Bipartisan Votes Key to LGBT Legislative Successes Part V

In which bigotry is enshrined in the State Constitution, and some flee having an opinion.

[Be sure to read parts I, II, III & IV]

79th Session
HJR 6 by Chisum
(Texas Constitutional DOMA Amendment)
Yea (19D, 82R)
Nay (29D)
Present, Not Voting (7D 1R)
Absent (5 D)
Absent, Excused (4D 3R)

In 2003 Rep. Warren Chisum was successful in ramming a bill prohibiting marriage equality through the Texas House. Bills create statutes and codes, secondary forms of laws that are trumped by the state constitution. The Texas State constitution reads in its first article:

"All free men, when they form a social compact, have equal rights, and no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive separate public emoluments, or privileges, but in consideration of public services."

In other words: "The law must apply equally to everyone and can't be written to allow some people to exercise power that other people don't have". In other words: "A statute that allows some people to enter into a state recognized contract but not others is unconstitutional".

Chisum's a smart guy, he recognized this conflict between the constitutional guarantee of equality and the statutorily-provided prohibition on marriage equality. No doubt this recognition was brought home by the string of successful court cases that demonstrated other state's constitutions provided similar protections and were equally in conflict with those state's marriage equality bans.

The only way to address the conflict, and maintain the ban, was to amend the constitution. This is easier said than done. Amendments to the state constitution must be approved by a majority of voters in the state. In order to place amendments on a statewide ballot a two-thirds majority of both the House and Senate must approve them. This means that just 11 Senators or 51 Representatives can ban together to block any proposed amendment.

The 79th Texas House had 86 Republicans and 64 Democrats. If the vote fell on partisan lines it would have failed. Unfortunately the vote did not fall on partisan lines.

Before the House vote Rep. Chisum offered an amendment: "this state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage". Chisum was concerned that, despite the resolution's clear prohibition against marriage equality, civil unions or county or municipal domestic partnership registries would be created to circumvent the ban. The amendment was accepted.

This amendment gave moderate House Democrats an "out". Many expressed a concern that the amendment, as worded, would ban ALL marriage in the state of Texas. They could oppose the proposed change to the constitution without being labeled as supporting marriage equality by basing their vote on the recent amendment. Seven of those voted "Present, not voting" in protest, while others voted "Nay" but entered unequivocal statements in the record that they opposed marriage equality, but were concerned the new version of the resolution would ban all marriage.

Five Democrats decided to be "absent" during the vote rather than have an opinion on record. There were two separate votes on second reading of HJR 6. Since the first vote was so close a "verification vote" was taken to give anyone who wasn't in the chamber a chance to vote the second time around. With that much warning the only reason for an "absent" vote is because the member did not want to be forced onto the record. Because an HJR requires two thirds of members to vote "yea" an "absent" is as good as a "nay" as far as the vote count is concerned, but it's upsetting to see that kind of cowardice from people who are charged with representing the public. By leaving the room those representatives abdicated their responsibility to represent.

HJR 6 passed the verification vote with 101 voting yea, if only 2 of those had voted no, or even decided to just leave the room, the resolution would have failed. Two votes - that's all. Two votes enshrined bigotry in our constitution. I wonder how many phone calls those two representatives received. I wonder how many constituents visited those reps in their offices and asked them to stand up for what's right. I'd be willing to bet it was few, if any. State Representatives simply don't hear from constituents that often, even on the most controversial of issues. In a state with 25 million people even the governor's office usually receives fewer than 300 calls about any given bill.

One e-mail, or phone call, or visit can make a world of difference. We must - we must - we must engage the people who are elected to represent us. We can't rely on party affiliation. We can't rely solely on our lobbying organizations. We have to take responsibility for influencing the legislation that affects us. If we are not willing to stand up for ourselves we are complicit in our own oppression.

Up next in Part VI: The shape of anti-bullying legislation to come.

Day 21: Top Priority for Senate Education Committee: Not Student Safety

Today is the 21st day of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature. The House will reconvene at 1 PM, the Senate at 1:30.

