The Session's Over, What Now?

The 82nd Texas Legislature's first called session has come to an end. So what will the members of the House and Senate being doing between now and the 2012 election? Both House and Senate committees are given "interim charges" to consider while the legislature is not in session. These charges are created by the Speaker of the House (for House committees) and the Lieutenant Governor (for Senate Committees). Typically the charges include gathering information on subjects that were heavily discussed during the legislative session (but about which no action was taken) and monitoring the implementation of legislation that did pass.

Each committee creates reports detailing their findings on those charges. Often this includes holding public hearings throughout the state. These public hearings, which are often sparsely attended, are an important opportunity for everyday people to interact directly with lawmakers. Even if the hearing is being held on an issue unrelated to the queer community's struggle for equality, simply showing up, speaking, and finding some way to out yourself during your testimony is a way to force lawmakers to realize that LGBT Texans exist, and are paying attention.

The queer community had a few victories this session, including the passage of anti-bullying bill HB 1942 and teen suicide prevention bill HB 1386. The question is now whether the policy changes created by that legislation will be implemented in a way that creates real benefits for LGBT youth. One way to to help ensure the success of those bills would be for the House Public Education, House Public Health and Senate Education Committees to be charged with monitoring their implementation. Historically, however, even non-LGBT specific issues, like bullying, have rarely been included in the interim charges. (For instance, Speaker Joe Straus' interim charges to the 81st House's Public Education Committee did not include any mention of bullying, despite that issue being hotly debated in committee during the 81st regular session.)

Needless to say LGBT-specific interim charges are even rarer. So despite the legislature's lack of action this session on important issues like allowing accurate birth certificates for the children of same-sex parents, repealing the unconstitutional "homosexual conduct" law and fixing the state's broken hate crime statute, it's unlikely that either Speaker Straus or Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst will see fit to include them, or the implementation of HB 1386 and HB 1942, in the Legislature's homework assignment.

The interim charges should be out within the next couple of months. We'll post them as soon as they are available and will keep you up to date on scheduled public hearings during the legislative interim.

Day 121: Anti-Trans Marriage Bill Kept at Bay, Tensions High in the House

Today is the 121st day of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature, the House returns from recess at 10 am, the Senate will reconvene at 11 am.

The Senate adjourned yesterday without taking up SB 723, the anti-trans marriage bill that has floated on and off and back on to the "intent calendar" for the last month. The bill would remove a court order changing a person's legally recognized sex from the list of documents that can be used to obtain a marriage license. The author's stated intent is to make a 1999 case from the Texas fourth court of appeals Littleton v. Prange the binding case law for all of Texas, prohibiting anyone who has changed their legally recognized sex from getting married. (Read LQ's Legislative Intent and SB 723).

Bills on the intent calendar require a 2/3 vote, or 20 yeas, of the Senate to be brought up for a vote. All Texans are urged to call your Senators and ask them to "oppose SB 723." Equality Texas has set up an easy to use form e-mail that will automatically be sent to your Senator here. There are currently 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats in the Texas Senate, which means that at least one of the Senate Democrats will have to support SB 723 for it to pass. There is a list of phone numbers for Senate Democrats here, after you've contacted your Senator please call them as well.


HB 2229, by Garnett Coleman (D-Houston) sailed through the Senate Health and Human Services Committee yesterday afternoon, passing without any objection. The bill would make permanent the Texas HIV Advisory Committee, which provides advice from service providers and clients on Texas' HIV medication assistance and prevention programs. The committee recommended that HB 2229 be placed on the Senate's "Local and Uncontested Calendar," a list on noncontroversial bills.


