| Talk to me about how you are feeling. Having gone from councilwoman, to candidate for senate, and now State Senator for District 10. How do you feel?
I feel very proud of having made it here. I'm incredibly excited about all the issues that we're going to be able to work on now, and I am anxious to get through the learning curve.
And I'm sure it has been a drastic curve at that...
It definitely is. And particularly on the topics that I am most interested in and topics I want to have the greatest impact on. School finance is as complicated as it gets, and what I'm finding here is that there are very few people who make themselves experts in that particular arena. What I discovered when I was on the Fort Worth City Council was that if you knew more about a particular topic than other people, then you could be very effective at accomplishing your goals on that particular topic. And so, I'm trying very hard to learn as much as I can as fast as I can on that particular subject. I'm also reaching out to those individuals who have made themselves experts on that particular issue to learn from each of them and ask questions. Their experience is important and I want to learn from it.
We'll be starting the Education Committee hearings soon.
Out of all the committee assignments you were awarded, and you were awarded several such as International Relations & Trade, Veterans Affairs and Military Installations, as well as Transportation--but education is one issue you spoke a lot about during your campaign, so are you particularly pleased about that committee appointment?
I certainly was. There were two that I really wanted to contribute toward, one being education and the other transportation. As you know, transportation for our region in North Texas is incredibly important. During the campaign so many people talked about the fact that they don't want toll roads to be our solution to our transportation problems, and so we must solve this problem at both the state and federal levels. That's the only place to do it and it is going to be a challenge because of the financial situation the state is in right now--as you heard today--and the economy as a whole. But I do believe we have some opportunities in front of us to put some choices in front of voters in North Texas about bringing light commuter rail to our region. I think we've got leaders from different parts, from East to West, who care about making something happen, such as Senator Carona who chairs the Transportation Committee and is invested in trying to bring a solution to our region. I think he and I are going to work very well together on that subject, so I'm very excited at the appointment to the Transportation Committee. It's not going to be easy but I'm up for the challenge.
No, it won't be easy, but it appears you are truly immersing yourself in the issues and leaning on experts on the various subjects to learn more. As far as transportation, and you mentioned tolls--it is a hot button issue--especially in the North Texas region, so do you feel that tolls are ultimately going to be part of any transportation plans or solutions in the future, regardless of what a particular areas transportation needs are?
I spoke at a transportation commission meeting last week on the North Tarrant Express Plan, and the decision there has been to create two managed lanes and keep the free lanes, but the toll would fluctuate throughout the day depending on traffic and the level of congestion. When I spoke on behalf of the folks in our region who had worked hard to advance that project, what I said was that we need different solutions and that we have to be the ones to bring that to the table. So long as this is all we are offering to our region, when our region comes to us and says we need this to happen, we have to work with the tools we've given them and respect the tools they have chosen.
I think it is going to be a while before we have the economic outlook again that will give us completely different solutions. So, it is probably always going to be the case that depending on where you are in a region, and depending on the level of traffic congestion, the appetite will be higher or lower for toll roads as a solution to our traffic problems. I would like to see us not have to go that direction.
Part of it is going to be having to make some brave political decisions such as indexing the gas tax and looking at stopping some of those diversions coming from gas tax revenues. Those have political consequences to elected officials, but it is the only way we are going to be able to create the funding stream that is actually going to put the responsibility where it needs to be, which is on the state to build and maintain our road systems and not on the individual who pays at the pump and then has to pay at the toll booth as well.
Switching gears a little bit and talking about your campaign--specifically about money. The campaign for Senate District 10 was one where both you and your opponent raised about $5 million dollars, and you in particular raised $2.1 million dollars, which is phenomenal for a candidate running for that office, but we are getting to the point where state representative races are reaching half-a-million dollars to be competitive, senate races now appear to be well over a million-what effect does money now have on politics and where do you feel it is going? Will it get any better? Can it get any better?
I don't think it will get better. The real concern when you are talking numbers like that it instills tremendous power in incumbency.
Umm-hmm...
