My old pal Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer reported recently in breathless tones that Texas House Speaker Joe Straus is helping the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - which he dubbed an "embattled corporate-funded group that pairs lawmakers with special interests to write legislation in secret" - to fundraise in Texas.
Forrest worries that, "Straus is generally considered one of the few bulwarks in state
government against tea party excesses. Why would he join forces with
ALEC?"
On the other hand, lawmakers getting together with special interests and writing legislation in secret is hardly a new thing. At least when ALEC proposes legislation it eventually becomes a public strategy and everyone can agree or disagree on the bills themselves as they appear.
From my own perhaps-myopic perspective, Grits is rather pleased to see the Speaker's affiliation with ALEC because, during the 83rd session, Straus and his allies on the House Calendars Committee were the principal barrier to getting the lower chamber to vote on electronic-privacy legislation carried by sometimes-Straus critic Rep. Bryan Hughes. But lately, Hughes has been working with ALEC to create model electronic privacy legislation based in part on his Texas bill requiring police to obtain warrants for cell-phone location data as well as legislation that passed (amended to something else, not as an independent bill) requiring warrants for cloud-based email and other content.
Hughes' bill had more than one-hundred joint and co-authors, so if it had ever been granted a floor vote it would easily passed. (In fact, the bill was amended on the House floor on a 126-4 vote to a senate bill but the senate author, John Carona, who was ousted in the recent primary, used a parliamentary maneuver to pass a version that didn't include it.) Will a closer affiliation with ALEC help convince Joe Straus to embrace electronic privacy legislation instead of hinder it? I hope so. Certainly I'm not going to spend a lot of time fretting over the Speaker's very pragmatic decision to affiliate with them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.jpg)
1 comment:
Forrest worries that, "Straus is generally considered one of the few bulwarks in state government against tea party excesses. Why would he join forces with ALEC?"
Because many of his moderate Republican allies have been defeated by Tea Party hacks, so he'll be running to the right to try and keep the chair. Of course, they were targeted in part because they supported Straus, so that won't really help him. He may hang on, but it'll be by the skin f his teeth.
Duh.
Post a Comment