Which way is right? With Chris Ladd

A Texas Solution to the Government Shutdown


texasTexas politics is certainly extreme, but it’s nowhere near as loony as it could be. Understanding how the craziest elements in the Texas Legislature have been restrained offers valuable lessons for desperate Republicans in Washington.

The Tea Party has been very successful in electing sympathetic Texas legislators. More than a third of the Legislature has joined the Tea Party Caucus, a figure that understates the group’s influence.

The state just enacted one of the most spitefully punitive abortion laws in the country. It has gutted public school funding, refused to set up health care exchanges, tried to limit minority voting, put Bible classes in public schools, shut off Federal funding for women’s health care, and passed dozens of other measures that would make Northern Republicans cringe. Texas is the buckle in the Tea Party straightjacket.

What’s interesting and perhaps frightening about this situation is that moderates in the Legislature still wield power far beyond their numbers. In other words, the situation could be a lot worse.

A bipartisan block of pragmatic Legislators successfully dethroned the Republican Speaker of the House in 2009 and they have controlled the Speaker’s gavel ever since. They have enjoyed modest success in reining in the craziest impulses of a Legislature overwhelmed by cranks.

Through parliamentary tactics and other delaying measures they prevented the Tea Party from diverting tax money to religious schools.  They softened Voter ID restrictions. They stalled the new abortion bill, forcing the Governor to take it to a very public Special Session. Without this block of rationalists, Genesis would be a science textbook and Big Tex would be rebuilt as an 80-foot, internally lit, plastic Jesus cradling an armful of aborted fetuses.

So how did they do it? In true Texas fashion a few courageous legislators got sick of the bizarre dictatorial antics of their Speaker and revolted. Initially they failed, but a group of them tried again in the next session armed with better planning and organization.

The opening for Republican Legislators was created by the collapse of Rep. Tom DeLay’s career. After DeLay was indicted and lost his Congressional seat in 2006 the power base of the Texas GOP extremist wing briefly wobbled. Without DeLay wielding his Money Hammer and with indictments sprouting around Austin like fire ant mounds, DeLay’s closest ally in the Legislature, Tom Craddick, was left vulnerable.

At the start of the 2009 session the GOP held only a two-vote majority. A little-known Republican pragmatist from suburban San Antonio won over just enough Republicans (11) to ally with a block of Democrats and pry the Speaker’s gavel from Craddick.

Since then, Speaker Straus has managed to retain his position by wielding power behind the scenes. He has sheltered his weaker supporters, allowing them to avoid backing him in public. Officially, most Republicans are committed to seeing their Speaker replaced by a “Real Republican®” In reality, most of the caucus fears what would happen without him and they have helped to quietly squash dissent when it matters.

A note of warning regarding the fate of the Legislators who publicly backed Straus’ successful 2009 rebellion. Only three of the eleven members of the “Polo Road Gang” are still in the Legislature.

With a little coordination it would be possible for Speaker Boehner to govern effectively over the opposition of the “wacko birds” in the Tea Party wing of the party. Like Rep. Straus in Texas, Boehner only needs a few Republicans to break ranks. Technically it would take a coalition of 18 Republicans to vote with the Democrats to hold the Speaker’s position. More realistically, Boehner would need about 40 Republicans to fend off extortion efforts from the Democrats’ most unreasonable members.

Such an alliance could potentially accomplish a lot more than ending the government shutdown and averting default. They could form the backbone of a centrist coalition that could finally bring a debt-reduction bill along the lines of Simpson-Bowles to the floor.

Perhaps they could rationalize the tax code, address our absurdly high corporate tax rates, sponsor a jobs bill, or clean up the post-Dodd-Frank nightmare of our financial regulation. In short, they might be able to deal with one or two things are that unrelated to the Affordable Care Act.

Would Boehner risk his career and his legacy in an effort to build a bi-partisan coalition that would save the country from default and restore a functioning legislative branch? Are there 18-40 Republican Congressmen who care more about the country than about their jobs (in other words, how many are ready to retire)?

Would the Democrats cooperate, or would they demand so much in return for a coalition that they would sink the idea? Would Pelosi insist on a bigger office and her own plane?

Nothing in Boehner’s history suggests that he cares about anything enough to put his job at risk. And the few Republican pragmatists left in Congress after 15 years under siege are mostly hiding. It is unclear whether there is one reality-based Republican left in Congress willing to break ranks at the risk of their job, much less 40 of them. And if Democrats smelled vulnerability it is tough to imagine that they could be persuaded to collaborate with a Republican Speaker.

The Texas Solution is simple and it seems like it would work, but the situation recalls Reagan’s cryptic quote, “there are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.“ No one is likely to pursue the simple answer offered by the Texas Solution until all other possibilities have been exhausted.

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