Posted on 05/29/2007 6:49:39 AM PDT by Cat loving Texan
Legislative session ends House Speaker Tom Craddick remains in power.
By Laylan Copelin AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The 80th Legislature was ending Monday the way it began: with Speaker Tom Craddick clinging to power.
The House returned Memorial Day, the final day of the session, hours after dozens of members walked out of the chamber about 1 a.m., temporarily shutting down the House with more than 30 bills pending.
On Monday afternoon, the House returned and picked up the agenda where it left off, passing legislation to provide $56 million in new money for state parks, to increase oversight of the state's foster care system and, sidestepping a special session topic, to continue the state's prison operations.
The Senate spent most of Monday approving memorial resolutions — and waiting on the House.
For 140 days, the House fought off and on over Craddick's leadership style. In January, Craddick won re-election to a third term after narrowly defeating a motion to have his election decided by secret ballot.
Criticized for being autocratic, Craddick promised to relax his grip. By the session's end, some members said he had let things spin out of control.
Austin Rep. Dawnna Dukes, a Democrat, summed up the House's almost daily brush with near-anarchy: "Some took it to heart. For others, it went to their heads."
Over the past five months, Craddick lost support from some of his most trusted lieutenants, both Republican and Democrat, and infuriated foes with his contention that as presiding officer he had absolute discretion to ignore any motion to remove him from office.
Both sides are leaving Austin claiming they would have had a majority if Craddick's leadership had been put to a vote.
In the end, the standoff between Craddick and House members dominated the final raucous days of the session, setting up the Midland Republican as the litmus test in every 2008 House race. Democrats pledged to Craddick and Republicans who defected from the state's first GOP speaker in modern times could face bitter challenges in their party primaries.
As has been his practice for the past two weeks, Craddick took no questions from reporters.
Drama on the floor
The tension evident in the House for weeks reached a crescendo early Monday when dozens of lawmakers walked off the floor.
The walkout came after Rep. Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso, stunned his colleagues while making a privileged speech to the House. He began taking an unofficial roll call on Craddick's leadership. As Haggerty called out the members' names, he asked them to shout "aye" or "nay." Many of Craddick's supporters stood and objected when their names were called.
When Speaker Pro Tem Sylvester Turner, who was temporarily presiding in Craddick's place, stopped the roll call, Haggerty urged members to leave the chamber, denying the House a quorum to continue debating bills.
As the rebel House members streamed out of the chamber, led by Haggerty, a crowd that had been watching in the gallery quickly poured into the hallways and began cheering and booing. Several scuffles and shouting matches between supporters and opponents briefly developed before Turner adjourned the House.
But the work resumes
Fourteen hours later, the House restarted, more subdued.
"God, this is our prayer," Rep. Tony Goolsby, R-Dallas, said in the opening prayer. "Hang in there with us. We need you more than ever."
But the tension was still there. Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, asked the speaker to strike Haggerty's roll call from the House Journal as offensive to several members. Waco Rep. Jim Dunnam, who leads the House Democratic Caucus, objected to a Craddick news release, posted on the House's official Web site, criticizing unnamed opponents for interjecting speaker politics into the end of the session.
During debate on legislation, several points of order were raised against bills and the ethics of House staff lawyers and the veracity of one member were questioned.
The most intense battle was over water legislation, Senate Bill 3, because East Texas members were trying to stop the designation of possible sites for reservoirs to provide water to Dallas.
Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, implied that Rep. Robert Puente, D-San Antonio and author of the bill, misled members about it. He later apologized but opposed the legislation.
The bill was important to the San Marcos area because it had language that would increase pumping from the Edwards Aquifer without guaranteeing spring flows in record droughts.
The measure was adopted.
No leader had it easy
It was a tough session for all leaders, not just for Craddick.
Gov. Rick Perry saw much of his early agenda squashed, including selling the lottery and requiring human papillomavirus vaccines for young girls, and he negotiated behind the scenes in the final days to salvage other issues important to him.
Even the normally clubby Senate had a brief meltdown earlier this month when Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican, tried to bring up legislation that would require voters to provide driver's licenses or other identification at the polls. A noisy confrontation on the floor between Dewhurst, the presiding officer, and the longest-serving Democrat, Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, ensued.
For almost two days, senators hashed out their differences behind closed doors, passing no legislation. Three senators from both parties were chosen to deliver senators' complaints about Dewhurst's leadership.
They made up and finished the session without incident.
The House, however, was another matter.
After Craddick's re-election, the members fought over adoption of House rules and early internal deadlines for taking up legislation. Many of Craddick's committee chairpeople unexpectedly lost floor battles on issues. Points of order became common weapons.
There were accusations that Craddick was strong-arming members, bending rules to help friends and hurt foes and using the appropriations process to hold his support for speaker.
The House took the rare step of overriding one of Craddick's rulings on scheduling floor debate.
Some of Craddick's chairmen, including Reps. Fred Hill of Richardson, Jim Keffer of Eastland and Patrick Rose of Dripping Springs, defected.
At last count, six official candidates are running for speaker when the Legislature convenes in January 2009.
lcopelin@statesman.com
Additional material from staff writer Mike Ward.
That was no legislative session, that was a 140 day circus. I cannot believe they did not pass the voter ID requirement.
Watch that idiot Perry call yet ANOTHER special session for whatever reason he can dream up.
You can thank the eleven lilly-livered Senators for keeping vote fraud alive.
Didnt see anything about overriding Perry’s veto of the bill putting the TTC on hold. Figures. We’ve be sold out once again by money and politics.
That was the typical RAT response. Women, minorities and elderly hardest hit.
I despise the left so much. I'd like to see Perry call special session after special session and bring this up every time, until it is passed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.