Nothing in this article bothers me. He was a conservative Democrat. Look at his votes as a Democrat. He was cutting spending from the start. His one vote to increase spending—to increase legislator pay—makes sense. And you have to look at all of this in the context of what happened in the intervening two or three decades. He got a lot more conservative. This isn’t a Mitt Romney type flip flop. Its a long process of being conservative and becoming more conservative.
I agree. People who expect people to not make mistakes or change their mind as they grow are ignorant.
People outside Texas need to know, in order to understand the context, that the Texas legislature meets once every two years and the typical term lasts only five months. That’s why their pay was paltry (and still is) - because it’s a part-time job that doesn’t pay well. I like to think that’s part of the reason for its success is that it attracts people who have to live in the real world the other 3/4ths of the time.
On the one hand, the low pay exposes state legislators to illegal financial inducements in return for votes. On the other hand, you can’t get any legislating done the other 18 months so you need to be able to supplement the income and have something else to do.