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Yesterday, Republican State Rep. Burt Solomons -- who is running an increasingly credible campaign to challenge Tom Craddick for Speaker of the House -- issued a public letter calling for Terry Keel, House Parliamentarian, to resign his post. From Solomons' letter (click here for PDF): The House Rules should not ever become a complex set of protective measures for the Speaker, but rather should always remain simply as “our” Rules in how we conduct business and the process for passing legislation; and, not as an “us” versus “them” set of procedural nonsense. [...] I must respectfully call for you to step down as Parliamentarian prior to the first day of the 81st Session and not as a Temporary Officer in the capacity of Parliamentarian on the first day of the session. It is my conclusion that a majority of my House colleagues are not confident that your advice and parliamentary interpretations will be unbiased, and you will continue on a parth of tortured interpretations and rulings designed solely to protect the current Speaker and frustrate the House parliamentary process. From your statements and advice since the beginning of your service as parliamentarian at the end of the 80th Session, it has become apparent to my House colleagues and myself that you are working for the current Speaker and not the body.
Republican State Reps. Tommy Merritt & Delwin Jones -- both Speaker candidate themselves -- joined Rep. Solomons' call for Terry Keel to step down in a press release issued minutes ago: We are joining with Rep. Burt Solomons today and calling for House Parliamentarian Terry Keel to resign his position. Additionally, we believe Ron Wilson should also step down immediately. We need a Member’s Parliamentarian, not a Speaker’s Parliamentarian. It is clear that Mr. Keel and Mr. Wilson are more interested in serving Speaker Tom Craddick than serving the entire House. We need to begin the 81st Legislative Session with a clean slate. The replacement of Mr. Keel and Mr. Wilson will send a clear signal that this next Legislature is making a clean break from the last Legislature which led to embarrassing floor fights over power and put the people’s needs behind the needs of the Speaker. Burka was on this early this morning. He emphasized the push for the secret ballot in Solomons' letter -- something Rep. Merritt also discussed in a second letter (another component I'll write about later). However, I want to focus on the Terry Keel resignation ask first: House Parliamentarians are not supposed to be polarizing figures. The House Parliamantarians are employees of the House, not the Speaker. The importance of the House being comfortable with the Parliamentarians is incredibly important: If a House Member needs to go to the front of the House to ask for anything -- to speak against a bill, to get clarification on whether or not a Point of Order should stand, to file an amendment, to get clarification on a procedural matter, anything -- then they talk with a Parliamentarian first. In this role, the Parliamentarians are invaluable gatekeers of the business of the House Floor. If the House, as a body, is not comfortable with who is protecting them -- even if the perception is there that their concerns or questions will not be fairly listened to or addressed -- then they cannot be comfortable operating on the House floor. Ultimately, this is about a secret ballot. On a member-to-member level, though, it's about cordiality vs. intimidation. That such a letter would even need to come from Rep. Solomons et. all -- in the very public glare of a Speaker's race, no less -- should be a strong signal for how discontent House Members truly are with Craddick at the front, and how little confidence anyone has that Craddick would reform his current practices in the least. |
