Goodbye 2004 and hello new year of oddball ideas
Clay Robison offers some musings in the letter - if not always the spirit - of the season.
Here's to puppets, lobbyists and Rick Perry.As we prepare for another year, here are some seasonal thoughts and observations.H - Hutchison, Kay Bailey. The senior U. S. Senator (and gubernatorial wannabe) from Texas will be a keen observer of how lawmakers and Gov. Rick Perry attempt to tackle school finance and other challenging problems in the new year. Don't expect her to cheer (at least not publicly) if Perry stumbles, but don't expect any tears either. She may not be that good an actress.A - Accountability. This is one of the most overused and abused words in the vocabulary of public education policy. School children already are held accountable for their test scores and grades, thanks to the governor and state legislators. If they don't pass, they aren't promoted. Teachers and principals are held accountable for how their students perform. Everyone, it seems, is accountable except for the policymakers at the top, who preach to others but still haven't drafted a solid and equitable financial base for the public schools. If they don't succeed in 2005, voters should hold their own accountability sessions in 2006 and start tossing.P - Perry, Rick. The pride of Paint Creek is a pretty good economic development booster, but the governor of Texas is supposed to be more than a gloified chamber of commerce president. Handing out state fereebies to corporations is a lot easier, though, than being a leader.P - Puppets. Come January 11, there will be more than a few of these clowning around under the state Capitol dome, with their string pullers in the lobby only a phone call or handshake away.Y - Year, Old. Good riddance to 2004 and the carnage it produced in Iraq. Now, if only President Bush would show us a realistic exit strategy - and act on it.H - Heflin, history. Will the former become the latter: So far, Republican state Rep. Talmadge Heflin of Houston seems determined to overturn his 33-vote, Election Day loss to Democrat Hubert Vo. His election contest could produce a bloody, partisan mess at the beginning of a difficult legislative session. Even if they find proof of voter fraud, however, House Republicans will be reluctant to declare Heflin the victor. If they order a new election, Vo likely will win again after every Democratic consultant this side of the moon stirs up voter anger in Harris County. Heflin has another option. He could withdraw his challenge and start collecting a generous state retirement.O - Odd. Since 2005 is an odd-numbered year, it will bring an assortment of people with an assortment of ideas, including many oddball ideas, to Austin. We call the people legislators and their ideas are proposed laws. Some of their ideas, even oddball ones, get passed.L - Lobbyists. Many of these are more influential than legislators, and 2005 will be their year in Austin. Every odd-numbered year is.I - Investigation. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle's investigation of the role of corporate money in Republican legislative races will continue. It remains to be seen whether key officeholders will be charged with crimes. But Republican leaders will continue to whine about Earle rather than take substantive steps to clean up the unhealthy, money-driven political system under which they have thrived.D - Democrats. An indication of how far Texas Democrats have fallen is how elated they were to attain a net gain of only one seat (pending election contests) in the Republican heavy Texas House, while losing their majority in the state's congressional delegation.A - Accountability (again). Hundreds of children have been endagered and many have died because of serious problem's in the children's protective services system. An embarrassed governor and state legislators are pointing fingers at bureaucrats and promising changes. What did they expect, however, when they woefully underfunded the vital safety net? Each caseworker, on average, has had to deal with an impossible 61 cases.Y - Year, New. You have one whale of a job ahead of you, 2005.S - Strayhorn, Carole Keeton. The comptroller will throw more bombs at Gov. Perry and continue her performance as state government's most transparently opportunistic officeholder. Her gubernatorial aspirations, however, remain a longshot.See you in 2005.Clay Robison is chief of the Houston Chronicle's Austin Bureau. (clay.robison@chron.com)This column was first published in the Outlook Section of the Houston Chronicle on Sunday, December 26, 2004
