Texas Monthly's Best and Worst Legislators of 2005 - now online

[crispini]

IMAGINE A KITTEN, VERY CURIOUS BUT EASILY FRIGHTENED: That was the Seventy-ninth Legislature. It poked around school finance, pawed at tax reform, heard loud shouts of “No!”, fled to Mama, curled up, and went to sleep. Lawmakers did a lot of exploring, learned a lot about the world, even grew up a little, but in the end they obeyed their instincts and took refuge in the safety of cultural issues. As a result, this legislature will be remembered not for what it did but for what it didn’t do: fix the biggest problems facing the state.

The session did see a few accomplishments—reforms of workers’ compensation and Child Protective Services, as well as a state budget that undid much of the damage caused by the $10 billion revenue shortfall in 2003. Many other big issues, though, failed to get resolved and ended in frantic eleventh-hour negotiations that proved to be too little, too late. A major reason for the lack of success was the worst antipathy between the House and the Senate in memory, fed by the hostility between their presiding officers, Speaker Tom Craddick and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst.

When time ran out on May 30, the biggest political question in the state—Can the Republicans govern?—continued to have the unsatisfying answer, “Not yet.”...

more

http://www.texasmonthly.com/csc/feature.php

and the list:
Best and Worst Legislators 2005

The Best
Dianne Delisi
Sen. Robert Duncan
Dan Gattis
Charlie Geren
Fred Hill
Sen. Steve Ogden
Jim Pitts
Mike Villarreal
Sen. John Whitmire
Sen. Judith Zaffirini

The Worst
Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos
Dwayne Bohac
Mary Denny
Al Edwards
Sen. Mario Gallegos
Kent Grusendorf
Sen. Chris Harris
Terry Keel
Phil King
Robert Talton

Good stuff!

[crispini]

1. LOL! Check out how Charlie Geren

killed vouchers!

The bill sponsors of the pro-voucher forces had not included their own school districts, Arlington and Irving, in the plan. If vouchers are good for our schools, their opponents kept asking, why aren’t they good for yours?

The stage was set for Geren’s lethal amendment. “ removes Fort Worth ISD and replaces it with Arlington ISD,” he told the House. “It takes Dallas out and puts Irving in…All I did was swap the districts so the authors of the bill could participate in the bill.” The genius of the amendment was that it allowed the anti-voucher Republicans to vote for it without voting against vouchers.

:rofl: Genius!

[reality based]

2. As usual the TM picks some of their best from the very worst n/t

[GOPisEvil]

3. Gonzalo is on the Worst List?

Shocking. :sarcasm:

My only Democratic representative in Government though. At least I have HIM.

[crispini]

4. Rafael Anchia was one of the "Rookies of the Year"

good for him!

[sonias]

5. Yep Anchia was good

He was my pick for top rookie.

Mary Denny would actually make all 10 of my top 10 slots as the worst legislator and person and human being.

I was at another training session this morning (CivicSpace) http://www.civicspace.org, which looks really cool and you should go check it out if can. Anyway someone in the audience said "Republicans can be good human beings if you can just start their hearts."

I am throughly convinced Denny doesn't have one to jump start.
:evilgrin:

:hi: crispini, it was nice meeting you!

Sonia

[crispini]

6. It was fun meeting you too!

Wish I could make it down there this weekend for Lakoff but I think I really need to stay home and do stuff. Plus, we've been doing our own Lakoff study group so I'm a little framed-out right now. :P

[PDittie]

12. I'm not getting through to that link, sonia

even when I take out the comma

[sonias]

13. Oops this one is correct, PDittle

http://civicspacelabs.org/home/

Basically it's a content management system that runs on open source software (free) built on Drupal (CMS) that's very popular. It's really easy to configure if you have a hosting company or server that has MySQL and PHP. I'm about to attempt it as I run both of those already and have a site on my servers running Drupal.

Check out the Dripping Springs Democrats that got theirs up and running in about 2 hours.
http://www.dsdems.org

Sonia

[TexasThoughtCriminal]

8. Yea! I'm proud to say he's my rep.

He's voted my way in all the tough legislation so far. I'll see him tomorrow, so I'll have to congratulate him.

[sonias]

10. Congratulations Thought Criminal on your great Rep.!

You should definitely keep in close contact with him. He's going to move up, I'm sure. Maybe one day make a run for Governor.

Also you may already know this but he serves on the Election Committee in the House and you should give him feedback on election issues. He's really smart.

:hi:

Sonia

[TexasThoughtCriminal]

11. Some people think moving up is bad

That's funny you say that because I was at a meeting on education and school boards, and someone criticized him for using the Dallas school board as a stepping stone to higher office. I can see that argument, especially if you think he's doing a good job on the board and education is your passion, but you gotta pay your dues, and and God knows we need good Democratic talent at the state level.

And I will definitely pick his brain on elections issues. Thanks for the tip!
:thumbsup:

[Maestro]

7. OMG!

My rep is there as one of the best, Jim Pitts. He usually writes me back, the last one I sent was very scathing, not of him personally, but of the rethugs in general. He hasn't responded and now I find him here as one of the best? What were the criteria?

[crispini]

9. The piece on Pitts...

AS WAS ONCE SAID of Theodore Roosevelt, he struck the note that the chorus awaited. In the wake of the partisan warfare that decimated House traditions in 2003, the first year of Republican rule, members on both sides of the aisle yearned for a more benign approach to lawmaking. When Pitts, the successor to vanquished bully Talmadge Heflin as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, promised to oversee the writing of a bipartisan state budget—and made good on his pledge—he doused the fires of political payback that had consumed the Capitol last session.

more
http://www.texasmonthly.com/csc/feature14.php