THE CITY Ruminations on the 64th Legislature

The most interesting thing about this year’s legislative session, which commences this month, is that no one seems too interested in it. The bloom kind of fell off the reform-legislaturecome-to-save-the-people rose of the 63rd Legislature, when most of the reform bills it turned out were raped, gutted, or half-hearted in intent. Further, we would later find out our valiant reformers spent almost two-thirds of the session on Speaker Price Daniel Jr.’s nine-bill reform package, and were unable to get to school finance reform, utilities regulation, mass transit funding, key environmental legislation and other vital problems in the remaining third. Add to that the humiliating failure to produce a new Constitution after six months and millions of taxpayers dollars, and it’s no wonder the voting public, aroused and angry in 1972 and’73, has returned to blissful slumber.

The issues lining up as the biggies this session are likely only to deepen the electorate’s slumber. School finance, utilities regulation, land-use planning, judicial reform in urban court systems, incomprehensibly complicated proposals to revive the draft of the new Constitution – there’s not much on the horizon likely to make for exciting headline reading or for even decent demagogery.

Amidst the flurry of inscrutable rhetoric on the pros and cons of these issues, however, there is one interesting thread: Each will test the essential tug and pull of state politics, the urban-rural conflict. It is too often forgotten that our state government tends to ebb and flow more on the waves caused by that irreconcilable fight, than on partisan or conservative-liberal ideological battles.

The once omnipotent rural sensibility has been eroding in preeminence in proportion to the dramatic demographic shifts in the state during the past 20 years. As more and more people have moved to urban areas, so has more and more political clout. The implementation of single member legislative districts in San Antonio, Dallas and Houston prior to the 63rd session not only helped urban numbers in the House of Representatives, but brought new and articulate urban advocates to the political scene.

And while the rural bloc basically prevailed in the 63rd, there are those who feel the 64th session is the bellwether year, the year Texas’ sluggish legislative labyrinth may begin to respond to the fact that over half this state’s population resides in urban areas.

The aforementioned issues will tell the tale. School finance, for one, is fundamentally an urban concern; most of the rural lawmakers could care less. Proposed judicial reform, which would on the one hand speed and streamline the administration of justice in quagmired urban judicial systems, and on the other hand, cut into the fiefdom-like power of rural county judges and J.P.’s, will be another bloody fight. So will attempts by urban legislators to keep patients from rural counties from freeloading off large urban health facilities like Parkland. So will expected attempts to acquire state funding for urban mass transportation systems, whether from the sacrosanct highway trust fund or other sources. And so will proposed statewide utility regulations, which a lot of urban legislators feel can only hike rates in cities, and lower them in sparsely populated rural areas.

It’s no wonder that Republican State Rep. Ray Hutchison calls the 64th Legislature, “the greatest philosophical challenge this state has ever faced.” Mr. Hutchison’s tendency to hyperbole notwithstanding, it does appear that this session of the Legislature will once and for all test the relative moxie and clout of the urban bloc.

Hutchison, along with many other urban lawmakers, feels the impotence of the urban bloc in the past has been largely its own fault. In the Houston and San Antonio delegations particularly, there has been too much partisan and ideological haggling for, as one legislator put it, “us city boys to get down to what really matters.” In Dallas, the infighting has been between North Dallas County Republicans and South Dallas County conservative Democrats.

Hutchison and others are interested in forging a bona fide urban coalition, something which the rural boys have developed by pure instinct. “Until everybody learns to give a little on their ideological and partisan differences” says Hutchison, “we’re going to continue to get beat on key urban issues.” Hutchison is early-on optimistic, if only because this session “will not be devoting 90 of its 140 days to reform and talk about reform …”

“The reform business really limited us last time. I think we’ve all matured a lot since then. Despite the fact that everyone seems to be yawning about it, this could turn out to be a very productive session, in a quiet sort of way.”

A couple of other things to watch during the session: Look for, as one legislator called it, “The Great Pork Battle” over that $1 billion state budget surplus. This legislature is mandated with figuring out what the devil to do with all that extra money, an activity in which it seems always to show an uncharacteristic amount of interest.

Look too, for attempts (including one by Hutchison) to resurrect in some way, form or fashion the corpse of that aborted new Constitution. Some think rigor mortis has already set in, but others feel there’s still a slim chance the draft can be brought before the people.