05.14.08

Lots Of Smoke, Little Fire, But Lots Of Ire

Posted in Around The State, Election 2008, The Lege at 10:40 am by wcnews

Harvey Kronberg in his latest News 8 commentary, Scrutiny over ghost employees, does an excellent job of sorting out the “ghost” employee issue that Speaker Tom Craddick has brought to bear on members of the Texas House. Kronberg tells us it’s not the who and the what that’s dominating this story around the capitol but the why:

The question consuming the capitol community is whether or not the story was developed and then shopped to the press by the Speaker’s office and its allies. The three lawmakers targeted in the story, two Democrats and one Republican, are all outspoken critics of Speaker Tom Craddick.

In the heavily polarized house, Craddick critics do not believe in coincidences, especially since they are being pilloried for long-standing practices also used by some on the Speaker’s leadership team.

They believe that politically neutral House institutions like the Legislative Council and the House Business Office have been enlisted to do opposition research on sitting members.

These are difficult things to prove one way or the other.

But the belief has injected even more poison into an already damaged institution.

As noted before this has been, one of several, long-standing policies – many legislators give stipends to staffers out of their campaign coffers – used by many in the house to attempt to keep a full-time staff, on a part-time budget.

The only legitimate question is whether or not value is delivered in exchange for the compensation package offered.

Legislative staffs may work a hundred hours a week during session without overtime and ten hours a week in the months immediately afterward.

Most think it all balances out.

Are there abuses?

Probably a few.

But it’s the politics behind the story that may prove to be the most interesting of all.

In other words were these people getting benefits for doing nothing. If so there’s a problem. But if they were doing much work for little pay, then there’s no problem. In essence there’s been an agreement in place for a long time that this would be allowed. Now a politician is in deep trouble, fighting to keep power, and trying to find something, anything, to smear his opponents with. It’s an issue that, at first glance, looks like a scandal but once it’s looked at with a discerning eye turns out to have, as Kronberg says, “..much smoke but little fire”.

What this shows is the tactics that Craddick will use to keep the gavel. I believes it’s Paul Burka that in the past pointed out that the Speaker’s number one job is to protect the House membership, help them get reelected. If what state Rep. Jessica Farrar (D-Houston) says is true, (link via QR), then Craddick has given up on his number one job.

“Last week, (Rep.) Larry Phillips and (Speaker) Tom Craddick announced that all House members are currently under investigation regarding employment practices, including employment compensation arrangements,” she wrote. “Thanks to Mr. Phillips and Mr. Craddick, everyone’s Fall opponent will now be saying, ‘Rep. John Doe has been under investigation by the General Investigating Committee, the Texas Attorney General…’

“Never mind that the investigation is now discredited and pretty well agreed to be unnecessary. You can call Tom Craddick and Larry Phillips when the mail pieces arrive in your district in October.”

Not only has he given up protecting them, he’s the one creating problems for all of them, not just his adversaries but his allies too.

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