This morning the Amarillo Globe-News offers the fourth in a series of columns from local legislators obfuscating what they wish to do this legislative session: this one from tobacco-industry point man and anti-gay crusader Warren Chisum. In keeping with the pattern established by John Smithee, Chisum uses most of his column to review the shortcomings of the various methods of school funding without really offering any solutions. He does, however, make the point that the transition from Democratic to Republican in Texas has also been a transition from rural to urban:
This legislative session will be more difficult than any I have experienced. The transition of leadership from Democratic to Republican hasn't been easy.
Rural representatives have ruled the Texas House for many years, but now rural Texans are only a small part of the population. Now the city folks are in charge.
Not that Texas bucks national trends of urban/rural partisan voting, so much as just trending Republican everywhere—and urbanizing at the same time. I assume that Chisum will continue to work through the Rural Caucus to represent these interests. He issues the platitude that “the state should not duck its obligation to “people who are unable to pay [for health care],” mumbles something about decisions regarding economic development taxes being made locally, and states that he intends to continue to bash gays by amending the Texas Constitution—a document that, after 129 years, already looks like the excavation of ancient Troy, city built on city built on city.
For more on Chisum’s record, or to add your own expertise to our own, check comments.
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