Support TPA legislative team as session begins

The winner of the hotly contested Texas House of Representatives speaker’s race is a past winner of the Texas Press Association Friend of the First Amendment award. That’s good news for Texas newspapers.

Analysis by By DONNIS BAGGETT, Texas Press Association

We honored Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, several years ago for his support of TPA’s open government and press freedom initiatives, and he has continued to help us since then. Needless to say, we’re hopeful the speaker will continue to support government accountability in his new, powerful role.

Like everyone in and around the Capitol, we’re waiting to see exactly how the new speaker, new House rules and new committees will affect this year’s legislative sausage-making. Senate committees are already set up and running, and we were pleased to see some TPA-friendly senators named to the committees that generally hear our bills. As of deadline for this edition of the Messenger, the House is still working on committee assignments, however.

Until the House committee structure is set, it’s hard for TPA and other sunshine advocates to predict the session’s political climate. Will we see fair skies or stormy seas?

A big variable is how things develop between the new speaker and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the leader of the Texas Senate. Relations between the two chambers have gone from bad to worse over the past several sessions, with representatives and senators locked in mortal combat over hotbed issues such as school vouchers and property tax reform. As a result, lower profile legislation — which includes most bills involving transparency and accountability — often died a lingering death. We would get a good bill passed in the House only to see it die without a vote in the Senate, or vice versa.

By the time you read this, we’ll know who the power players will be in the House committee structure. But we already know one important fact for certain: Whether the political skies are clear or cloudy, we desperately need grassroots Texas newspaper leaders to stay engaged with their representatives and senators.

If you don’t already have a relationship with your legislators, it’s high time to build one. 

You need to be calling them, telling them you need their help protecting open records, open meetings and public notices in newspapers. They need to hear you say you’re counting on them to help your newspaper stay in business. You need to ask them to keep local government open and accountable so you can continue serving the community with honest, credible, essential news coverage.

That early-session conversation will set the table for some very important follow-up work later. When we see a bad bill set for a hearing in the committee they serve on, or for a vote of the entire House or Senate, we’ll urge you to call your legislator again. Remind them about your conversation at the beginning of the session. Use the talking points we’ll send about problems with the bad bill their committee will hear. Ask them directly if you can count on them to kill that bad bill.

On the other side of the ledger, if we see a good bill coming their way, we’ll need you weigh in with some positive encouragement to them. We’ll supply the talking points making the case to approve it. Ask them if you can count on them to vote yes.

After your calls, please let us know how your conversations went. You can reach us at mhodges@texaspress.com and dbaggett@texaspress.com. We both check our emails dozens of times a day.

It’s an honor and a privilege for your TPA staff to advocate for government transparency and accountability issues, and for freedom of the press. And it’s your duty as a good citizen and a community leader to help your legislators do the right thing. 

As always, thanks for everything you do for your community, your state, and your Texas Press Association. Here’s to celebrating a big legislative victory together at our convention this summer in Denton.