HB 1386, Colman's teen suicide prevention bill, is scheduled for a vote in the House today. Tensions have been running high in the House since Saturday when the absence of several, mostly freshman, Republican members gave the House Democrats the ability to shut down further proceedings by leaving. A series of parliamentary moves preceded to volley along partisan lines - first threatening to lock the chamber doors - then to send State Troopers to collect absent members. Although the dust settled and the House resumed business the bruises of that exchange have continued to show in all subsequent debate. Monday's consideration of the so-called "sanctuary cities" bill, a highly controversial measure that would require local law enforcement officers to round up undocumented immigrants without providing training on how to do so or funds to finance their new responsibilities, has done little to ease the frazzled relationships in the increasingly sleep deprived chamber. Yesterday's debate included a scathing reproachment of Speaker Joe Strauss (R-San Antonio) from Trey Martinez-Fischer (D-San Antonio). Martinez-Fischer blasted the Speaker for his poor handling of debate and hinted that, like his predecessor Tom Craddick (R-Midland), Strauss could be removed from his Speakership if he continued to disregard the traditions and procedures of the House.

With tensions high the chamber's pace has slowed to a crawl, it is likely that, although scheduled for today, HB 1386 will not be brought up until tomorrow. Tomorrow is also the last day for the House to consider House bills for the first of their two required votes.

House Committee Assignments

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus has finally announced the committee assignments for the 82nd Texas House. As I predicted last month the partisan break down of the committee chairs roughly reflects the distribution of party control in the House with 11 Democratic chairs and 25 Republicans (not including the 4 select and joint committee chairs, all republicans).

House committees that queer Texans will want to watch very carefully:

Public Education - will get the anti-bullying bills. Chairman Rob Eissler scheduled the hearing for HB 1323 (last sessions anti-bullying bill) very late last session, but he did schedule a hearing and the committee eventually voted to send the bill to the floor for a vote of the whole House. Unfortunately, time ran out last session (more info on HB 1323). Rep. Strama, whose HB 224 is expected to be the water bearer for anti-bullying bills, is on the committee this session.

Public Health - will get HB 405, which would allow same-sex parents to get accurate birth certificates for their children. Chairwoman Lois Kolkhorst was visibly moved by testimony last session on this bill, lets hope that causes her to schedule it for an early hearing.

Criminal Jurisprudence - will get HB 604, the repeal of Texas's unconstitutional sodomy law and HB 172, the study of the effectiveness of the Texas Hate Crimes Act. Chairman Gallego has a solid record of voting in the best interest of queer Texans, but repealing the unconstitutional sodomy law, however common-sense, is going to a hard sell. Plus, with virulent homophobes Wayne Christian, Bill Zedler and Will Hartnett it seems unlikely that common sense will beat out bigotry. The Hate Crimes study has a better chance, it made it out of committee last session, but it's hard to predict what will happen this session.

Insurance - will get HB 208 prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating on the basis and sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. Chairman Smithee hasn't let this bill through in past sessions and I'd be shocked if he lets it through this session. Smithee takes every chance he can get to hurt queer Texans, he's not likely to pass this chance up either.

State Affairs - will get HB 665, which would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. This bill, or a version of it, has been filed every session for over a decade, and it never gets a hearing. While new Chairman Byron Cook is an immense improvement over old Chairman Burt Solomons it's unlikely that this bill will go anywhere.

Now that we have committees bills are going to start moving left and right. The 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature is finally getting going!

Day 30: The Governor's Earth Moving Equipment

Today is the 30th day of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature. The House reconvenes as 10:00 am, the Senate at 11:00 am.

Yesterday's "State of the State" address by Gov. Rick Perry was a pro forma "government is bad, regulation is bad, business is good" diatribe. If you can stomach reading the full text it is available HERE. In an irony no doubt lost on the man who has repeatedly tried to prevent queer people from talking about their relationships in public, Perry opened by thanking his wife Anita. He then went on to praise the Boy Scouts for making him who he is, so now we know who to blame.

Perry blamed the states 27 billion dollar budget crisis on everyone but the Republican controlled legislature who passes the budget, including: President Obama, Congressman Lloyd Doggett, the Environmental Protection Agency and illegal immigrants. All this while asking for more money for his personal "economic development" funds. State Rep. Jessica Farrar, president of the House Democratic Caucus, summed it up nicely "The first rule to being in a hole is stop digging. Perry traded his shovel for a backhoe,"

Still no movement on any of the bills we're watching. The Senate Education Committee (which has the Senate version of anti-bullying legislation) has not scheduled a hearing this week. The House still does not have committee assignments (no committee assignments = no committee hearings = no legislation) . A capitol staffer told me that the rumor mill has suggested that Speaker Joe Straus (who makes committee assignments) is waiting until the final report from the House Election Contest Select Committee to issue assignments.

