The cause for which those who fought and died in their struggle for Texas' independence was treated with the utmost contempt at the close of the 80th session of the Texas Legislature.

Speaker of the House Tom Craddick, R-Midland, and Speaker Pro-Tem Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, along with two eleventh-hour substitute parliamentarians, used their own liberal interpretations of House rules and parliamentary procedure to deny the wishes of the majority of the members.

It is the people, through their elected representatives who reign supreme in this country and in Texas. This fundamental principle of the democratic process, clearly enunciated in the Constitution of the United States, was blatantly ignored and corrupted in favor of the Speaker's self-interest.

Our elected officials take an oath to faithfully execute the duties of their office and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and Texas. The Speaker and Speaker Pro Tem in particular, as well as a few others, abdicated their sworn duty when they deliberately refused to recognize any of their fellow elected representatives for the purpose of making a motion to have Mr. Craddick removed as Speaker. So many times did Mr. Turner ask the members to show some respect for the Chair, yet the Chair never accorded the same respect to the members.

I feel that a crime has been committed against me and my fellow Texans. My right to be represented by individuals I helped elect; to have my voice heard in the Texas House of Representatives (my House) was arbitrarily and capriciously denied by the dictatorial rulings of the Speaker. I believe that my civil rights have been wrongfully and unlawfully usurped and those responsible should be held accountable. Perhaps that will happen in the 2008 elections.

This embarrassing episode, which has now been reported in The New York Times, could have been avoided if only the Speaker had placed the wishes of his colleagues above his own desire to maintain power.

Knowing that there was considerable opposition to his continued role as Speaker from the very beginning of the session, Mr. Craddick should have announced to the members that he would not be a candidate for Speaker in 2009. Such an action would have required a high degree of selflessness, integrity, and above all, leadership. In all likelihood, that pronouncement would have precluded any efforts to vacate the chair, resulting in a much smoother and more productive legislative session.

To be sure, there were heroes to be found among the chaos. Men and women from both sides of the aisle, individuals with very different political views, spoke with passion, eloquence, and intelligence in an effort to make our democratic process work as intended.

Not the least among those heroes were the two parliamentarians, Denise Davis and Chris Griesel. These highly respected professionals refused to have any part in the Speaker's refusal to recognize members for a motion of privilege and immediately resigned.

Wishing to recognize Ms. Davis and Mr. Griesel for their courageous stance, Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, was not recognized by the Speaker for the purpose of introducing a resolution honoring the two parliamentarians for their selfless act.

Travis, Bowie, Seguin, and Crockett would have been proud of these two. I wonder what their thoughts would be of the current Speaker.

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

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One way to attract attention: Start chattering about the governor's inclination to break his 82-bill veto record.

That's the signal watchers in the press and lobby are getting from Gov. Rick Perry, and it has bred a mini-industry of speculation about what might be and might not be on the chopping block. We've heard talk — thoroughly unsubstantiated and mentioned here only to illustrate the point about speculation — that Perry might whack the legislation fixing problems and making adjustments to the state's new business tax. So-called "special items" for colleges and universities in the state budget — that's where they make appropriations for specific projects and programs outside the regular operations of the schools — are on the gossip channel. And the governor has yet to sign a watered-down highway bill that went to him after he vetoed a stronger version in the final days of the session.

The Texas Legislative Service that we use to keep up with legislation says Perry is looking at 955 House bills and 526 Senate bills right now. That's not an unusual number, but it does present a lot of opportunity for speculation.

The chitchat about the tax bill is interesting. An anti-tax hawk could say it includes a gross receipts tax — a bleep-worthy phrase among those folks and business folks and economic development wonks. But the effect of the "clean-up" bill would be about the same as current law, except that it lowers the maximum tax a firm would have to pay if the state taxes its gross receipts. (Here's the legal artwork: A gross receipts tax applies a rate to a company's top line — its overall sales or billings. The Texas tax is a gross margins tax, which puts a levy on receipts minus the taxpayer's choice of payroll or cost of goods sold. It limits the tax rate, however, to 0.7 percent of gross receipts. For businesses with small payrolls and no costs of goods sold, that's essentially a 0.7 percent gross receipts tax.)

A veto of that bill would also kill provisions designed to lower the tax for businesses that make less than $1 million annually — they're tax rates are bracketed depending on gross receipts. Banks and securities companies want the new legislation because it straightens out a provision that could cost them millions on transactions that cross state lines. And a veto would preserve a multi-million loophole for certain companies that lease property. Read that to say that many of the state's apartment owners would love to see Perry kill the bill.

It's not clear that normal people want to see what the government is spending their money on, but it's clear the politicos want to give them the chance to look.

Comptroller Susan Combs has a new section on her agency's website that shows, in almost as much detail as you'd like, where tax dollars are going. It starts with a macro view that lists the state's agencies and how much money each of them gets. Click on an agency, and you're deeper in the ledgers.

During the first eight months of the current fiscal year, for instance, the Texas Education Agency spent $16.4 billion. Most — $13.8 billion — was for "intergovernmental payments." That's what they call the money the state sent to local schools (they've got a rudimentary translation service, but the government lingo is pretty thick). At the moment, the numbers go only one layer deeper. The next click on TEA's numbers take you to $10.7 billion for "school apportionment-foundation program." That's gov-speak for "sent to the public schools," though it's not all the money that went there and it's not clear what it was spent on. It doesn't exactly tell you what was spent on pencils and paper and what was spent on the coffee service at the administration building, but it's more than you could get before now.

Spending at the comptroller's office (the main one of three budget lines for that agency) hit $165.7 million by the end of April. Of that, $101 million went for salaries and wages. And you can find out that the agency spent $3,870 on hazardous duty pay and another $11,182.24 on "termination pay — death benefits." But you can't click on " Salaries and Wages-Classified and Non-Classified Permanent Full-Time Employees," for instance, to get a listing of who was paid how much. Those are public records, but that part of the new Internet-based system doesn't drill down that far.

There's another way to get some detail without sending in an open records request, though. A section called "A Closer Look" lets you poke into specific spending on goods and services at some agencies (they're adding more agencies as they go). Comb's office, for instance, spent $41.82 on safety helmets in fiscal 2007, $176 on suggestion boxes, $668.30 on rubber bands of all sizes, $6,291.74 on pens, and $297,640.47 on various kinds of paper. We tried to go for a cheap accounting joke, but couldn't locate a line item for green eyeshades.

• This is sort of a no-brainer, what with a budget surplus in the billions of dollars, but Comptroller Susan Combs officially certified the Legislature's 2008-09 budget. There will be enough money to cover it, she says. Gov. Rick Perry hasn't finished with it yet, but his veto pen won't increase spending, so there's no trouble there. The time to watch the numbers, if you need to fuel your curiosity (or your paranoia) is about a year from now. The state's new business margins tax — a chief source of money for a state-funded local school property tax cut — comes due for the first time in mid-May next year. If the Lege got the numbers right, there's no need to sweat. If Combs says the numbers are low, they'll need to cut other spending or raise taxes. And if she says they've got more money than they need, you can expect calls for an election-year tax cut. Until then, Combs expects smooth sailing.

• The last edition of a Texas public TV program on politics and the Texas Legislature airs this weekend and features a take on how the Lege looks to an average Texan. That's the work of Eileen Smith, a former legislative staffer and the operator of a really funny blog called In The Pink Texas. Check local listings, or watch it on their website next week.