Sen. Mario Gallegos
D Houston
IMAGINE THAT YOU’VE been the subject of humiliating headlines involving tawdry personal conduct—a seventeen-year affair with a stripper who claims you mooched thousands of dollars from her and subjected her to emotional and physical abuse, including spankings. Wouldn’t common sense dictate that you work to redeem yourself?
Common Gallegos may be, but sense he hath not. The scandal followed him to the Capitol when his former mistress challenged whether he lived in his district, forcing his fellow senators to rule on his residency. Unfortunately, they ruled in his favor. He soon demonstrated the more mundane shortcomings he has displayed over a ten-year career. Obtuseness was on display during a discussion of a bill on the issuance of birth certificates to parents of stillborn children, which had been carefully crafted to avoid raising right-to-life hackles. Gallegos got the bright idea to expand the bill to include viable fetuses, injecting the very issue others had tried to avoid. Cluelessness reared its head when he tried to attack a proposal requiring workers to prove that their on-the-job injuries weren’t caused by drug or alcohol use in order to collect compensation. His point seemed to be that truckers have a right to barrel down the interstate snookered on Robitussin.
Few mysteries resist solution more than the meaning of a Gallegos amendment. His attempt to set standards for employees in the Child Protective Services agency produced puzzled looks: Did the amendment raise or lower current standards? After hemming and hawing, Gallegos finally pronounced, “What I’m trying to get is somebody who knows what the hell is going on.” So are we all, Senator.
My Library
