The Texas House’s Milgram Experiment

Have you ever heard of the Milgram Experiment?

In the 1960's, researchers in psychology were trying to explain why those convicted of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg following World War II cited obedience to orders as their defense. Were the Germans just particularly obedient to authority figures, or was there some other explanation? In Milgram's study, he found out that regular people would knowingly administer painful electric shocks to total strangers as long as an authority figure told them it was okay and that their work was essential and important. Of course, in Milgram's experiment, the shocks were not real; the participants were safe from the experiment.

Texans are not safe from this one.

Last Thursday, the Texas House set out to debate the Rules package and amendments to the Rules. The Rules are the House's "operating system" for the session. Before the Rules could be fully debated on the floor in full view of the people of Texas, Rep. Jared Patterson moved the previous question, silencing any further debate or offering of amendments to the Rules. (ed. "Moving the previous question" is a procedural device that ceases all business on a given resolution or bill and skips directly to a vote on the underlying measure. In a deliberative body, it has the effect of cutting off all debate or discussion about amendments.)

The effect of this was to silence the millions of Texans represented by those seeking debate on the Rules for the legislative session. The effort was whipped by Rep. Cole Hefner, who stated that the device would be used as a backstop to prevent the debate from going on for hours or to prevent the Democrats from breaking quorum. Instead, it was used to prevent any meaningful debate at all.

Minutes after a House Republican Caucus meeting in which members were informed by the author that their amendments would be permitted to come on for consideration, some of the same members who supported Rep. David Cook's speakership heel-turned to silence their colleagues in obedience to leadership by seconding Rep. Patterson's Motion and voting "aye." While it is not terribly surprising that certain Republican members wished to truncate the process, what is surprising is that they were willing to harm their own Republican colleagues to do it.

The move is not unprecedented; it has been used eight times ever in Texas history:

My office did some research about “moving the previous question”. A motion that Burrows recognized in an effort to shut down debate on conservative house rules that had been filed. According to the Legislative Reference Library there are only 8 records of motions for previous

Their motivations were obvious: The Rules package created 30 Democrat vice-chairs (as well as their reported $4,000 monthly budgets)--a concession crucial to the delicate balance of Democrat support for the Burrows speakership that will require constant maintenance this session. Conservatives will likely learn shortly that this type of maintenance is prohibitively expensive.

The Housekeeping Resolution (HR3) received even less consideration on the floor; it was pulled from the agenda never to be heard from again. The Housekeeping Resolution as originally drafted empowered the Speaker to hire legal counsel to represent the House or any committee or member or officer in litigation; it also contained all of the budget adjustments for the House and its members.

Rather than permit members to debate these topics and the administration of the House's budget, members were informed that the House Committee on Administration, well, actually, had sufficient authority to make all the necessary and desired budget adjustments on its own the whole time. So, as I understand it, the Housekeeping Resolution is, simultaneously: (1) necessary and essential to establishing the House's expenditures of funds and (2) not important at all, to the point of being totally unnecessary and unworthy of a vote.

I'm not so sure:

Seems necessaryish.

These developments with the Housekeeping Resolution and the Rules represent a consolidation of power that is unprecedented in the House. The even larger development is that a not-insignificant portion of the House Republican Caucus seems to be fine with the idea of shutting down their teammates as a means to accomplish these ends. Might a little discussion have avoided a constitutional crisis over it? Guess we'll never know.

Reminds me of a poem I read once: "I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return." - Auden, W.H.