Worst newspaper column ever
And the award goes to [drumroll, please] Enrique Rangel of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal for his article complaining about the delaying tactics employed by Democrats during the Voter ID debate. Talk about media bias. Every sentence word is suffused with the implication that the Republicans have the right to pass their agenda without interference. Oh, those mean old Democrats. Calling points of order. The nerve of them.
The column follows. I will make some remarks in italics.
AUSTIN — It took the Texas House of Representatives almost a week, including a long day of debate on Wednesday, to finally pass a bill that would require voters to show government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot.
So much for a voter ID bill Gov. Rick Perry declared an emergency at the start of the current legislative session.
So much for a voter ID bill some Republicans said would be a slam dunk.
So much for an ambitious conservative agenda.
And so much for a 101-49 Republican super majority.
Mr. Rangel makes it sound as if the Democrats won. He makes it sound as if the conservative agenda is in peril. He makes it sound as if the Republican majority has been rendered powerless — when, of course, the opposite is true about all these points. The Republicans can pass anything they want to pass. (One commenter to this blog noted that Republicans have the votes to rewrite the Texas Constitution from scratch if they wish to do so.)
Rangel continues: More on those points later but first, for those of you keeping track there are only 65 days left in the 140-day regular session of the 82nd Legislature. This is past the mid-point and as noted in previous columns, time is of the essence because the lawmakers haven’t even gotten to the heavy agenda which is redistricting and the budget bill.
“This means, as veteran House Republicans John Smithee of Amarillo and Warren Chisum of Pampa noted, that from now until May 30, the last day of the session, each daily meeting is going to be a meat grinder — often going into the wee hours of the next morning — if they want to pass major legislation.”
“Smithee even predicts the budget bill, which usually takes one day to pass — albeit a long one, from about 9 a.m. until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. the next morning — may take as long as four days when it gets to the House floor next Friday.”
Yes, it would be so much more convenient if the Democrats just went home and got their beauty sleep. But parliamentary procedure doesn’t work that way, thank goodness. Rangel doesn’t get it. The legislative process exists to protect the members. Not the Republican members. All the members. It exists to establish the rules for debate. Obviously, Mr. Rangel thinks that it is a silly requirement–to use one example from the Voter ID debate–that the bill analysis has to be consistent with the legislation, that if the bill refers to “days” and the bill analysis refers to “business days,” well, no harm, no foul. But there is harm. If the discrepancy is allowed to linger, the intention of the Legislature can be ambiguous. It is true that the overwhelming majority of the public doesn’t know or care about the discrepancy, but legislators themselves have to care. Precision of language is crucial in the drafting and crafting of legislation.
“And no wonder. With massive spending cuts to offset a revenue shortfall of as much as $27 billion for the next two fiscal years, you have to anticipate a lot of opposition to the proposed cuts, even from some Republicans.”
“This brings us to the House Democrats again.”
“At the risk of beating a dead horse because I have previously addressed this issue, the debate on the voter ID bill and the sonogram bill two weeks earlier — the only major bills the House has passed so far — showed that although the Democrats don’t have the votes to kill most legislation they oppose, they have two big weapons at their disposal. One is the House rules and the other is the clock.”
Whether intentionally or not, Mr. Rangel is echoing the rhetoric of the Tea Party: the majority has spoken, the Republicans won the election, and they have the right to pass their agenda. I agree with #1 and #2. But not #3. The majority has to earn its victory, and if that means staying in session all through the night, well, there’s always coffee in the members’ lounge. Mr. Rangel would deprive the minority of the only weapons at their disposal. In describing the Democrats’ arsenal–the rules and the clock–he left out their biggest weapon: smarts. The Democrats have been playing the government game longer than the Republicans, who are still relatively new to power and are making quite the mess of it. The D’s can tie the R’s up in knots from the back microphone; they can get their message out through the media, they can kill a few bills with delay tactics, they may even get a favorable ruling from the chair every now and then, but they can’t win. Yet Rangel sees the Democrats as the bullies and the Republicans as the victims.
“Chisum and other Republicans say the Democrats used numerous points of order and amendments to delay passage of the voter ID and sonogram bills, in both instance keeping the chamber in session from mid-morning to late at night.”
“And those Republicans say what the Democrats are doing is using delay tactics.”
“But Rep. Jessica Farrar of Houston, leader of the House Democrats, says it ain’t so. In her view, the Republicans are in such a hurry to pass their legislative priorities they are being sloppy. This is the reason the Democrats use the points of order, which are delays and even killings of bills on technicalities as simple as a missing or misspelled word.”