Senate committee hearings began to be scheduled following Friday's announcement of Committee Assignments. The committees don't have any legislation to consider yet (that should change today as bills begin to be referred to committee), but agendas for the first week have been announced. The Senate Education Committee, which will likely get anti-bullying legislation, has set as its first priority "Flexibility and Mandate Relief" (which is legislative speak for finding ways to let schools work around state regulation). The Senate Education Committee meets for the first time tomorrow, February 1st, at 10 am.

Conservatives, who have long chafed at the power of teachers unions, are using the budget crisis as an excuse to give administrators the power to increase class sizes and force teachers to take unpaid furlough days. Teacher attrition already costs local school districts in Texas over 500 million dollars. Making teaching a less attractive field is a short-sighted solution to the budget crisis, one that, in the end, will cost taxpayers and school children. The proposals being put forward by the right have more to do with the convenience of school administrators (and punishing the teachers unions) than with the quality of education in Texas.

The safety of school children must be made a higher priority. In a recent Equality Texas poll 79.2% of Texas voters said that they supported uniform anti-bullying legislation that protected LGBT kids. With that kind of public mandate it's shocking that the committee isn't making anti-bullying legislation their top priority.

The phone number for the Senate Education Committee is 512-464-0355. If you are part of the 79.2% please call the committee and let them know that you want anti-bullying legislation made a priority.

State Senate Committee Appointments Announced

Lt. Gov. Dewhurst announced Senate committee appointments this afternoon. The Senate Education committee this session looks much the same as it did last session but with Janek and Zaffirini rotating off and Gallegos and Selinger rotating on. Sen. Wendy Davis, who is carrying a comprehensive anti-bullying bill, remains on the Committee and Sen. Florence Shapiro remains chairwoman.

Sen. Shapiro (R-Plano) is the real key here. If she can be convinced to support Davis's Legislation it has a chance of doing very well in committee. This legislation wasn't filed in the Senate last session, so it's difficult to predict where specific senators are going to come down on the issue. Shapiro made her political bones fighting for legislation to protect children from sexual predators. She is very proud of those efforts. If she can be convinced that children also need to be protected from bullying there may be a chance for Davis's bill.

If Shapiro is your Senator please call her right now and ask her to support SB 245 (Equality Texas has an excellent fact sheet HERE) . Her Austin Office number is (512) 463-0108. Do not wait till Monday. Call now and leave a message then call again on Monday and speak with someone.

If you don't know who your State Senator is go HERE to find out.

If you know anyone who lives in the Plano area who cares about the issue of bullying please talk to them as soon as possible and ask that they call Shapiro's office. It is vital for the safety of every child in the state of Texas that she hear from as many constituents as possible as soon as possible.

Day 18: Friday Call Day

Today is the 18th day of of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature. The House and Senate are both adjourned until Monday.

Today is the last day of Texas Nurse Anesthetists Week at the Capitol, The Texas Society of Architects has a display in the Rotunda all day and the Texas CHIP Association will meet in the Legislative Conference Center this morning.

Meanwhile almost all of the lawmakers are back home in their district offices, which makes Fridays a great day to call those offices. For a suggested script for your call read Legislative Queery's Day 4 post. If you don't know who your state representative and senator are you can find them HERE.

I suggest calling your representative and asking them to" co-author HB 208", Rep. Roberto Alonzo's (D-Dallas) bill to prohibit insurance discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. Equality Texas has an excellent fact sheet on the bill HERE. Currently this bill does not have a senate companion (a senate companion can help bills move through the process faster). Last session Sen. Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) filed the companion bill, but he hasn't yet this session. His district office number is (713) 236-0306. You can call him, thank him for his support in the past and ask that he consider re-filing the legislation.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Last session, SB 482 created the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission. Written by Sen. Rodney Ellis, the legislation was carried in the House by none other than notorious bigot Warren Chisum, the man behind the Texas prohibition on marriage equality.

The Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission is a wonderful organization, it does good work and I'm glad it was created. What I find upsetting is the definition of "Holocaust" that was included in their founding document. When SB 482 came to the House floor "Holocaust" was defined as:

"the killing of approximately six million Jews and other persons during World War II by the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) and Nazi collaborators as part of a state-sponsored, systematic program of genocide and other actions of persecution, discrimination violence, or other human rights violations committed by the Nazis and Nazi collaborators against those persons."

Which is true, but glosses over the merciless execution of the mentally and physically handicapped, Polish, Romani, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Anabaptists, Communists, Socialists, Masons, and yes, queer people.

Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) attempted to amend the bill to more fully articulate the scope and breath of the horror of the Holocaust but Chisum removed the bill from consideration before he had the chance. Later that day the bill was brought back up and, in a compromise, Chisum agreed to amend the bill to say that "millions of others" were also exterminated.

It seems Chisum was reticent to recognize in statute that there is a historical precedent for the ruling party of a state to have an official policy in support of rounding up queer people and putting them behind bars, the fact that Chisum belongs to the Republican Party of Texas, which has an official platform calling for the re-enforcement of the state's sodomy law might have hit a little too close to home. Maybe Chisum didn't like the idea that the public might become informed that there have always been queer people, and always will be queer people and that we have a history and a legacy all our own. It's hard to guess the motivations of a man so filled with hate.

Fortunately there are institutions in this state which recognize more fully the broad scope of the horror of the Holocaust. The Dallas Holocaust Museum has specifically invited the LGBT community participate in their Remembrance Day candlelight vigil tonight at 6 pm. (The Dallas Voice has more information) The Houston Transgender Center has a large collection of items from the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin, one of the earliest organizations to approach homosexuality and transsexuality scientifically. The Nazis raided the institute on May 6 1933, confiscating the client roles and destroying the library and research materials. The client roles were then used to round-up thousands of gay and bisexual men and transgender women and send them to concentration camps. The Transgender Center is located at 604 Pacific street in Houston and is open to the public M-F from 1 to 5 pm or by appointment. More information at www.tgctr.org

If you would like to know more about the queer victims of the Holocaust I recommend the excellent essay Gay Prisoners in Concentration Camps as Compared with Jehovah's Witnesses and Political Prisoners by Ruediger Lautmann which can be found in the book A Mosaic of Victims edited by Michael Berenbaum.

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 16: You Know... Like You Do

Today is the 16th day of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature. The House will reconvene at 10 am, the Senate at 11.

The House spent a delightful morning yesterday congratulating and thanking people for visiting the capitol. Among the resolutions passed: declaring it Lubbock day, declaring it Brownsville day, declaring it East Bend Chamber of Commerce day and declaring it Merchandise Vending Association day (nobody tell Lubbock and Brownsville they have to share a day, OK?).

While the House was all lightness and smiles (have you ever seen Rep. Leo Berman smile? It's creepy) a dark pall hung over the Senate as it launched into a marathon 13-hour hearing on voter ID. As the debate raged both sides argued for their position. Opponents pointed out that the legislation would cost two million dollars during a budget crisis, was unlikely to be approved by the Department of Justice and would limit access to the polls for people of color, women and people with disabilities. Proponents said that they were pretty sure that some people who weren't supposed to be voting were, and that the legislation was popular so it must be the right thing to do. The statement in support that most stuck in my craw was by Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) who said that the identification requirements weren't any more stringent than those required to cash a check.

Voting is the highest sacrament of the American faith in government of the people, by the people and for the people - not the everyday stuff of errands and grocery shopping. Equating cashing a check to voting betrays a profound contempt for democracy. The arrogance of such a statement is sacrilege. Shame on us if he gets away with it.

The legislation passed the Senate on a strictly partisan vote - 12 to 20.

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Still no committee assignments in either the House or Senate. I'm told that the Speaker is taking private meetings with many House members to talk to them about committees. Speaker Straus is known for his bipartisan approach to government and respect for individual members so it's not surprising that he would take some extra time to be sure he got the assignments right. Until he does the only legislation moving is voter suppression.