Missed Opportunities Of The 80th Legislature: A Right-Wing Agenda Above Real Reforms

[Ed. Note: This is the second in our multi-part series, "Missed Opportunities Of The 80th Legislature." The first installment may be found here.]

The General Appropriations Act perhaps best represents the missed opportunities of the 80th Legislature to enact meaningful measures which woud benefit the most Texans. However, there were many other opportunities for the Legislature to make a difference in the lives of ordinary Texans.

These opportunities, however, were squandered as the Legislature became mired in endless debate over a multitude of right-wing talking points which served as the “red meat” for the anti-tax wingnut crowd and Religious Right.

The Legislature began its session with the Texas Senate voting to put the words, “In God We Trust” on the walls of the Senate Chamber (and on the digital message board until the actual lettering can be arranged).

Never mind that not everyone in Texas subscribes to Judeo-Christian beliefs, of course. Luckily, while Democrats supported this idea (let’s face it, it is something impossible to oppose and be reelected), they did serve to temper the debate that was driven by the likes of uber-Right Winger Dan Patrick:

Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said he supported the resolution. But he asked senators to consider the words when they vote on issues that affect millions of Texans, rather than just as a display of their religious faith.

“Remember what it says,” he said.

Did Republican Senators remember what it said? Evidently not. Nor did many of their Republican House colleagues.

Consider, if you will, some excerpts from the popular Christian scripture known as The Beatitudes:

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they shall be satisfied.

There was little satisfaction for those who hunger and thirst for justice in the 80th Legislature.

Instead of enacting reforms which focused on equality and justice, the Legislature wasted time on legislation that fostered discrimination and injustice.

The Voter ID bills (HBs 626 and 212) were prime examples.  Instead of working to make voting easier and working to protect the right of Texans to vote, Republicans bought into the Rovian conspiracy of “voter fraud” and brought forth legislation which would have disenfranchised elderly Texans, minority Texans and the poor.

Hours and hours were wasted in committee and on the floor of both chambers dealing with these bills or making sure they could not be brought up. (Lt. Governor David Dewhurst behaved particularly disgracefully when it came to HB 218).

Had this time not been wasted, perhaps more time could have been dedicated to more significant education reform, more reform for the Texas Youth Commission, more probation and parole reform, more real education reform and legions of other areas in dire need of legislative attention.

In terms of the concept of “social justice,” how much time was wasted on right-wing “border security” measures, abortion bills, bogus “religious liberties” legislation, and bible education bills which could have been dedicated to a more worthy cause, such as a higher state minimum wage?

There were at least eight separate minimum wage bills filed in the Texas Legislature. Only one, as far as I recall, even got to the Calenders Committee.

And, as Republican legislators sashayed about blaming illegal immigrants for asinine things like a revival of the Bubonic Plague, legislation which would have improved the Children’s Health Insurance Program such that the program could realize its full potential withered.

As Republicans threw red meat to their faithful with bills like one to alter the Pledge to the Texas Flag to include the words, “under God,” measures like those to give economic relief to average Texans—like the “Gas Tax Holiday,” faced a hard road to hoe and ultimately ended up being canned.

In the end, though the Republican-led Legislature did its share of kowtowing to the Religious Right. What is amusing, however, is that in the Republican majority’s rush to cloak itself in the robes of religious (self-) righteousness, it failed to live up to the very religious mantle they proposed to carry: they abandoned the poor, the children, and the elderly.

The Republican majority caused the Legislature to miss dozens and dozens of opportunities to make life better for the underprivileged, children, and the elderly.

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