80th Legislature: Another Look At House Committee Assignments

The House Democratic Caucus has released a very, very detailed breakdown and analysis of the committee assignments for the 80th Legislature.

I’m quite glad because I’ve been doing some thinking and pondering about my analysis, which I think put a little too much emphasis on who some of the vice chairs were, given that (save on Appropriations) their power and influence are fairly limited in most cases.

The House Democrats’ analysis was more technical than mine in terms of percentages and committee makeup. Of course, the House Democratic Caucus has (a) a staff and (b) interns, which means they compiled what we would have *liked* to have compiled in my own personal Walter Mitty Legislative Analysis Fantasy.

Some of the main points of the analysis include that although the number of Democrats in the House have increased by seven to 46 percent of the overall House makeup, the number of chairmanships for Democrats has remained stagnant at 25 percent (what it was in the 2005 committee assignments.  Overall, 19 of the committees have a Republican Chair and Vice Chair while only three have both a Democratic chair and vice chair.
Furthermore, you can look at the list and see that, clearly, the diversity of the House isn’t reflected in the chairmanships:

Female members hold 4 fewer Chairs and 1 fewer Vice-Chair positions this session compared to 2005. Anglo-Republican males make up only 43% of the House, yet they have been given 63% of the Chairmanships.
There are more Hispanic and African-American members of the Texas House this session than in 2005, yet minority members now hold 2 fewer Chairs and 1 fewer Vice-Chair positions than in 2005.
Harris County has a Hispanic population of over 1.1 million. Dallas County has a Hispanic population of over 830,000. No Hispanic member from either county, despite 31 years of combined seniority, are Chairs or Vice-Chairs.
Only 1 member of Border & International Affairs is actually from the Texas-Mexico border, and that member is not Hispanic.

That’s unacceptable. State Affairs, which will handle the major immigration legislation this session, had a net loss of two Hispanic seats, both of whom were officers in the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. There is now only one Hispanic on the committee that will consider this controversial legislation.
And, in spite of the fact that a 54-percent majority in the House makes a majority but not a clear mandate, all of the committees that will handle controversial or priority issues during this session are dominated by Republicans! The report also notes that Republicans have super-majorities on critical committees:

Appropriations (18-11 Republican, Republican Chair) – 1 net Democratic seat lost
Calendars (7-4 Republican, Republican Chair)

Civil Practices (6-3 Republican, Republican non-lawyer Chair)

Energy Resources (5-2 Republican, Republican Chair)
Environmental Regulation (6-1 Republican, Republican Chair)
Local & Consent Calendars (8-3 Republican, Republican Chair)
Natural Resources (6-3 Republican, Democratic Chair)
Public Education (6-3 Republican, Republican Chair)
Redistricting (10-5 Republican, Republican Chair)
Regulated Industries (7-2 Republican, Republican Chair)
State Affairs (7-2 Republican, Republican Chair)
Transportation (8-1 Republican, Republican Chair)

If you aren’t familiar with what these committees do, you should be because that’s why this imbalence is so glaring.

First off, look at Civil Practices. It’s the committee that handles such issues like tort reform, a pet project brought to you Bob Perry and the lovely folks at Texans for Lawsuit Reform, who have done their best to buy themselves a legislature in the past few years.

Local & Consent is shaped in such a way so that legislation by anti-Craddick legislators will get stuck in the mud and not go anywhere.

The all-important water issues that will be tackled this session will go before Natural Resources.

In terms of the Public Education committee, even though the vast majority of Texas’ more than 1,000 independent school districts are not in the Houston or Dallas areas (most are, in fact, in suburban and rural areas), the vast majority of the makeup of this committee comes from the Houston and Dallas areas, leaving rural school districts without adequate representation on the committee.

As for Transportation, that’s where projects like the Trans Texas Corridor go to and come from, and it’s stacked, too.

