Last Thursday Nate Blakeslee and I sat down with Evan Smith to discuss our picks for this session’s Best & Worst Legislators. Here’s the video of our conversation.

Tagged: best and worst legislators, evan smith, texas tribune

The 20th edition of the “Best & Worst Legislators” story is complete. Yesterday we posted, on Twitter and on this blog, the names of the ten Best, the ten Worst, the Bull of the Brazos, and the Rookie of the Year. Today the write-ups for all of these 22 members are available online. The full story, including honorable and dishonorable mentions, furniture, and the very special features that mark the 20th edition of the story will be available in the magazine, which will begin reaching subscribers this weekend, and on our website next week.

I have been involved in nineteen of the twenty previous articles, and I cannot recall a more difficult year when it came to selecting the members on both lists. This was a session without heroes. All the usual jokes about naming 5 Bests and 15 Worsts were on point, for a change. The budget dominated everything, with the result that there were few major bills. I count three: Truitt’s effort to regulate payday loans; Ritter’s attempt to get funding for the state water plan (one of several occasions on which Perry could have exercised leadership for the state’s future but did not); and Keffer’s bill regulating hydraulic fracturing in shale formations. The rest was noise. Particularly cacophonous was the governor’s “emergency” agenda, which consisted of nothing but red meat for Republicans. Republicans got to vote on abortion, immigration, voter fraud, tort reform, and, shades of the fifties, state’s rights. Democrats got to vote no a lot. Even the major Sunset bills didn’t seem to generate any interest. You could look out across the House floor during any debate and see few members engaged.

The House Republican caucus was a curious organism. Its members preferred to vote as a block, as if they lived in fear that their age-old enemies, the Democrats, might perhaps be resuscitated to offer a scintilla of opposition. The group-think voting was reminiscent of the refrain sung by the “Monarch of the Sea” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore: “I grew so rich that I was sent/by a pocket borough into Parliament/I always voted at my party’s call/and never thought of thinking for myself at all.” The anemic Democratic caucus, meanwhile, mustered up occasional resistance, mostly with parliamentary maneuvers, but the D’s were so outnumbered, and so demoralized by their election rout, that they never seemed to have a leader or a plan. Not that it would have made any difference. (more…)

Tagged: best and worst legislators, jim keffer, John Zerwas, judith zaffirini, rick perry, robert duncan, Steve Ogden, vicki truitt, wendy davis

Today TEXAS MONTHLY tweeted this year’s list of best and worst legislators. Here it is all in one place.

The Best
Dan Branch, R-Dallas.
Senator Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock.
Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth.
Will Hartnett, R-Dallas.
Jim Keffer, R-Eastland.
Senator Steve Ogden, R-Bryan.
Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio.
Senator John Whitmire, D-Houston.
Senator Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo.
John Zerwas, R-Richmond.

* * * * *

The Worst
Leo Berman, R-Tyler.
Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton.
Wayne Christian, R-Center.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, R-Houston.
Senator Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay.
Senator Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.
Larry Phillips, R-Sherman.
Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton.
Senator Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio.
Bill Zedler, R-Arlington.

* * * * *
Special Awards
Bull of the Brazos: Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio
Rookie of the Year: Dan Huberty, R-Houston

* * * * *
Let the conversation begin.

Tagged: best and worst legislators

The main comment I would make about the Texas Tribune‘s Insiders’ list is that it doesn’t have any criteria. And I realize that’s not its purpose. This is really more like a vote for eighth grade president. The only criteria is who do we like and who don’t we like? The reason why TEXAS MONTHLY’s list has survived through twenty sessions is that we try to evaluate members according to the way they evaluate each other–that is, the self-imposed criteria inside the rail. My assistant in writing the Best and Worst story, Katherine Stevens, and I sat in a member’s office after the puppy mill debacle and heard a declamation, a loud declamation, on the importance of trust. When Truitt and Elkins were going at it over payday loans, we stood by the rail and listened to two Democratic members discuss where the line was about going too far in attacking an opponent or defending yourself, and whether either Truitt or Elkins had crossed it. Don’t get me wrong. I assume that most of the Tribune insiders have their internal measuring devices too. I watch the Legislature as though it were a great symphony, one that I have heard many times, so well that I know what the next note is supposed to sound like, and when the French horn goes BLAT!, I know that it’s the wrong note.

Our list will be out tomorrow.

Tagged: best and worst legislators

We’ll be releasing the names of our twentieth Best and Worst Legislators list via the @texasmonthly Twitter starting at 11:30 a.m Wednesday. Thursday morning, Nate Blakeslee and myself will discuss the story at The Texas Tribune‘s Trib Live event.

Tagged: best and worst legislators

Nominations are now open.

The rules: no vulgarity, no sexual innuendo, no excessive demeaning of members of the Legislature

Freshmen ARE eligible

I will not publish nominations that violate the guidelines.

If possible, be specific about the reasons for your choice.

* * * * *

Tagged: best and worst legislators

The following is a release from Representative Debbie Riddle, concerning her appearance on the Ten Worst list. I will reserve my remarks until the end. Some responses have been updated with clarifying information.

