Lone Star status

If you’re registered to vote – and I hope you are – you know what a Voter Registration Certificate looks like; it’s a paper card, wallet-sized (after you cut along the dotted lines), that you carry around so you can show it each time you go to the polls.

At the polling place you must present the card before you get to vote, and before you are given a ballot the card is stamped or otherwise marked to show that you’ve voted. If you’ve lost your card there could be all kinds of bureaucratic shuffles to go
through before you will be allowed to vote.

Just to make sure you haven’t died between elections or moved away, a new card is mailed out every couple of years, and if you skip too many elections you’ll have toregister again.

A polite way of keeping the voting process neat and tidy.

And every couple of years, here lately, the Republicans in the Texas legislature decide that’s not enough. Claiming rampant voter fraud, they introduced legislation in 2005 and 2007 to create a law requiring every voter to produce photo ID in addition to a registration certificate.

The Democrats adamantly oppose such restrictions, arguing that folks who are too old or too poor to drive -- or don’t know how to drive -- are most likely to be without a driver’s license. Coincidentally, these are the kinds of people who tend to vote for Democrats. Interesting.

As is the fact that Republican efforts to pass a voter ID law seem to have picked up as their majority has dwindled.

Here’s what the current issue of Texas Monthly has to say about it all:

For three years during George W. Bush’s presidency (2002 to 2005), the U.S. Justice Department mounted a federal Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative, which found only 38 cases of voter fraud, resulting in only 13 convictions and 11 guilty pleas.

That’s nationwide, my friends. Across 50 states.

And, according to the magazine,

In Texas the pickings were equally slim. Attorney General Greg Abbott received a federal grant to investigate voter fraud and other crimes, resulting in just 30 indictments and 22 prosecutions so far: all reportedly against Democrats, most involving technical violations.

Improperly completed registration forms, transposed numbers, that kind of stuff.

Texas Monthly’s article concludes:

The reason that so little evidence of fraud can be found is simple: There’s no incentive for voter impersonation. The chance to influence the outcome of an election is too small; it would take an enormous number of people, all committing fraud at once, to make a difference.

Well, the legislation has passed through the Texas Senate, where the Republicans have a hefty majority, and is headed for the House, where they outnumber the Democrats by only 76 to 74. Reason may yet prevail.

Or who knows? Maybe they’ll decide to have us voters dip our fingers in purple ink.

Seriously, defeating this legislation is important, I believe, and not least because it brings out the Boston tea-party libertarian streak in me. As in: What!? Yet another layer of law to be imposed on the citizenry?

If you agree, this would be a good time to call Jim Pitts, or send him an email and urge him to vote against the voter ID legislation.

Originally published in Waxahachie Daily Light, March 23, 2009

Rebels with a cause

Political excitement and change are not limited to national politics these days. In our own State of Texas, as the legislature gears up for its biennial assembly, I want to tell you about some very interesting developments over the past year.

In its last session, drama unfolded in the effort to unseat Speaker Craddick, whose tenure had revealed the iron hand of a dictator, not always to the benefit of the people of our State.

For those of us inclined to be riveted by political happenings, it was a feast.

Among the representatives who challenged the Speaker was our own Jim Pitts, who showed himself to be a thoughtful and honorable man, of whom folks in Waxahachie should be proud. Risking his career, perhaps, but definitely risking his appointment to the powerful position of head of the legislature’s Appropriations Committee. That’s because Craddick’s hold on power was in large part due to a penchant for punishing his opponents – by, for example, taking away their appointments.

As reported in the Austin American Statesman, Pitts had “accused Craddick of holding up the appropriations bill — the only piece of legislation that, by law, must pass each session — to cut deals with members and shore up support for his speakership.”

And, according to the Statesman, there were “rumors that a group of lawmakers, including GOP members of Craddick's leadership team, would attempt a coup with a motion to vacate the chair. Complaints have included that Craddick is too autocratic, is losing control of the House and is bending rules to aid allies and punish opponents.”

Indeed, there were attempts to make the motion, but Craddick danced around it; after he replaced the House parliamentarians with one of his cronies, the two of them worked in tandem, literally, to deny every effort to offer the motion.

It was political theater at its best.

There’s a rule, for example, that motions must be offered using the microphone at the back of the assembly room. So the Speaker had that microphone disabled. And then Pitts and some of the other challengers defied him and went to the front microphone.

As the Statesman reported, "My constituents back home want me to do the right thing for Texas," he said. "And that's replacing the speaker."

“For what purpose does the member rise?”

“To offer a motion that the chair be vacated.”

“The member is not recognized for that purpose.”

And so it went on. And on. Craddick’s personal parliamentarian did his job.

I don’t remember exactly how the challengers managed to finally get the motion to a vote, but they did. Yet, even though Jim Pitts was well positioned to become the new Speaker, at the last minute he withdrew from consideration.

Now why on earth would he have done that? Because he knew that anyone who voted for the motion – in other words, any supporter of his – would be punished by Craddick just for supporting the motion if it didn’t pass, and it was too close to call.

Now that’s an honorable man.

Jim was among those punished, of course, and lost his position as head of Appropriations.

Fast forward to this year.

A bipartisan collection of representatives got together, having decided unity was the best weapon, and announced they would all back Joe Straus, Republican from San Antonio, for speaker. His platform included a promise to end partisanship and special favors.

There were more than enough of them, and Tom Craddick withdrew.

Straus is now Speaker, the Texas legislature has returned to relative sanity -- and Jim Pitts has been returned to the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee.

We have a lot to be grateful for in Jim Pitts, a truly honorable man. And he showed it again last week when he joined a bipartisan group of legislators who are now challenging Governor Perry’s announcement that he will reject stimulus funds intended to allay the rising costs of unemployment in our State.

Perry claims that accepting the funds would commit Texas to greater costs in the future, but happily the legislature can override that silliness. True, they will have to pass conforming laws to do so, but as a sage has pointed out, what the legislature giveth the legislature can taketh away down the road, if it comes to that and we find ourselves in a crunch.

No one knows how the economy will look in two or three years, but there’s nothing to lose by trying, and lots to lose by doing nothing, and Jim Pitts knows that.

A legislator who really works for the people. Imagine that!

Thanks, Jim!