In Texas, other than lobbyists, the Speaker of the House is one of the most powerful people in the Texas Legislature. Next week a very important election will take place in Austin. The 150 (currently 149) members of the Texas House of Representatives will decide who will serve as its speaker for the 80th session.

A bona fide challenge to the current speaker, Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland is now underway. Without question, and win or lose, a new leader has emerged from the House chamber. Rep. Brian McCall, a conservative Republican from Plano, has stepped forward to challenge Mr. Craddick for the speaker's post. Simply by challenging Mr. Craddick, Mr. McCall has demonstrated a kind of leadership that has been lacking in the Texas House for too long.

Mr. McCall's challenge should in no way diminish the courage and leadership skills of Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, who stepped forward months ago to take on Mr. Craddick. Needless to say, a Democrat is not going to be speaker in a Republican controlled House. Ms. Thompson showed even more political savvy and leadership last week when she withdrew form the race and pledged her support to Mr. McCall.

Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, has also decided to challenge Mr. Craddick. Apparently, both Mr. McCall and Mr. Pitts are held in high regard by their colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Both men would be a major improvement over Mr. Craddick. However, Rep. Pitts' decision to seek the speaker's chair came a day late and a dollar short. If the majority of the members want a new speaker, and that seems to be the case, Mr. Pitts should follow the lead of Rep. Thompson and throw his support to Mr. McCall.

Texas voters, frustrated for some time now with our legislators over any number of issues — inaction, allegations of corruption, ethical misconduct, extreme partisanship, and lack of leadership, to name just a few — made their voices heard loud and clear this past November. Although they will not be able to go to the polls on January 9, Texas voters can, if they choose, determine the outcome of this election as well. Texans who want to see a new speaker must phone, fax, write, e-mail, and when possible, visit with their representatives and demand that they vote not out of fear and not with an attitude of "what's in it for me," but what is best for all Texans.

Knowing that the number of Republicans in the House has dropped from 88 to 81 since Mr. Craddick became speaker in 2003, some Democrats think that one more session under Craddick's "my way or the highway" leadership style just might be enough to put the D's back in control of the House in 2008. That kind of thinking shows a lack of respect for the democratic process and diminishes the importance of the upcoming session.

The members' legitimate concern for retaliation appears to be the overriding factor that will determine who the next speaker will be. A prevailing view among political writers and apparently among many House members is that if the vote for speaker were done secretly, Mr. McCall would be the easy winner. Most of these individuals are calling for a secret ballot on January 9.

That is simply an easy way out. Members from both parties should follow the lead of Rep. McCall and be proud to make their votes public. What are we to think of an elected representative, one chosen to lead, who will vote one way on a secret ballot, but another way in public? Looking in the mirror has to be difficult. That is not leadership, at best it is CYA, and at worst it is cowardly.

House members must come clean now and make their intentions known. If they truly want to stay with Mr. Craddick, fine. If not, they should show some leadership, be true to themselves and those they represent. And whatever the consequences, they will have earned increased respect from their colleagues and constituents.

Ken Zornes lives in Austin, Texas. You can reach him at kzornes13@hotmail.com.

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Texas Weekly's Soapbox is a venue for opinions, spins, alternate takes, and other interesting stuff sent in by readers and others. We moderate submissions to keep crazy people out, and anonymous commentary is ineligible. Readers can respond (through the moderator) to things posted here. Got something to submit? We're interested in everything from full-blown opinion pieces to short bits to observations or tidbits that have escaped us and the mass media. One rule: Your name goes on your words. Call or send an email: Ross Ramsey, Editor, Texas Weekly, 512/288-6598, ramsey@texasweekly.com.

Appraisal reform and a proposed state budget go public on Tuesday... You can already hear distant rumblings of the 2008 legislative elections... the state dumps its Washington lobbyists... And the footprint of major media in Texas shrinks, again.

The appraisal reform task force will roll out its report Tuesday, and is showing its proposals around. No surprises are expected, but the board had a hard time voting out a recommendation for disclosing sales prices of real estate. Real estate agents and owners and developers have, in large part, never been crazy about that idea and the panel headed by Dallas lawyer Tom Pauken barely squeezed it out.

• Also coming Tuesday: The "base" budget, which is the starting point for the appropriations and finance committees that decide how much to spend on what over the next two years. The state has a larger-than-usual pile of available money to spend, with various claims on it coming from property tax cutters, budgeteers who'd like to stash some money away against a rainy day, advocates for various programs, and outside groups pushing for a tax rebate.