Now, look at Committees chaired by Democrats:

Border & International Affairs (5-2 Democratic)
State Affairs Committee
Business & Industry (5-4 Republican)
Economic Development (4-3 Democratic)
Human Services (5-4 Republican)
Licensing & Administrative Procedures (5-4 Republican)
Natural Resources (6-3 Republican)
Rules & Resolutions (6-5 Republican)
Urban Affairs (5-2 Democratic)
Criminal Jurisprudence (7-2 Democratic)
Juvenile Justice & Family Issues (9-0 Democratic)

Check out the full report for the full analysis. But, I do want to highlight a couple of committee-by-committee analysis from the report:

APPROPRIATIONS:

• New Republican Chair
• New Democratic Vice-Chair
• 18 to 11 Republican majority
• Loss of Democratic member
• Democrats gained 6 seats since 2005 and should have gained representation
this committee.
• Seniority requests by members to serve on Appropriations no longer apply,
bipartisan effort to reinstate that long-standing practice was rebuked during
debate on the House rules.
• 14 of the 29 members did not serve on Appropriations last session.
• 4 freshman and 3 sophomore members were appointed even though there is a steep learning curve for the budgeting process.
• Past Appropriations Committee members with particular expertise in select budget areas have again been left off the committee (for example, Reps. Pitts, Haggerty and Pickett, also Reps. Gallego, Coleman and Hochberg, all of whom
have experience on budget and school finance conference committees).

CIVIL PRACTICES:

• Republican Chair
• Democratic Vice-Chair
• 6 to 3 Republican majority
• Loss of 1 Democratic seat
• White Democrats lost three seats on the committee
• As changes in liability law fall off the agenda, Craddick is moving his supporters
to more plumb jobs, yet he is still maintaining his grip on this committee.

CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE: (this one will shock you)

• Democratic Chair
• Democratic Vice-Chair
• Republican CBO
• 7 to 2 Democratic majority
• This committee is heavily packed with Democrats and is unfortunately unlikely to handle major legislation this session.

ELECTIONS (which echoes some of my sentiments previously expressed):

• Republican Chair
• Republican Vice-Chair
• Republican CBO
• 4 to 3 Republican majority
• This committee is expected to again consider the disenfranchising “voter id” aimed at reducing elderly and minority voter participation. This session, the committee is chaired by Rep. Leo Berman who has already filed several bills
are considered extremely antagonistic towards minority communities.

HIGHER EDUCATION:

• Republican Chair
• Republican Vice-Chair
• Republican CBO
• 5 to 4 Republican majority
• Loss of 1 African-American member compared to last session
• Only 1 Hispanic member on committee
• Rep. Morrison, author of Tuition Deregulation, continues to serve as Chair, despite skyrocketing tuition rates.

HUMAN SERVICES

• Democratic Chair
• Republican Vice-Chair
• Republican CBO
• 5 to 4 Republican majority
• 6 of 9 members did not serve on the committee last session, including the Chair
• Loss of 1 Hispanic member on committee compared to last session
• Loss of 1 African-American member compared to last session
• Loss of 2 female members on committee compared to last session
• Restoration of cuts to Human Services in the budget over the last four years will be a critical issue this session, and the Republican CBO has the power of the purse on the committee.

PUBLIC EDUCATION:

•Developing a viable, long term solution to public school finance is still the biggest issue facing lawmakers.
• Republican Chair
• Republican Vice-Chair
• Republican CBO
• 6 to 3 Republican majority, with 6 Anglo Republicans
• Lost Democratic Vice-Chair with over 20 years of experience
• Only 2 minority committee members, one Hispanic and one African-American
• Democrats gained 6 seats since 2005 and should have gained representation on this committee and not lost a senior member and a leadership position.
• The CBO lives in University Park and represents Highland Park, one of the wealthiest school districts in the state. This is an important distinction with the elimination of Robin Hood being advocated and the ongoing need to maintain equity in the public school finance system.
• 8 of the 9 committee members represent Houston/Dallas suburbs—school districts in the Panhandle, West, East and South Texas have no representation.
• There are 1,038 school districts in Texas. The bulk of the committee represents the largest type of school districts in the state, leaving the 877 small/mid-sized districts in the state are largely under-represented. 

TRANSPORTATION:

• Republican Chair
• Republican Vice-Chair
• Republican CBO
• 8 to 1 Republican majority, loss of one Democratic seat (a Hispanic)
• The Chair of this committee strongly supports toll roads and the committee has oversight of toll roads and transportation contractions included in the Governor’s mobility plan and the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Food for thought in all instances.

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