Because incumbents have a much easier way to raise funds. I think that our situation was rare in that you find a challenger who is from a Party that is not the Party in power in the district, and running against an entrenched incumbent, and we raised the kind of money that we raised. Part of that came from the benefit I had of being on the Fort Worth City Council and being able to reach out to some of those relationships that I had created over the years. Another part of it came from literally dedicating a large chunk of my time toward fundraising. Bernie can attest to that, that is what I did for a year.
Where you literally lock yourself in a room and make calls hours upon hours...
And I traveled all over the state. So if you are a person who has a job, who is in a situation where their job isn't as generous to them as my company was to me--I mean, who can do that? Who has the time to do that? So that is my biggest concern about how much these campaigns cost. We drive away the ability for people to participate in government.
I don't know what the solution is. Something that has been discussed, and certainly it was one of largest expenses in the campaign, is media. Perhaps a solution we can look at is where media offers equal time for candidates regardless of cost, but the media would need to be compensated for that. We'd have to most likely have a federal solution for that to happen.
Well, the 2nd day of the 81st session broke out with some drama--somewhat unexpectedly for the senate side, I think a lot of people thought if any drama were to occur it would come from the House side, but the measure to suspend the 2/3rds rule was supported by the Lt. Governor and a majority of senators in the chamber. It ultimately passed. It would appear the measure is focused on one particular piece of legislation known as the Voter Identification Bill. How did you feel about this move? And how do you feel about the Voter identification Bill?
I was very surprised that the rules change occurred. For me it was an immediate immersion into how this process works. What I came to understand as far as the reasoning for why the rules change occurred when it happened--before the senate adopts its rules, and it generally happens immediately into the session, that's the only time a special order can be introduced that will change a rule for a particular purpose. Once those rules are adopted than in order for a rule change to come up on the floor for discussion, it would have to come up by means of a 2/3rds vote. So the only time the dialogue can take place would be the one time where rules changes can be discussed with a simple majority and that is the day you are adopting the session rules. That was why it was done when it was done.
I know it caught our caucus off guard. We weren't expecting this move. I think the most advanced notice they got that it was going to occur was a day ahead which left very little time to strategize, but I think our caucus handled the situation very well. We put forward amendments on the floor that essentially said if we are going to lift the 2/3rds rule for Voter ID, then lets lift it for School Finance, lets lift it for fully funding SCHIP, lets lift it for Insurance Reform, lets lift it for Utility Regulation...
The issues on voters minds...
Right, so lets lift it for college tuition,
That's a big one for me...
Right! I thought our point was very effective. At what point do we decide that its time to play with that rule, and how do we decide which issues merit removal of that rule? And who gets to say what particular issue is more important than another? In the case of Voter Identification, would Texans say that particular issue is more important than utility rates or homeowners insurance problems? I don't think so. And certainly it was the case in our campaign that Voter Identification was never discussed. I didn't knock on a single door where the voter said, "I'm concerned about voter identification and I want you to go to Austin and do something about it." They certainly said that "I'm concerned about school funding," and the many other issues that my Democratic colleagues put forward as amendments on the senate floor.
So I think the real question here is where are our priorities? It is not even a matter of whether you agree or disagree with Voter ID, it's the fact that you are breaking this tradition-a tradition that has allowed the senate to function as well as it has in the past-simply for political purposes.
And essentially that is what Senator Carona, one of your Republican colleagues, said as well...
You touched on an issue in college tuition, one that is important to me and many others. One of the things that I admired about you as a candidate was your personal story--your climb through education, in what you had to overcome, and what you did overcome, in order to reach your goals. A tremendous story. Someone like myself who is paying for their own college education, with tuition costs going up every single semester, what is available as far as legislation, or what in general can we do to make college education affordable for individuals like myself, and a number of other Texans, who want a secondary education?
A couple of different things. One, there have been a number of tuition freeze proposals that have been introduced already in the senate and in the house, and they are all slightly different versions of the same idea.
The idea would be that tuitions would freeze if you come in as a freshman and you are paying $300 a semester hour, and you graduate in four years, then you would have that same tuition throughout. So it is reliable--you know what you are going to be paying and you don't have to turn around every year and find you have a different amount every year that you will have to come up with. The question is does that go far enough? Because what it does, it obviously freezes the rate where it is today, but in the meantime in the last four years we've allowed our state responsibility in helping to supplement the cost of education to be shifted onto the lowest common denominator--the working family who has to pay the bill. I think that when we did that, the state really stepped away from its responsibility to make that opportunity--that education opportunity--possible for Texans.
