Terry Keel
R Austin
FOR ALL SAD WORDS of tongue and pen / The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’ What might have been for Keel was the placement of his name high on the list of Best Legislators. His impeccable handling of the debate over the House rules should be mandatory viewing for any lawmaker who is about to take a major piece of legislation to the floor. His longtime criticism of independent drug task forces that operate without oversight bore fruit in a bill that he co-sponsored to rein them in.
As much good as he did, though, Keel did even more harm. In the waning hours in which bills could be passed, he twice invoked the rules he knew so well to kill major legislation. One bill contained the first judicial pay raise in nine years. The second was a fiscal cleanup bill that could have brought in at least $16 million and possibly up to $400 million. Wanton acts of bill-killing for personal reasons will land a perpetrator on the Worst list every time—and it was personal. In a speech to the House, Keel announced his intention to raise a point of order against the pay raise bill—effectively killing it—and cited bad-faith negotiating on a related issue by two senators (who denied the charge), calling it “an insult not only to [himself] but to the entire House of Representatives.” Later, when the cleanup bill came up for final approval, Keel was back at the microphone to ask, “Who’s your Senate sponsor?” When the answer proved to be one of the senators Keel was mad at (as he well knew), he killed that bill too. To those who say he was justified because of Senate skullduggery, the answer is simple: Tell it to the judges.
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