Dear Mr. Burka,

Being named one of your Ten Worst Legislators has become a perennial cornerstone of my reelection campaign, but I prefer to receive this honor on my own merits and not as a result of shabby research and irresponsible reporting on the part of you and your staff. I would appreciate it if you would give me a chance to correct several errors you made in your story.

To begin, I think it is well documented that the now infamous “Pit of Hell” monologue I delivered to the El Paso Times in 2003 was never a comment on the concept of free public education for citizens and legal residents, although the insistent prejudice of columnists like yourself who parrot rumors and innuendo rather than unbiased fact has certainly established it as such. Rather, that quote was a reaction to testimony from the Texas Department of Health regarding the cost of health care along the border as the result of illegal immigration. The comment was clearly applied only to those who were here illegally.

That same session, in order to combat soaring costs to his local school districts, an El Paso representative filed legislation to deal with the fact that Mexican citizens were sending their children across the border every day to attend public schools in Texas. I do not recall your magazine placing him on the worst list then or even six years later. I also do not recall your magazine ever running an additional quote from me that was part of the same story in the Times:

“In a perfect world, I think it would be wonderful to open our doors to any and all, young and old, for health care. But this isn’t a perfect world. We have got to decide if we are going to just open our borders for any and all that come through for health care, education, and services.”

Proper context is always difficult to achieve more than a half-decade after the fact. In the future, you might consider evaluating legislators based on things they said and did in their most recent session rather than relying on a spotty long-term memory.

On second thought, given the fact that you were unable to accurately report on the events that took place this session, perhaps your long-term memory is not the issue. One of the reasons you rate me as among the ten worst legislators in the state is because you claim I shifted money from incarceration diversion programs to programs that “weren’t requested, such as $20 million for new cars for the Department of Public Safety.”

If you disagree with the funding decision to give DPS the tools they need to do their job, that is a legitimate political viewpoint. However, there are two major errors in your claim.

First, the funds for the cars were not shifted away from any program. The money my subcommittee spent on this item was a one-time expense from freed-up general revenue as a result of the federal stimulus money. It was one of the last things we funded, and even then only after we fully funded the diversion programs (the same ones you claim I shortchanged) at the levels they were appropriated last session. However, the more glaring error on your part is that those black-and-whites actually were requested by the DPS. In fact, it was one of their top exceptional items, and they backed this up in public testimony on more than one occasion.

That leaves just two issues outstanding, one of which was my criticism of the journalist shield law. I cannot imagine why you, a member of the media, would be in favor of a measure that gives you a privilege that exceeds the privilege for attorneys, doctors, clergy, and spouses. All kidding aside, I expect the “giggling” of my colleagues regarding the shield law and the Pope was due to the absurdity of the fact that we would afford journalists more protection than we would his Holiness. Giggles or no, it is now a law in Texas.

Finally, I am once again one of the Ten Worst Legislators in Texas because my vision is no longer sharp enough to differentiate between two colleagues who are consistently mistaken for one another from more than 100 feet away. I take it from this pettiness that you have no physical attributes yourself anyone has ever taken advantage of. I will make a mental note to myself in the future that eyesight is now synonymous with legislative ability.

You and your colleagues should be congratulated for your magazine’s success and what it has accomplished as an entertainment periodical. If you wish to claim that you are true journalists, however, I suggest you consider holding yourself to the same standards of excellence to which you claim you hold the legislature. Partisanship and mean-spiritedness are two criterions you have always claimed to weigh against lawmakers. You might add “hypocrisy” to the list as well, if the irony is not too much to overcome.

Sincerely,

[My comments appear below]

(more…)

Tagged: best and worst legislators, debbie riddle, texas monthly

The floor is now open for nominations for the Ten Best and Ten Worst lists. Readers should try to make a case for their nominees. Information about unethical conduct is always welcome, but please refrain from gratuitious personal comments about members.

Tagged: best and worst legislators, texas monthly

As I go about interviewing members of the Capitol community for the Best and Worst Legislators story, I have been surprised by the low regard for the Senate. I know no one is going to feel sorry for lobbyists, but … a recurring theme among this cursed crowd is that senators are increasingly inaccessible and staff members (undoubtedly acting on the boss’s orders) are unavailable as well. I’m not going to speak up for lobbyists, but I will speak up for lobbying. The framers of the U.S. Constitution thought it was important enough to include “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” in the First Amendment, along with freedom of speech, the press, and religion. For better or for worse (and I would argue it is generally for better), they are part of the process. Other frequently heard criticisms have been the Dew’s absence — Eltife is presiding most of the time, raising the question of whether it is better for Dewhurst to be present, or AWOL — and his general lack of leadership. The consensus is that the Senate is loaded with members who have stayed way too long and contribute way too little. The most trenchant observation of this session has been that the Senate has become like the House, and the House has become like the Senate. This is not a good epigram for the Senate.

Tagged: best and worst legislators, texas senate