The Select Committee was appointed to report on the contested election of Rep. Donna Howard (D-Travis County) in House District 48. Howard's opponent, Dan Neal, has been challenging her election (which was won by a narrow 16 votes), since November - charging that ballots where improperly counted. Howard has maintained her narrow lead after every recount. The report from the Select Committee is expected on Friday. If the rumors about the reason for Staus's tardy assignments are true, that means it may be next week before we have committee assignments.

Day 24: I Can Haz Committee Assignments?

Today is the 24th day of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature. The House reconvenes at 10:00 am, the Senate at 1:30 pm.

Still no House Committee assignments. The Speaker of the Texas House is responsible for appointing the members of House committees and their chairs. Committees hold public hearings on bills and make recommendations to the entire House regarding whether a bill is a good idea. Without committee assignments the House is extremely limited in the work it can do.

Speaker Straus is certainly taking his time. In the last 10 years the average day of committee assignments in the House was the 13th day of the session (with the longest time being the 16th day (81st regular session) and the shortest the 7th day (79th regular session). It is now the 24th day of session and still no assignments. I'm told that Straus is meeting with individual members about their preferences and that is what is causing the delay.

Until he finally makes up his mind the entire session remains in limbo.

Day 17: Apres I.D., Le Deluge

Today is the 17th day of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature. The House will reconvene at 10 am, the Senate has adjourned until Monday.

Thursdays tend to be pretty slow around the capitol for the first couple of months since legislators are generally in their district offices on Fridays and many of them head out on Thursday afternoons. There are a handful of press conferences and briefings around the building today, and the Texas Retail Association will be talking about the life of a grocery bag on the South Steps at 11:00 am.

Everybody is going to be talking about voter ID/suppression which passed out of the Senate on strictly partisan lines yesterday after a marathon session of attempted amendments. The House will still have to debate their version and one of the Senate amendments required the State budget fund the implementation of new identification rules - so the debate is far from over. Now that the Senate has voter suppression (mostly) off their plate things should really start moving on that side of the building.

House members are supposed to turn in their preferences for committee assignments by tomorrow. House committee membership is determined by a mixture of personal preference and speaker selection. Half of the members of any committee are there because they requested to be and have the seniority to get what they want. The other half are selected by the Speaker, who also selects the chairperson of each committee. Since a majority of the committee may override the chairperson Speaker Straus must carefully consider his assignments to avoid creating committees which may try to usurp his hand-chosen chairs.

I know I've said this before, but expect committee assignments next week.

Day 2: Down to Business

Today is the second day of the 82nd regular legislative session.

The Senate will reconvene at 11 am and will likely begin the process of adopting their rules. The rules in the Senate are very similar to the House's with a few noted exceptions. Chief among these is that the House can consider bills on the floor in any order it deems fit. The Senate, however, has a rule that bills must be considered in the order they were filed. So SB1 should be first, then SB2 and so forth.

Of course the Senate never follows this rule. A two thirds majority of Senators can set aside their rules and take up a bill out of order. So each session what's known as a blocker bill is filed first. The blocker bill sits at the front of the line and never gets voted on, this requires every other bill to get two thirds of the Senators to agree to set aside the rules and consider it out of order.

The blocker bill is generally credited with creating a more civil tone in the Senate since every bill must garner at least two-thirds of the senators favor to pass. Last session Sen. Dan Patrick engineered a loophole into the Senate Rules to allow voter suppression legislation to bypass the blocker bill without the two-thirds support. That loophole resulted in a backlash that nearly brought the entire session to a halt. The Senate rule making process will be watched closely this session to see if any similar shenanigans are attempted.

Also this morning the Sunset Advisory Committee is meeting at 8 am. Texas law requires that every state agency undergo a "Sunset Review" every 7 years. The legislature must re-approve the existence of the agency or it will automatically be dissolved. The Sunset process began at the end of the previous session and involved hearings held around the State on each agency under review.