• Rep. Buddy West, R-Odessa, is already looking over his shoulder for the 2008 elections. There are stirrings in his part of the country after he voted against a procedural proposal favored by House Speaker Tom Craddick. That vote was widely seen (by him and others) as a vote for a change in the chamber's presiding officer. West voted for Craddick, a Midland Republican, and said he always intended to. But he said the other proposal would have given Craddick opponents a little cover for voting their minds, and he wanted to give them that. We've already heard one potential opponent mentioned: Kirk Edwards, who lost the state Senate race a few years ago to Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo.

• The state no longer requires the services of two Tom DeLay-connected lobbying outfits in Washington. Gov. Rick Perry told Democratic members of the state's congressional delegation that the two firms — subjects of much criticism from the left — have been terminated. Democrats have maintained the contracts were both expensive and useless to the state. And Perry is one of several state officials who have complained about the use of taxpayer money for lobbyists in Austin.

• Media Shrinkage: The Houston Chronicle is shuttering its bureaus in San Antonio and the Valley, leaving that turf to its sibling, the San Antonio Express-News. (The Laredo Morning Times is also a Hearst paper.) And People Magazine is closing its Austin bureau, where the reporter in residence is Bill Minutaglio, formerly of the Dallas Morning News Austin bureau.

State officials, spurred by folks outside government, are putting together a fund to invest $3 billion fighting cancer over the next ten years. They hope to make serious progress against the disease while also drawing experts and their programs and making Texas the epicenter of cancer research in the U.S.

It's similar in some ways to California's effort to become a center of stem cell research (and a more recently announced stem cell fund in New York). The Texas plan would focus on cancer and not stem cells. And in other ways, it's akin to existing state funds set up to encourage development of new technologies and businesses.

The effort began with Cathy Bonner of Austin and now includes a mess of people inside and outside government: Gov. Rick Perry, athlete and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong and his eponymous foundation, the Susan G. Komen Cancer Foundation, former Texas Comptroller John Sharp, and Dr. John Mendelsohn, the president of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and the guy who inspired Bonner to get it going with a speech he gave some time ago in New York.

They're in the early stages but have already signed up sponsors in the House and Senate, including Sens. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, and Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, and Reps. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland and Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs.

Most of those people were in the crowd at a lunch held in Austin to get the idea rolling (though they weren't doing a full unveiling for the public and didn't invite press).

The idea is to raise $3 billion, investing $300 million annually for ten years into research programs approved, probably, by both a committee of scientific experts and then a board with financial responsibilities for the fund. Details are unsettled, but here are some high points made, in each case, by more than one of the people we've talked with.

Projects would get multi-year funding up front, which gets them past an obstacle with other government programs that can pull out the rug in mid-project.

Results that produce income through licensing or patents or whatever could be tied to paying the state back for its original investment.

Universities and other institutions that could participate in the projects might get non-voting spots on the panels, but wouldn't be allowed decision-making power. That's apparently hindered the rollout of the California project on stem cells.

The fund would be able to "force collaborations" — to make otherwise competitive researchers who want funding to work together when that makes sense.

Funding could come from general obligation bonds, which would require approval from two-thirds of the House and Senate and then from the public. It could come from the currently swollen Rainy Day Fund, or from the state's tobacco settlement money, or from other unnamed sources. Bonds backed by tuition were approved by lawmakers last year, and the Rainy Day Fund has been tapped for other programs, like the state's Emerging Technology Fund.

Bonner said the idea came from California's stem cell fund and from a speech she heard Mendelsohn give. Both of her parents were cancer victims. She was a pal of former Gov. Ann Richards and said the two of them talked about public policy and cancer while Richards, who died last year, was fighting that disease. Bonner became convinced the disease needed a "Manhattan Project" approach, and met with Mendelsohn and Sharp and Armstrong (she was once a member of his foundation's board) to get it going.

Everyone else joined in quickly, she said, and now it'll go to the Legislature, where the details can be decided.

