Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (19201)	5/16/2003 4:56:21 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 89467

MOLLY IVINS: Putting the Texas Legislature out of our misery "Amazingly enough, the proposed ethics law was weakened and watered down behind the closed doors!" "Believe me, stopping the Legislature from functioning at this point is high public service." dfw.com Putting the Legislature out of our misery \| Molly Ivins COMMENTARY Star-Telegram They just went too far, that's all. This legislative session has been as brutal, callous and indifferent to the welfare of the weakest, frailest, youngest and oldest Texans as it is possible to get. The level of pure meanness is just stunning. They have just gone too far. The session was pretty well summed up by Rep. Senfronia Thompson when she illustrated what was going on by taking the House rulebook to the podium with her and dropping it on the floor. There is no rule of procedure, fairness, common sense or decency that has been observed by the Republican majority in the Texas House. In case you hadn't noticed, every major newspaper in this state has criticized the plans and performance of the Legislature this session, often in harsh language. Those wild-eyed radicals at The Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle are just disgusted with the tacky display that these people have been putting on. There is no excuse for this, and blaming it on the budget shortfall will not wash. We all knew going in that some terribly hard choices would have to be made, but what in the name of heaven was the governor thinking when he had handicapped people arrested? These were citizens who came to their capital to protest budget cuts affecting them, and they get arrested. Maybe it was because they were in wheelchairs -- don't even have to be hauled away. They can just be rolled away. Most of us thought it was pretty funny when Rep. Debbie Riddle popped out with her now-classic statement: "Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell." Amusing as that was, the House has been doing its dead-level best to destroy both public education and public health. They've taken 250,000 poor children off the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the schools are in dire straits. As the Austin American-Statesman pointed out in an editorial, these same fine thinkers did manage to find $10 million to appropriate for cow research and $300 million for Gov. Rick Perry to woo companies to Texas. Of course, there have been some lovely moments we can celebrate, like the day that House Speaker Tom Craddick decided that the new ethics reform law should be debated in a back-room, closed-door session. Amazingly enough, the proposed ethics law was weakened and watered down behind the closed doors! I think a special salute for clear thinking should go to the House for its amazing decision to cut the program that pays for medications for mentally ill people who are out of prison on probation or parole. Is this brilliant? Now these people will be wandering around the state without their meds. The latest flap over a congressional redistricting map was the proverbial last straw for the Democrats, more than 50 of whom left the state or went into hiding Sunday to break the quorum, thus bringing legislative business to a halt. Believe me, stopping the Legislature from functioning at this point is high public service. Craddick called it a "stunt." The R's have been pulling stunts every day of this session, and they don't write it off as payback for heavy-handed Democratic rule. Speaker Pete Laney ran a fair House, and everyone knew it. The way things got to such a sorry pass is that the R's have been running on rote, lock-step voting. No Democratic amendment gets considered on its merits, no matter how sensible it is. Shell bills get introduced, and then whole sections are amended on the floor, in a parody of legislative process. The creepy thing about the far-right Republicans, who are definitely in the majority in the House, is not that they are dismantling government because they won't raise taxes -- they're dismantling government because they think it shouldn't help people. They really think that health and human services should not be provided. It's an old line among liberals that anti-choice people care more about the unborn than they do about the born, but I'm telling you that it's not just some clever line -- these people are writing it into the state budget.