Burnt Orange Report

Real Cost of the Legislature's Failures

By Vince Leibowitz

The average person--or at least, the average person not involved in public school education in Texas--may read the stories about the Texas Legislature's failure to come to grips with school finance and simply think, "well, that's politics (or government) as usual."

It usually takes a story like this one in the Dallas Morning News to make people realize that such legislative failures have a real cost--and real impact--on the people of Texas:

Millions of new textbooks for foreign language, health, art and music classes cannot be delivered to school districts because the Legislature, caught in a stalemate over school finance for months, hasn't authorized their purchase.

Kids without school books. It may not be as terrible as kids without access to healthcare, kids in a broken protective services system, or kids in under-funded mental health facilities.

But, it's still bad. And, it's yet another failure for which the blame falls directly on the doorstep of the Republican Party of Texas.

I know, I know: I'm just another partisan Democrat complaining about a legislative failure and looking for something--anything--to blame it on.

You can say that, or you can look at the real record.

For decades in Texas, Democrats worked toward positive improvements for the people of this state. Even as the legislature became home to more tax-phobic, religious zealot, corporate whore, help-the-rich-and-screw-the-poor Republicans, the Democratic leadership managed to find common ground and do it without walk-outs, shutting off mics, and a myriad of tactics the present majority has used to forward their partisan agenda.

Texas government today is stuck in a quagmire of partisanship. Sure, there may be a few--and I emphasize few--Republicans who are willing to work toward some type of middle-ground, but the fact remains that the majority appear to be far less than willing to sacrafice the goals and agendas of their far-to-the-Right party and their moneyed contributors like James Leinninger and Bob Perry for the citizens of Texas.

These people get elected by smearing their Democratic opponents as "liberal," and campaign as though they were God's personal heirs to Sam Houston, Mirabeau B. Lamar and the other Fathers (and Mothers) of Texas. They claim that Democrats will tax the people to death, and that they will bring about a serious departure from "politics as usual" inside the "Austin beltway."

They sure as hell have. State government is far, far from "politics as usual," today.

And, it's taken us nowhere.

In a couple of short sessions, what small amount of goodwill the Legislature built between the people of Texas has been slaughtered on the alter of Republican partisanship.

If you don't believe me, look at the latest approval ratings for the Texas Legislature. I don't have a link to one of the recent polls, but I'm sure you can search this site for them; the polls have been posted here several times.

And, people wonder why these folks get elected. Of course, the wedge issues must be considered: religion, so-called morals issues, and, of course, abortion.

My only hope is that, perhaps, when someone's child comes home with a 15-year-old Spanish book held together with duct tape or someone's child's grades are suffering because they don't have access to appropriate text books when school starts, that Texans will realize who is to blame.

But, that's not enough, is it? Knowing who is to blame is one thing, but the leap to realizing who can fix the problem is quite another thing. Democrats have been so deamonized by the Republican Party and have suffered from the "Bush" coat tails for enough election cycles that it will take the Democrats out in the trenches to make the difference and help people realize that we are the party that built Texas--that we are the party that looks out for "you," whether you're black, white, brown, old, young, an unwed mother, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, and regardless of religion, sexual orientation, race or what side of the proverbial "tracks" you grew up on.

That's what we as Democrats have to offer. Hopefully, the time has finally come that the people of Texas will realize that.