Posted on 05/12/2003 5:37:50 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Dave McNeely
Thursday, May 8, 2003
Rick Perry may be wishing John Sharp had won the lieutenant governor's race last year instead of David Dewhurst.
Then, Perry could blast Democrat Sharp for what the Texas Senate is doing. That's harder to do to a fellow Republican, as Perry is finding since Dewhurst hammered out a school finance bill. If it were Sharp, it would be open season.
It's ironic, because Perry did everything he could to undermine the candidacy of Sharp, a one-time buddy at Texas A&M University.
Perry beat former Comptroller Sharp for lieutenant governor in 1998, with huge help from then-Gov. George W. Bush's re-election coattails. Ever since, Perry has done everything in his power to cut off Sharp's funding for the 2002 race against Dewhurst, undermine Sharp's business-group support and even dissuade clients from hiring Sharp for tax advice.
Perry said months ago that Dewhurst was too green at running the Senate to deal with the intricate problems of school finance. But Dewhurst, the megarich energy magnate who won his first political office in 1998, has.
Helped by a crackerjack staff, Dewhurst painstakingly worked long hours with senators and with all the groups that have a dog in the fight. After going through many drafts, they crafted a bill to cut local property taxes, broaden and raise the sales tax, bring back a state property tax and increase equity among school districts.
Then he personally took the package to the Senate floor and asked senators to sign off it. That all 31 did is a sign of the respect that Dewhurst, a novice at legislative affairs, has worked hard and openly to gain with senators.
It is a level of trust, confidence and rapport that Perry never won from the senators when he was lieutenant governor. Since becoming governor, that hasn't improved.
Perry's occasional tendency to say one thing and do another, his apparent inattention to lots of matters legislators care about, and his record number of vetoes in 2001 have not helped build warm and fuzzy feelings among senators toward the governor.
Part of the reason the school finance rewrite breezed out of the Senate unanimously is because the Senate also doesn't have much respect for the current House, led by new Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland.
Craddick joined Perry in saying that solving the school finance matter and finding a substitute for the so-called Robin Hood system are issues too complicated to deal with in a regular session. Perry said he'll call a special session when a plan is worked out.
But Craddick spit in the Senate's eye by naming a special, 23-member House committee — rather than a joint committee with the Senate — to study the issue after the Legislature's regular session ends June 2.
So Dewhurst and the Senate have lobbed the grenade into the House, and the pin is out. House members must decide whether they will fall on it — and then go home and explain why they had time to pass congressional redistricting but not to lower property taxes as the Senate did — or whether they will go along and pass the grenade to Perry.
John Sharp, where are you when your governor really needs you?
Dave McNeely's column appears Thursdays. Contact him at (512) 445-3644 or dmcneely@statesman.com.
Just once, I'd like to hear political commentators refer to Ted Kennedy or John Heinz Kerry as 'megarich'.
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