job in the Seventy-third Legislature: making a no-new-taxes budget possible by keeping a lid on human-services spending. The job description required someone tough enough to say no, smart enough to separate the essential from the nonessential, and diplomatic enough to mollify disappointed supplicants. Bomer fit the specs perfectly.
- Tough. Ann Richards’ immunization bill, making vaccinations available for all children, was sailing through the Legislature when Bomer questioned a provision prohibiting parents from receiving welfare payments if their children weren’t immunized. Richards confronted Bomer, demanding to know if he was trying to kill her bill, but he wouldn’t budge. “It’s bad enough that kids are sick,” he said. “I don’t want them to be hungry too.” Richards ended up thanking him.
- Smart. A former IBM salesman, Bomer concluded that a proposed computer program for child protective services was unlikely to work. He eventually saved taxpayers more than $20 million. He determined that Richards’ goal of immunizing all children was impossible to meet and that a funding level of 70 percent would be sufficient. He favored projects that actually provided services to people over those, such as the Texas Cancer Council, whose function was to “coordinate.”
- Diplomatic. Bomer had been on the wrong side of the speaker’s race as an inner-circle backer of losing candidate Jim Rudd. He met with Pete Laney, indicated his intention to be a good soldier, and went about doing his job instead of sulking on the back benches. He made up more lost ground than any other member.
Bomer desperately wanted to be named to the House-Senate conference committee that negotiated the final state budget. But it was not to be. He took the setback hard, but fate gave him another opportunity to go mano a mano with Senate budget chairman John Montford. In the last week of the session, Montford pressed hard for dedicating a portion of the cigarette tax to the arts. Bomer, who opposes earmarking taxes on principle, especially during a budget crunch, blocked it. Montford had to settle for getting more money for the arts this year rather than getting a permanent source of future funds. Of his adversary, Montford said in rueful admiration: “It took Bomer about half a second to tell me no.”
My Library
