Improving the lives of all Texans would be worthy goal for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Improving the lives of all Texans would be a worthy goal for lieutenant governor.
Texans are fortunate that the Lone Star State is so wealthy and so wellgoverned that it can indulge a lieutenant governor more interested in pursuing a quixotic ideological crusade than in responding to the needs of its 27 million people.
We speak, of course, of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — and we speak in jest. His response to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down some of the most restrictive abortion regulations in the nation is merely the latest example of his misdirected zeal. It’s another example of his blinkered approach to wielding power and shaping public policy while occupying what is arguably the most influential elective office in Texas.
The lieutenant governor — as well as Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton — was unmoved by the court’s 5-3 ruling that, in essence, called his bluff. He and his Republican cohorts always have asserted that House Bill 2, the anti-abortion legislation the court struck down, was designed solely to protect the health of Texas women, an assertion laughable on its face.
Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, saw through the subterfuge. “We have found nothing in Texas’ record evidence,” he wrote, that showed requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals advanced any “legitimate interest in protecting women’s health.” The court also found no legitimate medical reason for requiring clinics to meet surgical standards, a requirement that cut in half the number of clinics that were operating in the state before the legislation became law.
Despite the court ruling, Patrick insists he will continue his crusade. He wrote on Facebook “that the Texas Senate will continue to work to protect women’s health in the next legislative session.” State Rep. Jonathan Stickland, a Bedford Republican even more extreme than Patrick, vowed an “absolute onslaught of pro-life legislation.”
Patrick’s stubborn resistance to the Supreme Court comes a few weeks after he suggested that the Legislature might jump into the battle against guidelines in Texas that allow students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. “The fight is just beginning,” he proclaimed last month, apparently eager for a Texas version of the anti-transgender law that North Carolina passed, legislation that has cost the Tarheel State dearly.
Surely the lieutenant governor can find better things to do with his time and with the powers of his office. Although he hasn’t asked, we would suggest all manner of worthy government initiatives that would qualify for the “pro-life” label, initiatives designed to protect and nurture the whole child, not just the fetus. A few examples:
• Texans and their lawmakers tolerate 1 in 4 children living in poverty, with poverty rates for Latino and black children nearly three times higher than they are for white and Asian children. Raising the minimum wage, developing our workforce and reducing the cost of higher education would take some of the pressure off struggling families.
• Although we’ve made progress under the Affordable Care Act, we still have 5 million Texans without health insurance, the highest number and percentage of uninsured in the country. That means that parents can’t get checkups their children need, can’t take them to doctors unless it’s an absolute emergency. Patrick and his pals still stubbornly refuse to accept Medicaid expansion, which would make a tremendous difference for thousands of Texans.
• We tolerate a school finance system that does not invest enough to ensure that all our children get the quality education they need.
• The Texas foster-care system, with about 30,000 children in homes and institutional settings, is “broken and has been that way for decades,” a U.S. district judge ruled in December. Many of those children “almost uniformly leave state custody more damaged than when they entered,” the judge said. She has ordered an independent overhaul of the system, but Texas continues to fight her.
The list of things that could occupy Patrick’s time, energy and intelligence could be much longer. We haven’t even mentioned transportation and infrastructure needs; the protection of our air, land and water; tax reform and dozens of other state concerns that would keep Patrick off the transgender trail and out of the lives of women.
Engaging the real issues, though, the issues that affect the vast majority of Texans, requires hard work, good-faith negotiation and a willingness to compromise — qualities that may be beyond the reach of the true believer who occupies the lieutenant governor’s office.