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A little ancient history of 19 years ago. It was December 1989. Republican Bill Clements was in his second term. Gib Lewis,Democrat in name only, was Speaker of the House, There was a Democratic majority in the House, but the Democrats who put the public interest first were outnumbered by the lackeys for the special interests who constituted a large majority of the big GOP contingent and a significant minority of House Democrats. Establishment Democrat Bill Hobby was Lt. Gov. For the entire two-years since the last regular session, the heavyweights in the business lobby, the TAB, Exxon, Texans for Lawsuit Reform,and all of the usual culprits had waged a massive PR campaign to mold public opinion in favor of a radical alteration of the entire structure of the workers' compensation system that Texas adapted from the Wisconsin model installed by the LaFollete Progressives in the first few years of the 20th Century. The Establishment wanted to eliminate trial by jury for those injured on the job, prevent injured workers from hiring lawyers to represent them on a contingent fee basis, and replace the institutional structure that had checks and balances built into it with an administrative apparatus tightly controlled by appointees of the governor. Forget about going to court and letting a jury decide the fate of a an injured workers.
Shortly after the regular session convened, Speaker Gib Lewis easily passed a bill doing just that through the House, HB 1. But labor and the trial lawyers had 12 firm allies in the Senate who were not beholden to the special interests and would not be strong-armed by Lt. Gov. Hobby, his right-hand man, Sen. John Montford of Lubbock, and the Establishment's prime minister in Austin, the late George Christian. So, Clements and his allies made another stab at it with a special session right after the regular session. Once again, the House was dominated by the lobby and the bill passed easily, as it did in the second special session. But again it was blocked by the 12 stalwart good guys in the Senate. They were real Democrats, not the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots of the Texas Democracy. But four senators elected as Democrats almost always crossed over and voted with the Republicans whenever the special interests had an important economic issue at stake, Armbrister, Lucio, Tejeda,and Montford. Then as now, the real clash was not between Democrats and Republicans but between the public interest and the special interests.
Gov. Clements called the third special session in December 1989, and as some of you will recall or may have read, it was during that session that Bob Pilgrim handed-out $10,000 checks on the Senate floor. There were Three Flakes whose sudden switch reduced the good guys from twelve to nine votes, and allowed the forces of evil to prevail. They were Chet Edwards, Chet Brooks and Judith Zaffirini. Ever since then, suffering a serious injury on the job in Texas has not only meant personal tragedy, it invariably turns into a financial disaster for the family. But the special interests made out like bandits and are still laughing all the way to the bank. The beneficiaries were those who picked up the tab: Bo Pilgrim's food processing company, ExxonMobil, heavy industry, the membership of the Texas Association of Business and the insurance carriers who sell them workers' comp insurance.
Four years later, in 1993, Chet Edwards was serving his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives. The first legislative item on the globalization agenda of Wall Street and Wal-Mart--backed by the Business Roundtable, the Fortune 500, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau every other special interest under the sun, and the K Street lobby--was NAFTA. Like workers comp in the Texas Legislature, it commanded heavy support among Republicans, but two-thirds of House Democrats were no more persuaded by Bill Clinton to back NAFTA than were the majority of Democrats in the Texas Senate persuaded by Bill Hobby to back the Establishment's workers comp bill and sell-out the public interest by turning their back on labor and the trial lawyuers. Among the Texas Democrats who bucked the Clinton White House on NAFTA were Henry B. Gonzalez, Craig Washington, Jack Brooks, Gene Green, Jim Turner and Max Sandlin. But not Chet Edwards. He voted not with the two-thirds of House Democrats against NAFTA, but with the two-thirds of House Republicans who supporyed it. You will find the roll call call vote on the Web site of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.
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