The House will convene briefly today but don't expect much beyond some minor congratulations and ceremony. The real action will be in the Legislative Conference Center which is underground behind the capitol building. House members will be meeting in heated sessions to hash out the specifics of this session's House rules.

Arch conservatives in the House are likely still stinging from yesterday's relatively smooth reelection of Joe Straus as Speaker. Rep. Ken Paxton, the teabagger favorite for speaker, withdrew from the Speaker's race just before the vote was to begin.

A motion was made to elect Straus by acclamation, when Rep. Leo Berman requested a record vote. Only 15 members voted against Straus: Berman, Burkett, Christian, Cain, Flynn, P. King, Landtroop, Laubenberg, C. Perry, Paxton, Parker, Simpson, V. Taylor, White and Zedler. There are a few extreme old timer right-wing hardliners in that list but almost half (7) of those voting 'no' are serving their first term in the House. Which would seem a foretaste of things to come in a House of 34 freshmen, most of whom were sent to Austin by teabaggers who demand only obstinance and pig-headedness.

The discussions should be interesting. The House Rules are extremely complicated, some members who have served for years still to not have a full understanding of them. If the freshmen recalcitrance brigade tries to muck up the works with their default rejection of order and civility they will likely get taken to task by even the most conservative of the senior members. The House has 150 members, each of whom is answerable first to their constituents, not to a party, and not to a hissy fit disguised as a national populist uprising.

Today the grown-ups get to work and if the wet-behind-the-ears whipper snappers don't behave they may find themselves spending the rest of the session sitting in the corner.

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UPDATE: The Senate voted to delay adoption of rules until next week (via Quorum Report)

Straus Wins GOP Caucus' Speaker Vote

Quorum Report tweets that Speaker Straus has won the Republican caucus vote for Speaker with 70 out of 100 votes (for more information on the unorthodox practice of taking a caucus vote for House Speaker see Legislative Queery's post UPDATE: Chisum Remains in Speakers Race).

Unconfirmed reports indicate that the vote was stopped after Straus received 70 votes so it is possible that he actually had much broader support. It is now all but certain that Joe Straus will remain House Speaker for another session. With that settled the next major step in getting the session underway will be the adoption of the House's rules, followed by the appointment of committee chairs by the Speaker.

Straus is a Republican from Bexar County. He has been praised for his even-handed and statesmen-like approach to the Speakership and vilified by the far right for not suppressing moderate and liberal members.

The Texas State Constitution allows the House to adopt its own rules within certain guidelines. The rules generally remain about the same with minor tweaks here and there to address issues that have risen since the last revision. It takes a two-thirds majority of the House to approve the rules.

(With the new Republican super-majority it is possible that an attempt will be made to majorly edit the rules to make it easier to pass conservative legislative priorities. Last session a change in Senate Rules allowed voter suppression legislation that had stalled in previous sessions to sail through the Senate, creating a major crisis when it reached the House and the Democratic leadership slowed House business to a standstill to prevent its passage. It is possible that something similar may be tried in the House this session.)

Once the rules have been adopted the next order of business is for the Speaker to appoint chairs, vice-chairs and members to each of the House's standing committees (the exact number and nature of committees is laid out in the House Rules, so appointments can not be made until the rules are agreed upon). Committee Chairs determine which bills will receive hearings and in what order and which bills will be voted out of committee. A chairpersonship is a very powerful position.

Historically both Democratic and Republican speakers have appointed chairs from both parties with the appointments roughly divided between parties in proportion to that party's seats in the House. If that pattern holds true we should see about 11 Democratic committee chairs and 23 Republicans.

Assuming the committee structure this session is similar to what it's been in the past (which seems likely), most media will be focused on the chairs of the Appropriations, Elections, Redistricting, Border and Intergovernmental Affairs, State Affairs and Ways and Means committees. These committees will likely handle the highest profile issues like the budget, voter suppression, redistricting, and immigration. It is very likely that all of those chairpersonships will go to Republicans.

Most of the legislation that will most directly effect the queer community, however, is likely to go through the Public Education Committee (anti-bullying), the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee (Hate Crime reform) and the Insurance Committee (insurance non-discrimination).

