Letters From Texas: 2010-12-26

Friday, January 7, 2011

U.S. House: now that the Republicans are in charge...

...we're suddenly not hearing a lot of talk about bipartisanship are we?

File under: entertaining stuff Republicans email to each other.

Congressional Republicans.

Nobody's more committed to abiding by the U.S. Constitution. Nobody's more sensitive to the rule of law. Nobody's more....oopsie.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Feel under-educated about new U.S. House Speaker John Boehner?

That's what we're here for. Here's everything you need to know.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Yesterday, the Texas Eagle Forum came out blasting, urging legislators to vote against Joe Straus for Texas House Speaker, and claiming that half their legislative scorecards this session will be based on the vote for speaker.

Perhaps the other half will be based on legislators' votes on repealing the Emancipation Proclamation.

There's actually a special place in my heart for the Eagle Forum, because in my very first job in the state Capitol, on my very first day on the job, working for my very first legislator, they were the very first interest group that came by the office to "lobby" me.

I was working for then-State Representative Debra Danburg, who was at the time proudly the legislature's commiest commie in commie-ville, then and now a good friend.

The year was 1989. This was before the Capitol restoration and construction of the Capitol extension, so I was, quite literally, working in a broom closet. State prisoners had more square footage than I worked in. They probably also made more money bartering cigarettes, and cell phones to call Senator Whitmire, than I made.

Danburg's legislative agenda was completely trivial and meaningless. All she was doing was menial tasks such as promoting policy designed to help people stop dying from AIDS (neither the state nor the Feds had yet to do a single thing about it), and trying to change the Criminal Code to make it illegal for men to rape their spouses (yes, it was quite legal at the time - if you raped a woman, all you had to do was explain to the cops that you were married to her. Case closed).

In short, we were a little busy, a bit grumpy, and very out-gunned. For example, on the AIDS front, conservatives, including Eagle Forum members, were showing up to House Public Health Committee hearings, pointedly spraying the microphone with Lysol before willingly speaking into it. They were testifying in open hearings, in response to this public health epidemic, that gay men should be imprisoned, quarantined, sent to a remote island, or simply allowed - even encouraged - to die. They were citing bible verses to reach their conclusion that they were glad thousands of Texans were already dead.

Into the middle of this atmosphere walked Texas Eagle Forum members into my little world, on the first day of the legislative session. There were three women, all dressed in pink. They were carrying with them a plate of brownies for me to give Representative Danburg. They were all smiles.

And here's what they said next:

"We really support all the hard work Representative Danburg is doing, and we certainly hope he'll support our efforts to oppose equal pay."

For an accurate representation of my response, readers should insert at least 25 seconds of my wide-eyed blinking, amid blank stares at these oh-so-pink women.

It then began to compute.

First, these women assumed Debra Danburg was a man. Since she was a State Representative and all. And actually, I might give the pink ladies a break on that one, since I think some of Debra's boyfriends at the time were wondering about that themselves.

Second, these people, who looked exactly like human beings and who, best I could tell in my broom closet, did not drool, were against women getting equal pay for equal work. And they were women. Who wanted fewer economic options. For women.

I won't bore you with the details of how I avoided an assault charge, or how we got the brownie stains off the wall behind them. Let's just say that Danburg had other staffers present who quickly overruled my initial instincts. I'm also guessing Danburg's legislative score from the Texas Eagle Forum was somewhat low that session.

This, my legislative friends, is the organization that says it will count 50 percent of your legislative score on ousting the Non-Christian guy.

How very far we haven't come.

I'm not counting on Joe Straus to be doing any favors for the policy areas I most care about this session. But at least he can be proud that he's got the right enemies.

At least Danburg passed an AIDS bill that session. Prohibiting spousal rape took another two years.