I could not help but feel the pain Senator Davis is feeling as she sees a Legislative session that not only failed to correct Texas’ fiscal problems, but a legislature that passed arcane laws like the “vaginal probe anti-abortion bill” which they claim was an emergency. While much is spent ensuring all children irrespective of circumstances are born because of an absolutist ideology, state resources to ensure that children are fed and educated to grow up to be responsible citizens are denied.
While it is easy to blame politicians, we should blame ourselves. After all for the most part they are doing what they told us they would do. They believe in low or no taxes on corporations, low taxes on the people who make a lot of money, regressive fees for the middle class, and very little government spending except to ensure an activist government in control of every woman’s body.
The Texas 2011 Legislative Session is currently a failure. For many students in their formative years, two years of failed education policy being instituted by this Legislature will be harmful for their entire generation.
Given the results of this new dangerous government, it will be interesting to see how much longer the middle class in Texas continue to vote against their own interest. If they continue to do so then the third world propaganda machine would have been successful here as it is in many of the underdeveloped countries and would indicate we are well on our way to a third world standard of living.
Legislature ignores greater good
By STATE SEN. WENDY DAVIS
June 27, 2011, 7:45PMProudly, I arrived as a state senator in Austin in 2009, and again this January, with a certain rosy idealism. Rooted initially through parenting by a father who is a dramatist and hopeless romantic, that idealism became more entrenched while I was in law school and during my early work experience, where I was awed when learning of civil rights era legal minds and courage. My first job, as a clerk for federal Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, cemented that idealism because he could turn even the most hard-core cynic into a believer in the possibility of a greater good.
It is perfectly understandable, then, that I arrived in elected office holding onto the dream that the greater good should win the day. Perhaps that explains why I find myself, at the end of the special legislative session, fighting the temptation to become disillusioned. Having exhausted the bulk of our legislative energy on a list of so-called emergencies meant to springboard political campaigns for some rather than address the true priorities of Texas families, such as job creation and education, we have failed to do the greater good.
The 82nd Legislative Session was classically characteristic of what makes us lose belief in elected officials. Faced with a $4 billion shortfall for public education funding, leadership in Austin turned a deaf ear to communities across the state.
Instead, those in charge allowed political ambition to steer their decision-making. Opportunities to close corporate tax loopholes and to use the rainy day fund to close the gap in public education funding were disavowed in favor of political extremists threatening to hold politically hostage those who did not toe the "cut, cut, cut" party line. And pipelines of communication to the folks we represent back home were closed in favor of an ever-expanding audience given instead to the voices of powerful special interests keeping political score on narrowly focused report cards.
Some of those special interests were unhappy with the decision I made to filibuster the public-education funding bill, forcing further discussion on real priorities. But for me, it was not rocket science to take the microphone away from those interests and hand it back to Texas families.
With this new opportunity, Texans made their voices heard through rallies in the Capitol and through emails, phone calls, letters and personal visits to our offices. For a moment, there was hope that those voices were being heard when 101 of the 150 Texas House members joined together in a bipartisan vote to support a measure by state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, which would have added an additional $2.2 billion to fund public education through future growth in the rainy day fund. Sadly, it took less than 24 hours for powerful and politically extreme organizations to lobby against this common-sense funding approach, flipping many of those same 101 lawmakers against the measure.
I think that many Texans join me today in feeling deeply disappointed. For the first time in Texas’ known history, student enrollment growth will not be funded. The approximately 170,000 new students entering the school system will have to be absorbed with fewer resources and fewer teachers. Already ranked 44th nationally in what it spends on education per pupil, Texas’ further funding decrease will have a consequence in the classroom, there is no doubt. Perhaps it will have another consequence as well. Just perhaps, in the next election, everyday Texans will let us know that their voices, those of the greater good, are more important than those extremists who currently hold sway in the halls of the Texas Capitol.
Davis, a Democrat from Fort Worth, represents Texas Senate District 10.
Legislature ignores greater good | Viewpoints, Outlook | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle
