Murali, You, and even I, have no way of knowing whether Bush made any attempts to reform penal punishment in Texas or not. First of all, he had a huge financial mess to clean up after Ann Richards was kicked out. Then his efforts went to improving the pitiful public school system we had. Both of these task were completed successfully. For awhile, Texas had a large surplus of funds, but large expenditures in improving the school systems have depleted that to a degree, but not nearly as much as has been publicized. The test scores in Texas have dramatically improved in our schools, and a higher percentage of students are graduating even though automatic promotion has been eliminated. There is, also, a much lower percentage of drop-outs.
Another reason that he could not make any changes in criminal punishment, is because all opinion polls over the years have shown that the citizens of the state, overwhelmingly, approve of the death penalty and a constitutional amendment didn't have a prayer of passing. Since life in prison without possibility of parole is not an option in this state, the death penalty is the only option for crimes involving brutal murders.
There is no way, no matter how hard you try, that you can lay the death penalty on GW's door step, and have justification in doing so. I, personally, would like to have the "no parole, life sentence" option but, until it is available, I support the death penalty as an option for certain crimes. ~H~ |