Straus's chairs last session of those committees were: Rob Eissler (R), Public Education; John Smithee (R) - Insurance and Pete Gallego (D) - Criminal Jurisprudence.

Last session Chairman Eissler was fairly supportive of anti-bullying legislation, scheduling it for a hearing and bringing it up for a vote, if a bit late in the session. He supported Straus's bid to remain speaker so it seems likely that he may keep his chairmanship. If so, the public attention on bullying and the early filing of several anti-bullying bills will likely mean an earlier hearing date, and hopefully earlier passage out of committee.

Chairman Smithee is one of what I like to call the "gang of 37" - arch conservatives who have consistently opposed any legislation that improves the lives of queer people - regardless of how minor. If he remains chairman of the House Committee on Insurance it seems unlikely that any effort to outlaw insurance discrimination based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity and Expression will succeed.

Smithee is also frequently named as a potential candidate for Speaker. He has supported Straus in the past but his potential as a rival makes it important for Straus to reward his loyalty. It seems almost certain that Smithee will be appointed as a committee chair... but which one? Speaker Straus will want to be certain that the chairs of the high profile committees and the chairs of the procedural committees like Calendars are all Republican stalwarts. He may choose to promote Smithee to a more powerful position. If so, we may have a new chair of Insurance, and a new hope for justice.

Chairman Gallego has a solid record of votes in favor of the best interest of the queer community. Last session his committee sent through Marc Veasey's HB 616 (refiled this session as HB 172) which would study the effectiveness of Texas' current Hate Crimes Law and suggest improvements, but the bill stalled waiting to reach the House floor.

There will be fewer Democratic Chairs this session, there is no getting around that. Gallego may be one of the Democrats who lose their chairmanship. I will be watching this appointment carefully.

Expect to learn the new lineup of committee chairs within a week or so. The outcome is crucial to the eventual success or failure of many vital bills.

UPDATE: Chisum Remains in Speakers Race

UPDATE: Chisum has stated on his facebook page that he has not dropped out of the race:

"There is no two ways about it: the Republican House members must caucus and unite behind a single conservative candidate for Speaker. If there is no caucus I will remain a candidate for Speaker when the Legislature meets on January 11, 2011."

The "caucus" he's referring to is a proposal being supported by some conservative Republican House members that the Republican members of the House agree to meet by themselves, vote for a Speaker candidate, and agree to all vote for whoever wins that vote. This is very similar to how the Speaker of the United States Congress is selected, but is an unprecedented way to select a Speaker of the Texas House.

Frankly it would set a dangerous precedent. The current system of selecting a speaker based on the votes of the whole house insures that the person selected is, generally speaking, to the center of the ideological spectrum of the body. If one party, any party, requires it's members to vote for the party's selected candidate, rather than for the candidate members believe would best protect the priorities of their constituents, it will guarantee the election of a partisan ideologue as Speaker, rather than the statesman (or woman) the House needs to run effectively.

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Original title: Chisum to Drop Out of Speakers Race, Support Paxon

The Ellis Herald reports that notorious bigot Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) will drop out of the race for Speaker of the Texas House and support Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) in his attempt to unseat Speaker Joe Straus.

Chisum, you may remember, is the father of the Texas version of the "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) and perhaps the most rabid homophobe in the State of Texas (more HERE).

According to the Rules of the Texas House the speaker is elected by the 150 members of the House, from amongst its members, by a simple majority vote. The speaker is responsible for the day to day operations of the House and appoints all committee members and chairs. 'Speaker of the House' is the third most powerful position in Texas Politics, right behind Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

Traditionally the speaker is a member of whatever party has the most members in the House, although that is not required, a speaker from the non-ruling party has never been elected. Starting with the close of the previous legislative session any member of the house may begin to collect "pledges" from other members, promising their votes for speaker.

Chisum declared his intention to run for speaker shortly before the November election. I spoke with one House member (it was a private conversation, so I'm going to leave their name off) who said that Chisum's record on queer issues is part of what prevented them from supporting him: "My Gay constituents would kill me!"

