Your turn! What do you think?

Digging for gold

Governor Perry reminded the federal government on Friday that you don’t mess with Texas—or with Texas gold.  Seems the governor wants to bring gold that is being held  in New York back to a vault in Texas. The governor has some political back-up from Tea Party supporter Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R-Southlake) who has introduced legislation to set up the Texas Bullion Depository—where the state’s gold could be held. Right now the 6,643 bars are underground in a New York facility guarded by the Federal Reserve Bank—the U.S. system comprised of 12 federal banks in various districts around the country. The Federal Reserve Board has broad regulatory powers (authority to enact measures to protect the money supply through the use of monetary policy). One component of that is making sure that banks have enough assets on hand to cover financial needs.

The purpose of the measure is really more of a symbolic policy—policies which have no tangible effect on the population, but which have political leverage with public opinion.  Why bring the gold home?   The psychological reassurance that the gold would be here—presumably the state is more financially secure in the event of a national or international crisis like a run on the bank.

Someone else who is hoping to strike it rich—George P. Bush–announced this week he will run in 2014 for Texas Land Commissioner-the person who heads up the Texas General Land Office.  The office provides oversight (management and supervision) for all state-owned lands including leasing for gas and oil production, operating the veterans’ loan program for land purchases, mining, grazing, and ensuring the environmental quality of public lands and waters. If there is exploration to be authorized on Texas lands, the Land Commissioner is the person to see.

Make no mistake, George P. Bush is not exploring public office, he has his eyes on the prize. The nephew of George W. Bush and son of Jeb Bush (former Florida Governor) has already raised $1.3 million for his campaign.  The Spanish speaking Ft. Worth consultant and  U.S. Naval Reserve officer (who was deployed in Afghanistan for 9 months) is considered to be a rising star in the Republican party—he was just appointed deputy finance chairman of the Texas Republican Party. He made his speaking debut as an official candidate this week, and while there were a few awkward moments, he seems well on his way. By all accounts he was comfortable with the audience and addressing key issues.

Here’s to going for the gold.

Your turn! What do you think?

Ending it all

So when is it time to vote the rascals out?  If the bill that just passed out of the Senate is successful in the House, and then goes to the Texas voters as a Constitutional amendment, those elected to statewide office may find time is running out. Term limits— the statutory limits on the number of terms an official may serve—are popular because it restricts politicians from accumulating power.  Such laws limit the incumbency effect (the tendency of those already holding office to win reelection over and over again) and prevent politicians from becoming omnipotent.  While there are term limits in place for governors in 38 states, state laws vary widely about whether other statewide office holders are subject to term limits.  Even in those states that have gubernatorial term limits, if the governor is out of office for at least one or more terms, they can technically be re-elected again. The proposed law would allow officeholders to eventually run again after an intervening term of office has occurred (candidates have to sit it out for one election cycle).

The provision has the greatest impact on Governor Rick Perry who has served an unprecedented three terms in office (after finishing Governor George W. Bush’s term when he was elected to President in 2000).  Perry has indicated he will announce by June whether he intends to seek a fourth term.  The current law has a “grandfather clause” allowing current office holders an exemption from immediate application–Perry could still run for another two terms after the law comes into effect.

So are legislators targeting Perry?

They argue that’s not the case, but that they want greater government accountability. Still some politicians, including Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst whose own job would be affected, question whether the law was needed.

After all, we have term limits, they are called elections–you might want to check ‘em out.

And speaking of termination, pro-life bills introduced in the Texas Senate target doctors’ medical treatment in making end of life decisions by giving patients and their surrogates greater discretion under Texas’s existing advance directives law (set of written instructions specifying what actions are to be taken if the person is ill or incapacitated).  Physicians frequently make the final medical  judgments about ending treatment—especially to the elderly and terminally ill.   Both bills give patients and their surrogates more discretion to challenge doctors’ ability to make the final determination about end-of-life treatment  (e.g. feeding and hydration tubes keeping the patient alive so terminating such treatment often results in the patient’s eventual death).

Guess the Texas legislature is really dealing with life and death issues this go round.  I wonder who (and what legislation) will survive.

Your turn! What do you think?

Data drilling

1) First find who your state senator and state representative is for the 83^rd Texas legislature (2013-2014).

2) Examine the data from the 83^rd Texas legislature regarding “Lawmaker Explorer”.  Scroll down to find your Texas House of Representative member and your Texas Senator. Are they Republican (red) or Democrat (blue)?

3) For both your Texas House and Senate members find each of the following.

a) How do each of the members support themselves financially?

b)  Who are their top contributors?

c) Are there any concerns raised in the “Analysis” section about financial disclosures?

