Grading Texas

The twothirds rule in the Texas Senate may get its toughest workout yet next year, as Democrats try to stem an anticipated flood of bad legislation from a very conservative, very Republican House. But, first, the rule may have to survive a fight for its own survival.

For those of you who are uninitiated in the strange and mysterious ways of the Texas Legislature, the twothirds rule prohibits any bill from being considered on the Senate floor without the consent of twothirds of the members present. That means only 11 senators can block any piece of legislation.

Despite the huge Republican gains in the House, the Senate membership didn’t change on Election Day. Republicans kept their 1912 majority, but those 12 Democratic senators are enough to put up a stop sign.

No, the 12 Democrats aren’t going to stop the inevitability of a very conservative legislative session. But if they pick their targets carefully and have a little luck they may be able to have an impact on a handful of issues, such as how much of the Rainy Day Fund to spend in order to stem some of the budgetbleeding. They may even be able to block private school vouchers, if the House ideologues are shortsighted enough (and they may be) to waste what limited tax dollars we have on that bad idea.

At least one very conservative state senator, Dan Patrick of Houston, is worried enough about pieces of the rightwing express being shot down by the Senate minority that he is lobbying – once again – to either scrub the twothirds rule or replace it with a lower obstacle, such as a 60 percent requirement, which the Republicans have enough senators to cover.

It is important to note that the twothirds rule is not set out in the state constitution or laws. It is part of the Senate rules, which can be changed each session with the approval of only 16 senators, a simple majority.

During the years of Democratic dominance, senators loved the twothirds rule because it enhanced the political power of each senator. Many Republican senators came to like it as well, as Patrick discovered when, as a freshman senator in 2007, he proposed abolishing the rule and watched his proposal receive only one vote – his.

But the rule has been slowly cracking under the strain of increased partisanship. In 2003, Senate Republicans bypassed the rule to pass a partisan congressional redistricting plan. And, last session, they bypassed the rule to allow the Senate majority to pass a voter photo ID bill, which Democrats managed to kill in the House.

You can bet that House Democrats won’t kill a voter ID bill this session, and you can bet that Senate Republicans will bypass the twothirds rule to pass it again.

In an interview with KUT radio’s Ben Philpott, Patrick said he already has lined up six or seven votes to lower the twothirds rule to 60 percent for all legislation. Patrick can’t stand the prospect of the Senate – where he fancies himself a rightwing leader – “wasting” any part of this golden ideological opportunity.

The first day of prefiling bills for a legislative session is the statehouse version of turning the kids loose in a candy store, and lawmakers were true to their roles yesterday. Led by certifiably conservative Rep. Debbie Riddle, who camped out over the weekend outside the House chief clerk’s office to be first in line, Republicans filed a long list of proposed laws attacking immigration and abortion, promoting guns and voter ID and generally flexing their new electoral strength.

According to media reports, more than 300 bills already have been filed, and hundreds more will be filed before the session convenes on Jan. 11. Filing a bill, of course, is the easiest step in the legislative process. The real work won’t begin until committee hearings begin in earnest, probably in late January. But many of the conservative priorities will likely win approval, given the big increase in Republican strength in the House.

Most of the legislation that will affect the public schools is yet to come, although a few ideologically tinged bills were among yesterday’s prefilings.

House Bill 22 by Riddle would require school districts to report the number of “illegal aliens” in attendance, and House Bill 79 by Dan Flynn would remove any legal obstacles to posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

And, my thanks to Ed Sills of the Texas AFLCIO for pointing out one of the more imaginative (if that’s the right word) bills of the day. That would be House Bill 181 by Rep. Sid Miller to expand the August backtoschool sales tax holiday for school supplies and clothing to also include firearms and ammunition.

The four R’s of education: reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic and rifles.

Carlos “Charlie” Garza, the El Paso Republican who unseated longtime Democratic member Rene Nunez from the State Board of Education, hasn’t even taken office yet, but the El Paso Times already has named him to the board’s conservative bloc.