The current Speaker, Joe Straus, was elected by an almost evenly divided house (74 Democrats and 76 Republicans) and with significant Democratic support. He is a moderate who was widely praised for his bipartisan even-handed handling of the affairs of the House. Which is why the far right hates him.

The current House is not nearly so evenly divided (it will probably be 51 Democrats and 99 Republicans - but there is still one race that may face an additional recount and one special election to fill the seat of a member who died shortly after the election). To maintain his speakership Straus will need to collect 76 pledges from members, but those members can be of any party.

One might assume that all 51 Democrats will pledge to Straus, but with a tight two person race it may be tempting for some to pledge to Paxton in exchange for prime committee appointments and preferential treatment for their legislative agenda. That's how the speaker previous to Straus, Tom Craddick, came to power. Several of the vilified "Craddick Ds" who supported him are still serving and may be willing to make a similar deal with the devil this session.

Paxton is affiliated with the Teabaggers, although not the arch-conservative Chisum is, he did vote for the Texas version of DOMA during his first term in the House (so did Speaker Straus). There really haven't been any other "test" bills to make it to the floor since then and since he has, for the most part, served on financial committees so he does not have a committee voting record that can be analyzed to understand where he stands on other queer issues.

That said, Paxton's rhetoric about being a "true" conservative and his strong Teabagger ties would seem to indicate that few, if any, of the legislative priorities of queer Texans would see the light of day in a Paxton House.

General consensus is that Straus has a good chance of hanging on to the speakership, but with 34 freshmen members of the House without a record to base predictions on, it's still anybody's game.

Notorious Bigot Warren Chisum to Run for Speaker of the House

Rep. Warren Chisum, the man who brought us the Texas version of the "Defense of Marriage Act", announced his candidacy for Speaker of the Texas House today according to the Austin American Statesmen.

You may remember Chisum for his attempt to block the divorce of two men in Dallas, as the person who killed Rep. Strama's anti-bullying bill, or as the reason the Texas hate crimes statute says "Sexual Preference" instead of "Sexual Orientation". I, however, will forever remember him as the man who removed legislation to create a statewide commission on Holocaust and Genocide from consideration rather than allow an amendment to be offered that would have recognized that the Nazis targeted queer people.

The Speaker of the House is elected by members of the House from among House members of the ruling party. In 2009 the current Speaker, Joe Straus, replaced the former speaker Tom Craddick by putting together a coalition of Democratic and Republican House members.

Strauss has been praised for his hands-off bipartisan approach to the Speakership. Which stands in sharp contrast to the strong-armed approach favored by Craddick. (Craddick's many controversial decisions led to the phrase "Bad Precedents" becoming a kind of inside joke around the capitol.) Chisum was a major supporter of Craddick, who gave him prime committee appointments and generous support for his legislative agenda.

Chisum is far outside of the mainstream of the house, and frankly has very little chance of becoming Speaker. Announcing his candidacy is the impotent act of a bitter, defeated man.

However, the thought of a Chisum speakership should be frightening enough to provide any fair-minded Texan with their share of chills this Halloween season.

Texas House Districts Divide Queer Main Street

There’s been a lot of media attention on the census lately, most of it focused on how the census helps determine funding levels for things like roads and schools. The census is also used as an excuse for the Texas legislature to redraw the borders of House and Senate districts every ten years, in the year after the census (Technically Texas can redraw its districts borders whenever it feels like it according to the Supreme Court in LULAC v. Perry).

The State Constitution requires that in drawing lines the legislature attempt to create districts that have about the same number of people in them. It also requires that districts include entire counties, unless the population of those counties is large enough that they have to contain multiple districts.

In addition the Voting Rights Act (signed into law by Texan Lyndon B. Johnson!) has provisions that require the district lines to be reviewed to insure that they are not drawn in ways that divide geographic areas with populations that are primarily made up of ethnic minorities. (Although the Supreme Court weakened this provision last year in Bartlett v. Strickland).

It has also been the practice of the legislature in drawing district borders to not split up cities, unless the city’s population is so large that it can’t be placed into only one district.

