Thanks for spelling it out for the folks, Lent. That's precisely the situation in the Texas state legislature.
The Texas State House Problem
One of the big problems we have had in Texas is that our prior Speaker of the House (Joe Straus) stacked the deck with "his" people as committee chairs and thus bills wanted by the majority of Texans never even got to the House floor for a vote.
While legislative impediment is good for poorly crafted bills, it has become a major tool of power brokers to block the true will of the people, including for bills that would have 90% or more representative approval.
The 'Powers That Be' asked conservatives for a list of 20 bills they felt were a priority last time and told us to judge them on their performance on them. We have; they passed a paltry 5 of them and some of those were watered down beyond all recognition. This, with a super-majority in place.
This impediment on behalf of the power elites is managed by a handful of committee chairs, assuring popular legislation never even gets a hearing in committee, much less a floor vote; even committee members didn't have a say. This relegates all other State representatives as pawns to be managed by the Professional Political Class through these Chairman.
This must STOP in the name of representative government! And NOTHING changes without a change in Speaker!
Here is some background on Joe & this mess we are in:
http://www.teaparty911.com/blog/tag/joe-straus
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/82nd-legislative-session/
http://www.teaparty911.com/blog/jim-pitts-texas-tea-party-public-enemy-no-2/
There is much more out there on the web covering the underhanded dealings, gambling, and over all unethical dealings lead by Speaker Joe Staus.
The power of the people has been heard and effective in the past. We need to be stronger so the "elite" power brokers of Texas hear us.
· First, contact your Texas House of Representatives member and let him/her know in no uncertain terms that the current way of doing business is unacceptable and they should not support Joe Straus and his henchman -
o By Phone
o By mail
o By email
o In person
o At town hall meetings
· Contact House members in other Districts - yes, they don't represent you, but their actions affect you.
· Another thing is to sign up for all petitions. Here are two:
o http://tinyurl.com/imwithbryan
· Get others involved - we need a ground swell as never before.
bkmk