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Citation: The Progressive July 1999, v.63, 7, 46
Author: Ivins, Molly
Title: `No Position' Bush.(Texas Gov George W. Bush takes not
position on state hate crimes bill and bill to use
federal funds to provide health insurance to poor
children)(Brief Article) by Molly Ivins
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT 1999 Progressive Inc.
A few weeks ago, a consoling clip from an Arizona newspaper arrived on my
desk informing me that one member of the Arizona legislature had said to
another, "Gee, I didn't know you were Jewish. You don't look Jewish. You don't
have a big hook nose." There was even a picture of the Jewish member helpfully
labeled: DOES NOT HAVE BIG HOOK NOSE.
A pal sent me this snippet because the last time I was in Arizona this
sensitive state representative had managed to conflate homosexuality and
cannibalism into a single menace, a confusion so remarkable I felt impelled to
write about it. It's always nice to know not all the morons are in the Texas
Lege.
Trouble is, I can't think of anything else encouraging about the
seventy-sixth session of the Texas Lege. I'll put our morons up against
theirs, any time.
Representative Arlene Wohlgemuth, one of our top contenders, opposed a
resolution noting that 1.5 million Texas children do not have health
insurance. She said they might not have health insurance because their parents
are so rich they can afford to pay cash for medical care. "Their parents might
be making $1 million a year. It is still our right in this country not to have
health insurance," she said.
The right not to have health insurance is one of the most under-celebrated
rights we have in this great nation, and we are all grateful to Arlene for
pointing it out to us.
Perhaps the high point of the session was the day the Democratic minority in
the Senate left the chamber en masse, decamped to the rotunda of the capitol,
and there proceeded to hold hands and pray. Led in prayer, I might add, by
Senator John Whitmire of Houston, who has not heretofore been much noted for
Christian leadership. (Whitmire has taken offense at my astonishment over his
new incarnation as a spiritual leader and informs me he is known as "John the
Baptist.") The proximate cause of this Democratic recourse to The Lord was
that they couldn't get the hate crimes bill out of committee. And the reason
they couldn't get it out is because gays and lesbians were included in the
bill, and that presented a huge problem for George W. Bush, who is running for
President. Because, you see, it would upset the many fundamentalist Christians
who would vote in Republican primaries if killing "sinners" was somehow
especially illegal. I know this because Senator Drew Nixon explained it to
Senator Rodney Ellis, sponsor of the hate crimes bill. Senator Nixon knows his
onions when it comes to sin, he being our leading convicted perp in the
Senate, having done time for the unfortunate sin of soliciting a prostitute
last year. He served his sentence in a halfway house and, may I add, is in
point of actual fact one of the more useful and intelligent members of the
Texas Senate.
I am in some danger of becoming fond of Senator Nixon, who has populist
instincts. You may think incipient fondness for him reflects poorly on my
judgment, but that's only because you don't know the other Republicans in the
Senate.
Senator Florence Shapiro, one of the other Republicans, said the entire hate
crimes bill was about one man, George W. Bush--all an effort to embarrass the
governor. Actually, the hate crimes bill was about one man, and his name was
James Byrd Jr., who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck near Jasper,
Texas, last year because he was black. His corpse was recovered in chunks. In
this year of Our Lord 1999, the legislature of the state of Texas is still not
ready to condemn hate crimes because that includes crimes against "queers." A
lesser person might be discouraged by that. The governor, incidentally, had no
position on the hate crimes bill: That's the governor's usual position--he has
no position. He has said, "All crimes are hate crimes." As Representative
Senfronia Thompson, House sponsor of the James Byrd Jr. Memorial Bill, asked
sarcastically, "Is forgery a hate crime? Fraud? Prostitution? Armed robbery?"
The other big fight of the session was over whether to use federal money to
give health insurance to the children of the poor (about 165,000 kids would be
covered). The governor had no position. The House, the one that still has a
Democratic majority, prevailed.
Governor Bush, the crown prince of the Republican Party, had one big goal
this session: He wants to give $2 billion in property tax relief back to the
people who own property in this state. Texas has an extraordinarily regressive
tax structure; it weighs most heavily on those who are poorest. Poor people
rarely own property. Nevertheless, property tax relief was the goal. And it
was certainly aided by the fact that we in Texas have a handsome budget
surplus this year. What better to do with it than give a property tax rebate
to those who own property? They will get a cut worth as much as a Big Mac and
fries every month! Meanwhile, Texas ranks fiftieth among the states (that's
last) in per capita spending, and that includes highways, the one thing we do
well. If you were to exclude highway spending, Texas would rank where it so
often does--behind Puerto Rico and Guam.
So what could we have done instead of a tax cut? Kindergarten. We thought it
would be nice to have kindergarten in Texas. We keep reading all these studies
about how important early childhood development is. Hillary Clinton--you
should forgive I mention her name--has made a big deal about this, all this
new research shows the early development stuff is critical. So we thought
maybe kindergarten. But no. The Education Governor is not that keen on
education.
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
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