Unfortunately, no such rule or practice exists to keep the legislature from splitting up the “Gayborhood”.

(The maps are taken from the Legislative Council Website (the Legislative Council are the Legislature's lawyers) )

This is Dallas’s historic GLBT neighborhood: Oaklawn, which is centered around the entertainment strip on Cedar Springs:

Cedar Springs is also the dividing line between House Districts 108 and 100 until the Toll Road, where a peninsula of District 103 intersects, dividing not only the population into three house districts, put placing important community organizations such as the John Thomas Community Center, The Cathedral of Hope and the Nelson-Tebido Health Center into three different districts. The average Friday night Oaklawn reveler will cross between these lines dozens of times a night without ever realizing it.

This is Houston’s historic GLBT neighborhood: Montrose, which is centered around the intersection of Montrose Blvd and Westheimer Rd.

Again the border between House districts 134 and 147 perfectly bifurcates the neighborhood, placing neighbors and important community organizations in different districts.

If this was only happening once, I might think it was a coincidence, but when the two largest concentrations of GLBT people in the state are both carefully split down the middle it’s hard not to think that there has been an effort to dilute our political voice.

Houston is lucky; the two house members (Garnett Coleman and Ellen Cohen) who represent Montrose are allies of the community. Dallas is less lucky; of the three Oaklawn reps, one is an ally (Rafael Anchia) who will come through when it’s important but does not historically fight for GLBT rights; one has only been on the job for 6 weeks (Eric Johnson) and did not campaign on any queer issues; and one is a rabid homophobe (Dan Branch) who is fortunately being opposed by a gay man, Pete Shulte (more on this race soon).

Texas has only ever elected one out queer person to the legislature, Rep. Glenn Maxey. Currently there is no queer voice in elected office at the capitol. While allies are wonderful things to have, we cannot expect them to understand what it means to be GLBT in Texas, and they will never fight for us as hard as we would fight for ourselves.

Anyone who has seen the movie MILK knows that Harvey Milk ran for office almost continuously for a decade before being elected. It wasn’t until the city changed the way it elected city council members and drew the district lines so as to include the entire Castro neighborhood of San Francisco in one district that he was able to be elected.

So long as the legislature continues to draw House lines in a way that divides the community it will be difficult for us to elect OUR representatives to state government. What’s more it weakens our voice with our allies.

Unfortunately there is currently not a good solution to this problem. In 1974 there was an effort to get Sexual Orientation added to the Civil Rights Act, but that effort has been abandoned. We’re not covered by the Voting Rights Act and have no legal grounds to sue to stop the legislature from gerrymandering districts to split up our community.

The new boundaries will be drafted next spring by the House and Senate Redistricting Committees, who will be appointed by the Speaker of the House and the Lieutenant Governor. Our best hope of ending this disenfranchisement is to have a sympathetic person in charge of appointing those committees.

The current Speaker of the House is Joe Straus, a moderate Republican, but it seems like the former speaker, Tom Craddick, is trying to regain the position. Straus won’t care if queer people don’t have political power, Craddick will actively work to prevent it. The Speaker is elected by the House members and is generally a member of whatever political party has the most members in the House.

Currently the House is split with 77 Republicans and 73 Democrats, so if we have any hope of getting a sympathetic speaker the Democrats will need to hold all of their current seats and defeat 3 Republicans. The truth is that even if the Dems get a majority in the House we aren’t likely to get a speaker who cares about the disenfranchisement of queer people, because frankly it’s not a priority for the Democratic Party as a whole (see how the Dallas County Dems treated the Oaklawn neighborhood in today’s primary runoffs).

The Senate’s Committees are appointed by the Lieutenant Governor. The current Lieutenant Governor, David Dewhurst, is a first class homophobe. His Democratic opponent in this election is Linda Chavez-Thompson, a labor leader and longtime hispanic activist. I can’t claim to be incredibly familiar with Ms. Chavez-Thompson, but from what I’ve seen she seems to actually care about fairness and equality. It will be very difficult for her to beat Dewhurst, but she is our best hope of moving these district lines so that our community can vote together.

Otherwise, we’ll have to continue to try to change state government from across house lines.