Gov. Rick Perry's Task Force on appraisals and property taxes is done; he and Tom Pauken, who chaired that panel, unveiled a package without any surprises.The task force would allow counties to add a half-cent to their sales taxes if the money was used to directly cut county property taxes. That would bring the sales tax rates up to as much as 8.75 percent — the current maximum is 8.25 percent — but it would lower property taxes at the same time. The discount would depend on the value of the property and the local tax rate. If you know what a county can raise with a one-half cent sales tax, and how much it gets through property taxes, you can back into a rough estimate for a given property. Task force members were slightly in favor of requiring disclosures of sales prices. Some real estate people don't want to give up that information (though doing so is common in other states), and there's some fear that disclosing prices without any other controls would simply contribute to inflation in the property tax rolls, a phenomenon called sales chasing. But with everything else in the mix, sales price disclosure is in. The state comptroller's leash on local values would have more slack in it. Right now, the state does a "property value study" to see whether local property appraisals are where they should be. If they're off by more than five percent — low or high — the comptroller makes the local appraisers adjust them. The task force wants to increase the allowed variance to 10 percent and wants the comptroller to check values every three years instead of every year. Cities and counties wouldn't be able to increase their incomes from property taxes by more than five percent per year without approval from their voters (there's a barb in the hook, too; the task force is recommending the tax election be held in conjunction with the elections of the local officials who want more money). They'd ban unfunded mandates from the state, where officials in Austin require locals to run programs without sending the money to cover the costs. The attorney general would decide whether something is a state mandate. The comptroller would determine the cost. And the Legislature could then either pay the price or turn the required program into a suggested one.

The Legislature's starting budget totals $147.6 billion, and the budgeteers started by talking away all but $2.5 billion of the $14.3 billion in new revenue.Legislative leaders unveiled their starting budget, a record-setter (each new one is) that proposes spending $147.6 billion over the next two years, and increases general revenue spending by $4.6 billion over the current budget. But the first news is that they want to take $11.8 billion off the table. Comptroller Susan Combs opened the money talk by saying the state would have $14.3 billion in new revenue. That got people drooling about how that might be used, and it made budgeteers nervous about the prospect of spending more than some of them want to spend. So they've whittled, saying $3.9 billion should be set aside to pay for local school property tax cuts in this budget and another $3 billion should be stowed for the same purpose in the 2010-11 budget (that's a tacit admission that the previous comptroller — Carole Keeton Strayhorn — was correct when she said last spring that the school finance package was way out of balance). Another $1.4 billion comes off the table as a result of moving some spending from one account to another, and a one-time payment of $1.4 billion undoes an accounting trick used last time the budget was out of whack (legislators moved payments from one fiscal year to the next to balance a budget that spent more than available and now they're moving it back). Reforms from the school finance bill will cost $1 billion, and expected population growth in Medicaid and public education and other programs will eat another $1.1 billion. Thought you were flush? That leaves $2.5 billion for a variety of things on the list, like prisons, the governor's border security plan, higher education and on and on and on. The starting budget is available on the Legislative Budget Board's website. (It's a big file!) From $14.3 billion to $2.5 billion in one chart:

Gov. Rick Perry's appraisal reforms don't have nearly the momentum of last year's school finance package, though both came out of task forces headed by political figures and comprised of business folks.

• There's no court order forcing lawmakers to work on property appraisals. School finance had a court-ordered deadline.

• This is a regular legislative session, with plenty of competing issues, and not a one-issue special session.

• The business community isn't as deeply involved in these changes. Companies have less at stake and it's hard to put dollar numbers to it this time.

• The members of the task force on taxes had more clout than the appraisal bunch. The tax task force was populated with big taxpayers and their ilk, the better to reach a consensus. The appraisal panel has more advocates of reform, and didn't include obvious opponents who might have been able to work compromises. Where the tax bills began their legislative ride with few (openly) mortal enemies, cities and counties, among others, have been attacking the appraisal package for months.

• The chair of the tax panel, former Comptroller John Sharp, has been around the Texas Legislature all his adult life, as an LBB analyst, a member of both the House and the Senate, a railroad commissioner and state comptroller. Tom Pauken, who headed the appraisal group, has long experience in politics, but little in working the gears of Texas government — or of the lobby.

• Last year's tax overhaul came pre-sold to most of the groups that might have been expected to oppose it. While the governor and Pauken were officially unveiling their report to reporters and others, opponents were outside the press conference passing out scads of paper in opposition.

