Jim Pitts
R Waxahachie
AS WAS ONCE SAID of Theodore Roosevelt, he struck the note that the chorus awaited. In the wake of the partisan warfare that decimated House traditions in 2003, the first year of Republican rule, members on both sides of the aisle yearned for a more benign approach to lawmaking. When Pitts, the successor to vanquished bully Talmadge Heflin as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, promised to oversee the writing of a bipartisan state budget—and made good on his pledge—he doused the fires of political payback that had consumed the Capitol last session.
His chief asset was an aw-shucks personality that made him one of the guys, rather than some august personage. He spoke with a nasal twang that wrung two syllables out of words like “ten” and could get downright corny, as when he opened debate on the budget bill Goldilocks-style: “Some Texans will think we’re not spending enough. Some Texans will think we’re spending too much. The Appropriations Committee believes that this budget is juuuust right.” And it was: The draconian budget cuts of 2003 were reversed, and 94 cents out of every dollar spent went to the state’s three top priorities: education, health, and public safety.
Pitts’s job wasn’t easy. Even in the last days of the session, final approval of the budget was imperiled by an unholy coalition of fiscal conservatives with no heart and Democrats with no stake in the process. But personality occasionally trumps partisanship and ideology, and enough members wanted to see Pitts succeed that the budget passed easily. Afterward, a colleague rose to give the chairman a public tribute: “He can tell you, as he has done me, to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.”
R Waxahachie
AS WAS ONCE SAID of Theodore Roosevelt, he struck the note that the chorus awaited. In the wake of the partisan warfare that decimated House traditions in 2003, the first year of Republican rule, members on both sides of the aisle yearned for a more benign approach to lawmaking. When Pitts, the successor to vanquished bully Talmadge Heflin as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, promised to oversee the writing of a bipartisan state budget—and made good on his pledge—he doused the fires of political payback that had consumed the Capitol last session.
His chief asset was an aw-shucks personality that made him one of the guys, rather than some august personage. He spoke with a nasal twang that wrung two syllables out of words like “ten” and could get downright corny, as when he opened debate on the budget bill Goldilocks-style: “Some Texans will think we’re not spending enough. Some Texans will think we’re spending too much. The Appropriations Committee believes that this budget is juuuust right.” And it was: The draconian budget cuts of 2003 were reversed, and 94 cents out of every dollar spent went to the state’s three top priorities: education, health, and public safety.
Pitts’s job wasn’t easy. Even in the last days of the session, final approval of the budget was imperiled by an unholy coalition of fiscal conservatives with no heart and Democrats with no stake in the process. But personality occasionally trumps partisanship and ideology, and enough members wanted to see Pitts succeed that the budget passed easily. Afterward, a colleague rose to give the chairman a public tribute: “He can tell you, as he has done me, to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.”
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