Your turn! What do you think?

Taking aim at the revolving door

Legislators move on from doing the public’s business, to lobbyists who represent clients with close ties to business interests. The question is whether there’s an unfair advantage that the legislator-lobbyist has.  At least two different versions of ethics bills have been proposed in the 83^rd legislative session to limit the revolving door (the practice of having legislators go into lucrative lobbying practices representing clients they regulated while in office).  Laws requiring “cooling off” periods-requirements that former representatives wait a statutorily set time limit before representing private interests before the legislature—are set up in 34 states, although there is substantial variation across the 50 states.  The current proposals would require representatives wait 2-4 years before becoming lobbyists.

The Texas Ethics Commission requires all lobbyists register with the agency and some disclosure information, but Texas is ranked 38^th out of the 50 states in terms of lobbyist regulation. The 11 former legislators from the 82^nd legislature (10 House members and 1 Senator) include a diverse array of both public and private interests ranging from energy and education to the banking industry. Take for example Rob Eissler (R-Woodlands), former chair of the House Public Education Committee who now represents school districts and Pearson, Inc. or Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton who worked on the Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee (regulating alcohol permits) who now works for both the Texas Restaurant Association and the Beer Alliance of Texas.

And speaking of ethics, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R-Southlake) was blasted by his defeated, primary opponent Vicki Truitt for his proposed legislation which targets legislators and their family members who receive government contracts.  Texas law, like most states prohibits legislators receiving compensation for trying to obtain contracts for a business in which they have a “substantial interest” (more than 50%), but family members including spouses, are not prohibited.  Additionally, there is a loophole (method of circumventing or avoiding the law)—legislators  can still have substantial interests in business contracts if the contract is done via sealed bidding (submitting a secret bid and the lowest bid wins the contract).  Capriglione’s law would have disclosure requirements (provisions mandating public access to financial records). Truitt’s re-election was shot down by Capriglione in part because he criticized her husband’s business contract with the taxpayer-funded Tarrant County Hospital District.  Capriglione has been accused of waging a ‘vendetta’ against Truitt who has since gone on to become a lobbyist for the Texas Hospital Association.

Let the political spinning begin.

Your turn! What do you think?

A penny for your thoughts

Talk about your law of unintended consequences (that the government’s actions have effects that are unanticipated or unintended), we have a new one for the record.   Texas lawmakers are considering how to reverse a law that accidentally made stealing a penny a crime. What you say? If I find a penny on the ground and pick it up and it’s not mine, I can be prosecuted?

That’s right.

Since 2011 when the Texas legislature passed a law aimed at stopping metal thieves who would sneak onto construction sites and steal metal piping (especially copper wire), stealing any kind of metal worth value can be considered a crime. Originally the law only applied to objects that had a 50% metal threshold – meaning that if the item was made of 50% more of metal it fell under the law to be considered a crime. During the markup session—the process where a committee reviews and debates amendments to a bill before reporting it out for debate before the full chamber—Sen. Royce West took out the 50% requirement which meant that anything with any metal could be eligible for a state jail felony. Pennies, you may not know, contain 2.5% copper. Good news is that the legislature will most likely amend the law to make is so that you have to steal metal valued at $500 or more.  That’s an awful lot of pennies.

And speaking of sharing your thoughts and trying to set a record, our U.S. Senators did that on Wednesday when they engaged in a 12-hour filibuster to stop the nomination of John Brennan to head the Central Intelligence Agency.  A filibuster is the endless talking that can go on when Senators try to “talk a bill to death.”  Under U.S. Senate rules, you must first vote to close off debate (vote of cloture) by 60 votes (or 3/5^th majority).  So even though you may have the 51% (majority) vote you need to pass legislation, take some action, or confirm a nominee, you can never get to that point if you do not have the supermajority (a number substantially greater than 51%) needed to stop the debate in the first place.  Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz joined Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) in reading everything from Shakespeare’s Henry V and quotes from the movie “Patton”, to tweets which came in supporting the filibuster. The conservative Senators are unhappy about Brennan’s support for President Obama’s drone program which potentially allows unmanned flight vehicles to bomb U.S. citizens if the government has reason to believe a terrorist target is on U.S. soil.  The Senators finally ended their endless yap session about 1 a.m. with Rand Paul joking that he had wanted to break Senator Strom Thurmond’s previous record of 25 hours filibustering, but that the process had its limits (and “I am going to have to go take care of one of those here.”)

Guess sometimes nature just has to run its course.