Posted on 04/07/2005 6:37:53 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952
GOP senators say keep Nelson's name off Texas 130 in their districts
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Willie Nelson Turnpike? Not so fast.
Legislation to name the Texas 130 turnpike from Georgetown to Creedmoor after the man who put Austin music on the map cleared its first committee Wednesday. But it lost more than 18 miles in the process, and there were signs that some Republicans might not be so comfortable honoring the well-known Democrat.
Even with a toll road.
Texas 130, under construction now and scheduled to open in 2007, will be 49 miles long. And state Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos' bill as filed would have named the entire length for Nelson.
But when Barrientos, an Austin Democrat, unveiled Senate Bill 802 to the Transportation and Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, he said that Republican Sens. Steve Ogden and Jeff Wentworth told him they didn't want the parts of the road in their districts to carry Nelson's name.
That trimmed about 17 miles off the north end in Williamson County, represented by Ogden who hails from Bryan-College Station, and the southerly mile-and-a-half in the small piece of Travis County in San Antonian Wentworth's bailiwick.
Thus foreshortened, the bill cleared the committee on a 7-0 vote, with Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, present but not voting. Wentworth, who had to leave for another committee, tried to leave a "no" vote in writing, but that requires unanimous consent of the committee, and Barrientos torpedoed it.
Some senators indicated later that the bill might have trouble mustering the 21 votes — two-thirds of the Senate — needed to come up for passage.
The Senate has 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats.
Asked about their reservations about Nelson, Ogden said he doesn't favor naming roads after people who are still alive and declined further comment. Wentworth, meanwhile, made it clear he has several concerns.
"Let's be candid: This is a political deal," Wentworth said, Nelson "was out there having fund-raisers, raising money for (Democratic presidential hopeful) Dennis Kucinich against President Bush, and that was just last year."
Wentworth said he has a general leaning as well against naming roads for living people. He was in the Senate and Ogden in the House when the Legislature in 1995 and 1997 named roads for the first President Bush and former U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, both very much alive.
"To compare a former president of the United States with a country singer, surely that's self-explanatory," Wentworth said.
The Legislature, in that same 1995 bill honoring Bentsen, named a road in Brazoria County after Nolan Ryan, at that point only just retired from his baseball career.
Wentworth and Ogden both voted for that bill. Ryan, a Republican, has never served as president of the United States.
Of course, Nelson didn't strike out 5,714 major-league hitters. On the other hand, Ryan has no gold records or duets with Julio Iglesias.
But Ryan, unlike Nelson, also hasn't had any trouble with the Internal Revenue Service or brushes with the law over marijuana. To Wentworth, at least, Nelson's past matters.
"All of that figures into it, from my standpoint," Wentworth said. "He's not exactly a role model."
Nelson was in Ireland, according to Barrientos, and unable to comment on all of this.
But Barrientos said that he had talked with the singer about the possible renaming and that Nelson "was kind of shy, even a little bashful about it. He said it would be an honor.
Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, chairman of the transportation committee, had a question about that conversation:
"Did you happen to mention to him that it was a toll road being named?"
> I don't think he's been completely sober for more than 1/2 hour since 1968.
LOL
I saw one of those Opry specials they show on PBS at pledge time. There was Willie on stage--clean cut, wearing a suit. This was around 1968. What happened that made him such an outlaw?
He moved to Austin.
He's a great musician like Kris Kristofferson is a great actor - there's an appeal, especially to some of us born in the late 40s and early 50s, but there isn't greatness.
Also, how is it that one can claim to be an outlaw when they favour a nanny state that suckles people from cradle to grave? The folks who he has supported for president would let-loose busy bodies into our lives dictating what we should eat, drink, drive, etc. Yeah, that'll stick it to The Man...
He was part of The Outlaws. That alone is a claim to fame.
It could be worse. I have to look at signs proclaiming "The Senator Albert Gore Sr Interstate Hiway System"
My condolences. How do you do that without becoming an alcoholic? :-)
Oh yeah. Somebody came out with a bumper sticker that said, "Willie says 'It's all jive, do 95'".
> He moved to Austin.
Austin is the capital of Texas...
Help me out here.
I live a quarter mile from the traffic disaster known as "Lyndon Baines Johnson Freeway". When the thing was first dedicated, an "LBJ Tree" was planted at our intersection. It promptly died. A replacement was planted, and it died too, so the authorities gave up. Message there?
Willie was a typical Nashville songwriter in the 60s, then he moved to Austin around 1970, and it was there he first encountered hippies, and he quickly adapted.
Name it Dubya Turnpike! :)
By what standard is he a great musician?
I could even abide with that assessment, false as it might be, if he didn't take every oportunity presented to bash the adminstration. He should just shut-up and sing (if that's what you call it.)
Willie's road only has left turns, but it ends in the gutter.
Willie is the MAN - I run and break out a longneck every time I hear "Red Headed Cowboy". It would be an honor to pay the toll.
When he hit Austin, he started playing the Armadillo World Headquarters, pretty much doing the same music he did as a straight country performer. However, the fans were not truck drivers and cowboys, but college students who listened to Janice Joplin, etc. He started growing his hair out, and was quite the cult figure for a while.
Austin became a gathering place for what was called "Redneck Rock." It synthesized country music, jazz, the blues and the laid back California folk sound. Among others playing the Armadillo were the Pointer Sisters, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, Maria Muldar, Jerry Jeff Walker, Emmy Lou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, and many of Bob Wills old band. Janice Joplin was probably the undisputed queen of the Armadillo World Headquarters, though, and became THE icon after she died.
Nelson was a somewhat successful songwriter in Nashville, penning songs like "Hello Walls", but he was never successful until he dumped the suit, grew a beard and started wearing a headband.
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