We shouldn’t be surprised, considering Garza’s endorsement, as I noted in a blog posting last week, by the rightwing “Texans for Better Science Education.”

In an interview with the El Paso newspaper, linked below, Garza, an assistant middle school principal, said Gov. Rick Perry asked him to run for the board. Garza said he believes in creationism and wants that theory to be taught alongside evolution in the public schools. He expressed support for most of the changes that the rightwingers made to the social studies curriculum last spring and shares the conservatives’ dim view of Thomas Jefferson as a philosopher. He also is a selfdescribed “fan” of Ronald Reagan.

According to the newspaper, Garza also believes the board should drop world geography lessons from the curriculum and implies that sex education doesn’t belong in the public schools.

Unlike most of the current rightwingers on the board, though, Garza says he has “no problem” with the late farm worker leader Cesar Chavez. That’s because Garza, as a child, was a migrant farm worker. “One thing that I will never do is forget my background,” he said.

Garza’s election will increase the number of Republicans on the SBOE from 10 to 11, while the number of Democrats will drop from five to four.

Two of the Republican conservative leaders will be gone in January. Cynthia Dunbar didn’t seek reelection, and Don McLeroy was defeated for the Republican nomination by the moremoderate Thomas Ratliff, who was supported by TSTA.

Two other incoming Republican members, however, remain largely mysteries. They are Marsha Farney, a former educator, who will succeed Dunbar, and educator George Clayton, who unseated longtime incumbent Geraldine Miller in the Republican primary.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16545864

Despite strong antigovernment sentiment in their state, Florida educators – backed by parents – scored a significant victory on Election Day. They defeated a constitutional amendment, proposed by the Legislature, which would have relaxed limits on class sizes in the public schools.

The limits, which were added to the Florida constitution eight years ago, apply only to core subjects, such as math, science, social studies and language arts, and vary by grade level. Kindergarten through grade 3 classes are limited to 18 kids each; grades 48 classes, 22 kids; and high school classes, 25.

Before this school year, schools could meet the limits by averaging classroom sizes. But now, each individual classroom has to comply with the limits.

Facing budgetary problems, as are most other states, Florida legislators proposed Amendment 8, which would have allowed schools to continue averaging class sizes. Florida’s association of school superintendents supported the amendment, but parent and teacher groups, including the PTA, successfully fought the change and challenged the Legislature to find the money to fund the current requirements.

Come January, educators may be facing a similar fight in Texas. The only class size limit here is the 221 cap on grades K4. It was enacted in 1984 and is widely regarded as an important reform in improving the learning environment for younger students. But some key legislators already are talking about relaxing the limit to help ease a looming revenue shortfall, and some superintendents are likely to support the effort.

And, in Texas, such a change would not require voter approval of a constitutional amendment. The Legislature could make the change on its own.

TSTA is committed to protecting the 221 cap.

An antigovernment mood, meanwhile, carried Election Day in Florida’s top two races.

Florida voters elected Rick Scott as their new governor. Never mind that he was forced to resign not too many years ago as CEO of the nation’s largest hospital chain in the midst of a federal Medicare fraud investigation, which the company eventually paid a record $1.7 billion fine to settle. Yes, $1.7 billion (with a “b”).

How did Scott overcome his questionable resume? He spent $73 million of his own fortune on his campaign and made a strong appeal to conservative activists by labeling his Democratic opponent as an “Obama liberal.” On this Election Day, there were some sins worse than suspected fraud.

Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio, meanwhile, handily won the U.S. Senate race in Florida over two major opponents, including the outgoing governor, Charlie Crist.

Crist, a Republican, ran as an independent. Earlier this year, he angered many Florida Republicans – but delighted teachers – by vetoing a bill that would have linked teacher pay to student test scores and eliminated tenure for all new teachers.

Here is a link to a newspaper article on the Florida class size issue:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/03/vfullstory/1905847/votersrejectclasssizechanges.html