So when we talk about doing freezes I think we have to talk about it two-fold. We can't just talk about a freeze, we have to talk about a roll back if at all possible, but corresponding with that we have to talk about how the state is going to provide those resources to the universities who incur the debt from the students. I think that is where the real meat of the issue is--what are we going to do to make sure we are providing our universities with the resources that they need while at the same time keeping education affordable. I am pleased to see that, in a couple of things I've read from Lt. Governor Dewhurst and Governor Perry, that they have both see this issue as being addressed with a two-pronged solution--that once we freeze rates we have to make up for the loss in resources to the universities. Part of being a freshman senator is getting my hands around where those other possibilities exist and what other pools exist that might help alleviate this problem.
You had mentioned a little earlier the issue of utility deregulation, which was sold to the public as a way to control utility costs, and to make it affordable, and to provide choices for electricity and so forth. Clearly that has not been the case. Texans are dealing with out of control electric bills and utility bills in general, and I'm sure you heard a lot about this particular issue on the campaign trail. What can we do to take a look at this issue and regain control of these rates and perhaps even re-regulate the utility industry?
The most important area to look to is what is happening in the wholesale market. Right now, with the way deregulation structured pricing in the wholesale market we allow the cost to the retailers to be based on the cost of natural gas prices. As those prices rose we allowed administrative increases in those costs from the wholesalers to the retailers with no oversight whatsoever. We did not in that legislation put in a corresponding requirement that when natural gas prices fell that the wholesale costs to the retail market would fall as well.
So what we have seen over the course of time since deregulation in 2003 is a steady ratcheting up without a corresponding ratchet down. We all saw natural gas prices at their highest a year ago and now they are dramatically lower. That was part of the information that was provided today in the finance committee meeting. I don't think you could say at this point in time that the kilowatt per hour cost of electricity has come down in a corresponding manner.
There are two things wrong with saying that creating an opportunity for new retailers to come in will lower your prices, and one is that when you can't leave the market--we talked about this during the campaign--when you can't choose to leave the market as a consumer then you can never really have true competitiveness in a market place. Because you can only make choices within the price that the market is offering and try to find the lowest amongst those choices. But obviously retailers watch each other and follow each others prices, and they all silently agree on how those rates are going to be set by watching what each other is doing.
The other problem with that is that when pricing is occurring at the wholesale level, as we talked about a minute ago, it doesn't matter how many retailers enter the market because the retailers are paying a particular price for that resource and they have to make a profit. So long as the prices are allowed to be artificially held high from the wholesaler to the retailer then the retailer can only do so much to compete. The prices are never actually going to reflect the actual cost. So if I had a magic wand and could make 30 other senators and 150 house members do what I think needs to be done, it would be that we would look very closely at the wholesale market and how we can make some changes there.
We are trying to do some much less aggressive remedies right now. We are looking at filing a Bill in the senate that Representative Chris Turner is filing in the house where you would be at the very least given a 60 day notice by your electric provider when your contract provider is coming to an end, and you would be given notice of what the kilowatt per hour change is going to be at the end of that contract. {Ed: Rep. Turner filed the bill yesterday, as noted by Phillip Martin} I think a lot of times people don't realize that they've come to the end of their contract term and suddenly they are paying a lot more in electric costs. It takes consumers a while to realize this is happening, sometimes months--when they figure out they had this dramatic rise in their kilowatt cost because their contract expired. So if through deregulation you are going to say you are going to provide competitiveness in the marketplace then you need to educate the people that are making the choices about where they are going for electricity. Without these types of provisions you are keeping competitiveness out artificially.
So as your first session as a senator ends and you go back to Senate District 10, what do you hope you can tell your constituents that you accomplished during the 81st legislative session?
I hope I can tell them that I gave voice to their concerns. I hope that I will have been effective in bringing some solutions to those concerns. I know I can't solve every problem at once, and I don't think my constituency expects that one person can come in and make that much of an immediate difference, but I do hope that I can stand up and proudly say that we did what we came here to do. That we represented our constituents concerns--and I hope to have some legislation passed that will demonstrate that. |