• The upside's too quiet this time. The story of the business tax often ran second to the story of cuts in school property taxes. Elected officials were talking about the new tax, but they were yelling about the property tax cuts. Voters, if they wanted to, could actually calculate the effect of the cuts on their own housing costs. This time, the benefits are fuzzier. Local government spending would be curtailed, but it's hard to put a dollar amount on it. The recommendations include a potentially lower property tax, but only at the expense of higher sales taxes. And local officials are on TV talking about state efforts to cut city and county services. It's noisier out there, and harder to sell.

• It's easier to take credit for cutting taxes than for limiting growth of a part of the budgets — albeit, a big part — of city and county governments. A tax cut can be reduced to an actual dollar amount for each taxpayer. The latter requires the taxpayer to imagine what might have happened with no limits. The stakes appear different to voters, and thus to the people they elect.

Any attempt to judge our history by today's standards — out of the context from which it occurred — is at best problematic and at worst dishonest.

For example, consider the following quotes:

"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished."

" … there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

By today's standards, the person who made the first statement, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, would be considered enlightened. The person who made the second, President Abraham Lincoln, would be considered a white supremacist.

Many believe the War Between the States was solely about slavery and the Confederacy is synonymous with racism. That conclusion is faulty, because the premise is inaccurate.

If slavery were the sole or even the predominant issue in sparking the Civil War, the following statement by Lincoln is puzzling: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it."

If preserving slavery was the South's sole motive for waging war, why did Lee free his slaves before the war began? In 1856, he said slavery was " … a moral and political evil in any country ... "

Why was Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation effective in 1863, rather than when the war started in 1861? And why did it free only the slaves in the Confederacy and not in Northern or border states?

If slavery was the only reason for the Civil War, how do you explain Texas Gov. Sam Houston's support for the Union and support for the institution of slavery? In light of the fact that 90 percent of Confederate soldiers owned no slaves, is it logical to assume they would have put their own lives at risk so that slave-owning Southern aristocrats could continue their privileged status?

There are few simple and concise answers to these questions. One answer, however, is that most Southerners' allegiance was to their sovereign states first and the Union second. They believed states freely joined the Union without coercion and were free to leave the Union at will. You could say they really believed in the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the "powers not delegated" clause. They believed the federal government should be responsible for the common defense, a postal service and little else. They viewed the Union Army as an invader, not an emancipator.

I am not attempting to trivialize slavery. It is a dark chapter in our history, North and South alike.

However, I am a proud Southerner and a proud descendent of Confederate soldiers. I honor their service because, to me, it represents the sacrifice of life and livelihood that Southerners made for a cause more important to them than their personal security and self-interest.

While I'm aware of the genocidal war conducted by my country against the American Indian, I'm still a proud American. And while I'm also aware of the atrocities that occurred at My Lai, I am proud of my service as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam.

If the Confederate flag represented slavery, then the U.S. flag must represent slavery even more so. Slavery existed for four years under the Stars and Bars and for almost 100 years under the Stars and Stripes. If the few hundred members of racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan want to adopt the Confederate flag as their symbol, over the objections of millions of Southerners, should we believe it has been corrupted for all time? Since the KKK has adopted the cross for its burnings, should churches across the country remove this symbol of Christian faith from all places of worship? Should we diminish the service of the Buffalo Soldiers (Black U.S. cavalry troopers of the late 1800s), since those soldiers were an integral part of a war that subjugated and enslaved a whole race of people, the American Plains Indians?

No. We should not surrender the Confederate flag or the cross to the racists, and we should not tear down the monuments. Retroactive cleansing of history is doomed to failure because it is, at heart, a lie. We should memorialize and commemorate all of our soldiers who served honorably — those who wore blue or gray or served as Buffalo Soldiers — whether or not we completely support their actions in today's enlightened world.

 

JERRY PATTERSON is the 27th Texas Land Commissioner and a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans. As a state senator, he sponsored legislation establishing the Juneteenth Commission for the purpose of funding a Juneteenth monument on the Capitol Grounds.

 

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Texas Weekly's Soapbox is a venue for opinions, spins, alternate takes, and other interesting stuff sent in by readers and others. We moderate submissions to keep crazy people out, and anonymous commentary is ineligible. Readers can respond (through the moderator) to things posted here. Got something to submit? We're interested in everything from full-blown opinion pieces to short bits to observations or tidbits that have escaped us and the mass media. One rule: Your name goes on your words. Call or send an email: Ross Ramsey, Editor, Texas Weekly, 512/288-6598, ramsey@texasweekly.com.