The Short List
Senior executive editor Paul Burka and writer-at-large Patricia Kilday Hart on politics and the Ten Best and Ten Worst Legislators.
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PKH: I find it hard to put aside personal likes and dislikes. I like an awful lot of people who aren’t on the Best list and who have even made the Worst list; there are some on the Best list I wouldn’t especially care to invite home to dinner. But it’s important to put aside personality issues to determine who are the best—those who are most effective and most driven by good public policy.
texasmonthly.com: Talk a bit about the process of writing up the list. How do you divide it up between the two of you?
PB: Patti covers the Senate and writes its Bests and Worsts, and I do the same for the House. We have around three hundred words for each profile, so it’s a six-thousand-word story. The Legislature usually adjourns on the last Monday in May, and from that point we have a week to get all our write-ups in and another three days to process them, checking for writing and research glitches. We are blessed with an editor, Evan Smith, who loves politics and keeps up with what’s going on, so as late April comes around, he wants to know how the lists are shaping up. He’ll push us pretty hard if he disagrees with a choice, but in the end, it’s our call. This year we got the story written and processed earlier than anyone can remember.
texasmonthly.com: Does the list change drastically from session to session, or are there some legislators who make it in all the time?
PB: We make our choices based on what happened in the current session. Every member starts with a clean slate. However, it’s the nature of the Legislature that the leadership pool doesn’t run deep, so the best members tend to make the list frequently. This session the repeaters on the Best list were Delisi, Duncan, Whitmire, and Zaffirini. A lot of members of the Worst list had been on the list before, but not necessarily in the previous session. I haven’t figured it up, but my guess is that from one session to the next, the average change is more than 50 percent on each list.
texasmonthly.com: Are there more legislators you would have put on the Best/Worst list if it was a longer list? If so, who? Why?
PB: There are always near misses, people who are worthy of being on the list but don’t quite make it. This year, I would say that the closest miss was Senator Todd Staples. He did a lot of heavy lifting, which is the term for passing big bills, like workers’ compensation reform. The problem was that he did not meet the test of being a consensus Best. He had become the sponsor of the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (which was already illegal in Texas) after it sat unclaimed in the Senate for 21 days after it passed the House. No other Republican senator would touch it. As a result, he couldn’t meet the test of being a consensus Best. Other members of the Best list had their detractors—it’s only natural—but not so publicly or unforgivingly.
texasmonthly.com: Did the amount of space you got for the list affect what you put in there? What kind of things did you leave out?
PB: You know that old saying about trying to change the things you can change and accept the things you can’t change and praying for the wisdom to know the difference? Space is something you can’t change.
texasmonthly.com: Do you ever see the legislators you put on the Worst list? If they were put on the Worst list, does that change the way they treat you?
PB: Of course we see the legislators we put on the Best/Worst lists. Politics is a small world. As for reactions, the most common one is no reaction. Politicians are pros; they know that today’s enemy can be tomorrow’s friends. I start every session with every member having a clean slate. Another common reaction is to chalk it up to our having an axe to grind: We don’t like their bills, their party, their ideology. A few really complain, and when they do, I listen. One member of the 2003 Worst list and I had four or five long conversations about it. The main thing that I say is that “Worst” is not a permanent designation, that people have gone from the Worst list one session to the Best list in the next.
texasmonthly.com: What about the people you put on the Best list? Do they treat you any differently?
PB: Sometimes people on the Best list write thank-you letters, to which I respond that it is we who thank them for giving us something to write about. Occasionally we get complaints when it is necessary to temper the write-up of a Best by mentioning an obvious flaw. My favorite story about correspondence occurred the first of many times that Senator Judith Zaffirini made the Best list. In addition to writing about her many achievements, we mentioned her personality quirks, citing an exchange between Winston Churchill and Nancy Astor, the first woman member of Parliament. Nancy: If you were my husband, I’d put poison in your coffee. Winston: If you were my wife, I would drink it. What should arrive in the mail but a pack of coffee beans labeled “Lady Astor’s House Blend.” Magnificent!
texasmonthly.com: Why does Texas Monthly publish this list after every session?
PB: It’s our duty. A legislative session is one of the most important events in our state. It occurs only once every two years, and when it does, it sets the agenda for our state. Our readers expect us to tell them what’s going on (especially since the daily press seems to be telling them less and less) and whether it is good or bad for Texas. The Best/Worst story is our way of telling our readers not only what went on, but also to give them a glimpse of the rich texture of the Capitol—politics as theater, full of heroes and villains. We hope that the story helps them understand how politics really works, that it isn’t only about left and right, Republican and Democrat, but that it’s also about personality, which, put to good use, can turn defeat into victory and vice versa. There is no other story like it.
texasmonthly.com: I’ve heard people call Texas Monthly a magazine with a liberal bias? What would you say to that comment?
PB: I’d say, “Ask the liberals.” They think I have a conservative bias. In the years that I have been watching the Legislature, I have come to care more about process than outcome—balance, compromise, fairness, good faith. If you have those things, the result will almost always move the state forward by small degrees, whatever the issue.
PKH: We’re accused of bias by extremists from both political parties. The fact is, a lawmaker’s party label has no impact in his or her appearance on either list—it’s based entirely on a lawmaker’s behavior, work ethic, skill, and knowledge.
texasmonthly.com: How much of an impact would you say this Best/Worst list has on the Texas Legislature?
PB: People tell us that members of the Legislature take it very seriously, although they play it down publicly. They do lobby us—to get on the good list, to stay off the bad list, even to be unmentioned. But we don’t write the story to have an impact on the Legislature. We write it to have an impact on our readers. Most of the time the Best and Worst lists confirm what people inside the Capitol already think (after all, the story is supposed to represent a consensus), but sometimes—as when a member makes the Best list for the first time—it can crystallize perceptions. Nor do we write the story with a view toward impacting elections. Texas Monthly does not allow material from the Best and Worst list to be reproduced in campaign literature. For most members it is a tremor rather than a quake.
PKH: Just go back and read some of the early Ten Best and Ten Worst Legislators lists. It’s obvious that behavior in the Legislature has evolved over time—for the better. There used to be far more outrageous incidents involving openly sexist, patently unethical, or just plain mean conduct. I think the list has made the Legislature a better institution by holding its members accountable.
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