“Smithee, a 26-year veteran in the Legislature, said he thinks the points of order are becoming an industry in itself because he suspects that people with eagle eyes are hired to look for anything which could delay or even kill a bill.”
“And with the budget, redistricting, and lots of other contentious bills still to come, you can expect a lot more points of order.”
“And that, along with the fact the clock is already ticking, makes it possible that although the Democrats don’t have the votes to kill most legislation they oppose, most of those bills could be derailed because of technicalities or missed deadlines.”
“In short, although Perry’s emergency items are likely to become law, most of the conservative agenda a good number of Republicans promised to their political base is in jeopardy — even if they have a super majority in the House and a comfortable majority in the Senate.”
Nonsense. The Republicans have a 101 to 49 majority. If they can’t pass their agenda, it’s not the Democrats fault. It’s their own.
"slap," says rick james says:
you’re right. the democrats should use any method to defeat something that 75% of their constituents want (and 65% of their own party).
we have the audacity to want representation?!
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Spiro Eagleton says:
Worst column ever? Wow, that’s really saying a lot, especially when John Kelso is still turning out his lazy junk each week for the Austin Altered Statesman.
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paulburka Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Second worst?
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Brown Bess says:
Take it from a Lubbockite, not even close. On a regular basis, Mr. Rangel exhibits little real understanding of the legislative process or state government functions in general. I would invite all of you to confirm this fact, but it’d require you to read many issues of the Avalanche-Journal, a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
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kirk says:
In 10 years we are going to use the Voter ID law to prevent Anglo voters from up north from voting against the Tejano majority.
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Fiftycal Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Nah, it’ll take 20 years til the kids of all the illegals grow up and can get drivers licenses. Of course by then they will have learned English and discovered that the dimocrats simply want their vote so they can keep them on El Rancho. Already about 1 of every 3 Hispanics vote Republican. What makes you think that number will stay the same or shrink? We’ve already seen Hispanics in the valley switch to the RIGHT party. With welfare freebies and handouts likely to shrink in the coming years, the dims won’t have any way to BUY VOTES. But you’ll still have Kalipornia or whats left of it.
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Tellnitlikeitis Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Gonna be hard for GOPers to attract Hispanics when they want to eliminate Pre-K programs; when they oppose mandatory kindergarten; when they want to end bilingual education; when they want to pass Arizona like immigration bills.
They will be pressed to get 20 percent of the Latino vote.
You’ve seen one Latino Democrat from the Valley switch. Those who know him were not surprised because the never trusted him in the first place.
Surely, you don’t expect him to get re-elected with an R behind his name – if he decides to run again?
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1353574|=|= Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Rs are convinced that religion will bring Latinos over to their side. Ds are convinced that social programs and the Rs stance on immigration will keep them on their side. Both are right, to a certain extent.
But using the results of the last election to “prove” that Latinos are coming to the Republican party is short-sighted and ignorant of the results. Even in counties that are less heavily Latino than those along the valley, such as Duval, Bill White pulled in 70-75% of the vote, in 2010.
Fact is, both parties have a problem of treating people with Latino surnames as a monolithic bloc of voters. “Ruben Hernandez” in suburban Dallas is a much different person, with a much different set of cultural values, than “Ruben Hernandez” in Hidalgo County, or “Ruben Hernandez” in Fort Bend County.
Anonymous says:
I don’t think thhis comesanywhere closeto the worst newspaper columnn ever. Hewas simply pointing out the facts–and not in a mean spirited or biaised way. Paul, Most of the biaised mean spirited commentary was your own.
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Anonymous Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
I agree. Not Mr. Burka’s finest moment. And he just so happened to go after a column that didn’t regurgitate the tried and true tripe of the sky is falling narrative. It’s almost an attack for Rangel not conforming to the rest of the press narrative.
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paulburka Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
The whole tenor was that the Republicans had the right to pass their agenda. That’s what makes it so bad. He thinks that using the rules to thwart the majority is somehow unfair.
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Alan says:
“This is past the mid-point and as noted in previous columns, time is of the essence because the lawmakers haven’t even gotten to the heavy agenda which is redistricting and the budget bill.”
I wonder whose fault that is. I wonder who has spent the bulk of the Lege’s time up to this date on such pressing issues as a sonogram bill (the answer to all our state’s fiscal problems!).
