The House Stooges Are Making A Liar Out Of Me
I am about to commit a sin, the sin of lying. I told you previously that I was offering my last comment on Ghost-Gate, but I just can’t stop. It’s an addiction…I suspect much like crack, because I can not get enough of it. I can taste it on my lips, feel the thrill pulsating through my body. I crave it, I need to comment on it. Especially after the borderline stupid moves recently made by those most guilty of Ghost-Gate.
There’s an old saying that I subscribe to: when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. This is a lesson that Byron Cook, Jim Dunnam, Craig Eiland, and now Garnet Coleman seem determined to learn the hard way. Three of the four before mentioned are documented participants in Ghost-Gate, and present day finds them doing no favors for themselves.
I guess this has been going on for the better part of a month now, but it is where we find ourselves today that is of particular interest. In a very odd move, Byron Cook has jumped off the deep end by forming a subcommittee from his Civil Practices Committee to study Ghost-Gate. Now, I wasn’t certain so I went back and checked, and sure enough, no where in the jurisdiction listing of the Civil Practices Committee does it list oversight of House Employee hiring practices. This begs the question of why? Why did Byron Cook take it upon himself and his committee to study something that not only is being blown out of proportion (party by himself), but also has nothing to do with Civil Practices? Sam has a very interesting theory on this, which I will leave for him to share.
That then brings us to the Dunnam, Eiland and Coleman letter that they sent to anyone who would listen and listed their ideas of reform in this area. Now, another theory that I describe to is: leading by example. In that light, let us proceed with the fun to be had with these Three Stooges.
The Three House Stooges, offer their own five point plan for ending the hiring practices that have led to Ghost-Gate, which I will be offering in summaries. If you would like to see the full five point plan, along with the letter in its entirety, then I will direct your to Quorum Report, where they have a link to the letter in place.
- Adopt a rule that says that only designated Full-Time employees who did work a Full-Time schedule shall be available for Full-Time benefits for a particular month.
- Adopt a rule that says that elected officials (past and present) can not use future employment with the state to boost the size of their elected class pension.
- On-Call Employees shall be considered part-time employees
- Overtime, vacation, and sick leave shall be accounted for on a monthly basis.
- Full-Time House employees shall not be permitted any outside employment.
Ideas one through three are quite brave of the trio to suggest, especially considering that a majority (if not all) of the Stooges are guilty of them! Now that’s what I call leading by example.
I have a particular problem with numbers one and three, since they are essentially the same. What if you have a situation of a part-time employee who is more interested in having benefits than they are a suitable salary? Why shouldn’t I, as a Member, have the discretion to hire a retired woman to work twenty hours a week in my district office and pay her just 100 dollars a month and compensate her instead with healthcare benefits? Does anyone remember BOR railing on the Speaker by saying that he is perpetuating the uninsured problem in Texas by trying to limit the number of House employees who would be available for healthcare coverage? Is BOR’s Gods not guilty of the same with this suggestion?
Where I will partly agree with the Three House Stooges is on rule two, except I would add language that former lawmakers can’t boost their pensions from Part-Time state employment. Do not for one second assume that a former lawmaker can not continue to serve the process from a Full-Time position within state government. Many high ranking staffers have been former lawmakers, Chief of Staffs to statewide leaders, parliamentarians, and more. As Full-Time employees, they continue to serve the process, and in my opinion, continue to be eligible for just compensation. An interesting question here would be to ask if Bob Bullock qualified for and grew the size of his elected official pension as a Full-Time employee of the Governor’s office, and the Attorney General’s office. Anyone have the answer to that?
Those who should not be eligible for growing their pensions are the very ones that Dunnam and Eiland have been employing, that being former lawmakers who do probably little, if any, work for the state, yet through the corruption of their hiring office, continue to grow the size of their retirement plans.
With suggestion 4, I will refer you back to an old post I wrote. If you start meticiously counting staffer hours, they will break the system come every June of a session year when they come out of that session with so much earned comp time that it will make our heads spin. Be careful - very careful - of what you wish for here.
Rule five is interesting, and equally as stupid, and I reject it on principle unless you make it extend to all taxpayer funded employees (including public school teachers). Why should any person be punished for being able to balance a Part-Time job on top of their Full-Time employment? No one should, not House Staffers, not public school teachers, not anyone. The only way I see you could make this work in the House would be to drastically increase the rate of staffer pay, because there are those at the capitol - more than we probably know of - who are Full-Time employees working Full-Time schedules, but getting paid less than two thousand dollars a month, making a second job not a luxury, but a necessity.
If the House were to adopt this rule without increasing staffer pay, they would severely limit the employee pool, because a lot of hardworking low paid staffers doing it for both the experience and the civic duty would be excluded. The interesting thing is that there is noteworthy criticism out there about our system of picking lawmakers and how it favors the well to do when you consider how low the compensation for the position is. Now, do we really want to travel down the same road with legislative employees? Do we really want to set up a system where only the well to do can participate on the staff level as well?
If Dunnam, Eiland, and Coleman get their way, then that is exactly what we will get.
So, in closing, when I read this letter from the Three House Stooges - coupled with Byron Cook’s subcommittee appointment - I couldn’t figure out why they were electing to keep digging even though they were already standing in a hole. Then it hit me. If I was facing a possible indictment from the Travis County DA, I would be messing in my pants and scurrying to spin my actions as well.
Scurry on, my dear Stooges. Scurry on.