Dan Gattis
R Georgetown
A LOT OF HOUSE MEMBERS—and at least one reporter—showed up on the morning of March 22 expecting to see a bitter floor fight. Conspicuous on the calendar of bills to be considered that day was one dealing with tort reform, a matter about which neither Republicans nor Democrats are willing to compromise. The purpose of the bill was to prevent plaintiff’s lawyers from using a flimsy pretext to file suit in a friendly court when most of the circumstances of the case occurred elsewhere. Surely the House was about to blow up, as it had in 2003.
Not this time. “All of you should be very worried about this bill,” Gattis told his colleagues, “as it is supported by both the Texans for Lawsuit Reform and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association.” The lion and the lamb had lain down together. Asked afterward how he had brought the warring parties to the table, Gattis said, “What the trial lawyers asked for made sense. There was no reason not to do it.”
The hope is that Gattis will be the role model for the knee-jerk GOP freshman class of 2003, heavy in numbers but light in talent and prone to slavish devotion to the party line. His stature was cemented by a Craddick appointment to serve as one of the House’s five budget negotiators in ironing out differences with the Senate. Assigned to the area of health care, Gattis went beyond the usual House negotiating position—“Hell no!”—to argue for using scarce dollars to help the “oldest, sickest, and poorest.” The result was an additional $118 million to reduce waiting lists for community care services for the elderly. If only the rest of the Class of ’03 would follow his example.
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