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freshwind says:
And so if Mr. Rangel thinks the majority should just be able to proceed with its business, where has he been while Congressional Republicans have been infinitely more obstructionist in their use of parliamentary tactics to delay the Obama administration’s legislative agenda (HCR, financial reform, cap & trade) and presidential appointees (Elizabeth Warren, Craig Becker, scores of federal judges)?
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WUSRPH says:
But, Freshwind, don’t you understand. It is good and proper and Godlike when the “right side” which ever that may be (Democrats, Republicans or anybody else you support) is doing it. It is only obstrutive and bad when the “other side” does it. You have to remember that hypocrisy is the official Religion of Texas Politics.
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Harold Cook says:
I have to say – and may God forgive me – Burka has a point. I’m not sure if it’s the WORST column ever written, but it was bad.
Thing is, each person who elected the remaining Democrats matter just as much, and care just as much for whatever they care about as each person who elected the Republicans. For the Democrats to fail to do what is within the rules to fight against legislation they oppose would be just as bad as Republicans failing to put their efforts into things their own constituents support.
It’s a big state out there, full of all sorts of opinions. Those opinions are all represented, with an obvious majority, and an obvious minority. That doesn’t, however, mean that the minority just checks in at the beginning of the day, then play solitaire on their computers. Their constituents are worth just as much to them as the majorities’ constituents are worth.
Rules are a bitch, but when the Republicans were in the minority, they worked just as hard to make sure the majority didn’t roll over ‘em.
But get this: the House rules were drafted by Republicans. The success or failure of amendments to those rules were controlled by Republicans. The interpretation of how those rules are followed is determined by a parliamentarian under the control of the Republicans. If there’s something about the rules the Republicans don’t like, the Republicans are the ones to see about that.
If, on the other hand, there’s something bothering people about the fact that Democrats are insisting that the Republican-written rules be obeyed by the Republicans who wrote the rules, voted for the rules, and interpret the rules, that just sounds to me like Republicans are running out of things to whine about.
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Kate Langston says:
Very well stated, Mr. Burka.
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David Jennings says:
The Dems wasted a considerable amount of time trying to stall this bill knowing that it would pass. Who can forget Scott Hochberg talking about the lack of Dairy Queens in his district.
The next time you hear a Dem saying that R’s are wasting time by not focusing on the budget, tell ‘em to take a hypocritical hike.
Paul, attacking other media types has been known to boomerang on more than a few people. Just sayin’.
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Spiro Eagleton Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Burka sounds like a vapid Valley Girl typing this headline. Can’t you just see some ditz saying, “Like, worst column….EVER! Like, for sure!”
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paulburka Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
I’ll try to catch the boomerang before it hits me.
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Anonymous says:
Just because Hammond does not tell you to do it, does not make it bad…..
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Kenneth D. Franks says:
The emergency bills that were not emergencies took up most of the first half of the session. So don’t blame Democrats for this. They can’t be blamed for the rules either. When Republicans are the minority party again sometime in the distant future even, they will be glad that there are rules to move bills forward.
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Anonymous says:
Rangel is a nut job. I can’t believe he’s in charge of reporting back to the Legislature to all of Lubbock and Amarillo. How much more of an out of touch reporter/liberal activist could they have found?
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Kirk says:
Just imagine if Jim “Cupcake” Dunnam was still in the house…
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Tim says:
You Republicans are totally right. Which is why in the first few months of the Obama administration with a clear national Democratic majority we passed a bill creating socialized medicine in this country. A bill that no Republicans opposed because it was so clear that the majority in the US had voted for Obama and the Democratic party and it was their responsibility to sit quietly and let it pass.
Oh wait.
And you tea-partiers should really do well to look at the number of Texans who DIDN’T vote for you, before you start talking about clear mandates. If you call 20% of registered voters a mandate you might want to check in on the other 80% from time to time.
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paulburka says:
I don’t think it is very useful to claim that the Republicans don’t have a mandate. That’s a losing argument. It’s what they do with the mandate that matters.
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Robert Hudnall says:
Here in the Barack Candy Mountains the weapons of choice for stealing another’s property are large caliber Congressmen and small caliber bureaucrats…”This is a stickup…we’re doing it for the children!”
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Willis says:
Your comments are the most biased excuse for excrement that I had ever had the misfortune to read. Sure Rangels article wasn’t the best, but you, you are a sad man. Your comments are not very dissimilar than Rangles. The oh difference? YOu are trying to make a little pity party for the dems. Your poits Are laughable and you seem to be an arrogant fuck.
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