August 17, 2004

House Speaker Has No Apparent Objection
to Subpoena for Perry Health Agency Chief

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

The House Border and International Affairs Committee's decision to issue a subpoena for one of Governor Rick Perry's most high-profile political appointees was made without objection from House Speaker Tom Craddick.

State law gives legislative committees broad subpoena powers, but tradition and protocol generally dictates that committee chairs seek the blessing of their chambers' presiding officers before taking action as drastic as forcing a major government official to testify. The border panel voted unanimously last Thursday to issue a subpoena to Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins after he failed to show up for an El Paso hearing that he'd been asked by the committee to attend. State Rep. Norma Chávez, an El Paso Democrat who chairs the House panel, has indicated that the subpoena will be served if Hawkins doesn't honor a second request to appear on his own volition at an August 26 hearing in Edinburg prepared to testify and to produce records pertaining the consolidation of health and human services agencies during the past year.

Hawkins was a member of President George W. Bush's staff at the White House when Perry picked him to lead the HHSC as its commissioner in late 2002. The border committee had planned to ask Hawkins for an update on the beleaguered Adult Protective Services program that the governor had declared to be in a crisis state earlier this summer. The panel reacted swiftly and indignantly when Hawkins did not go to El Paso, voting 7-0 to adopt a resolution to have a subpoena prepared for Hawkins.

While it's unclear whether Chávez contacted Craddick to ask for his specific permission to follow through with the threat of a subpoena, it appears that the speaker supports the move as part of the House's efforts to get to the bottom of the problems within APS. While such action is rare - especially when it involves an official of Hawkins' statewide and national stature - the speaker can cite the balance of powers to justify the subpoena as a reasonable step in a fact-finding mission by a panel he's appointed and expects to perform.

But that doesn't mean that the governor has to like the idea of one of his top appointees being threatened and coerced to appear before a panel that's meeting 288 miles away from home. What might rankle Perry allies and Hawkins supporters even more is what some see as political posturing by Chávez before a hometown audience in El Paso last week. While the chairwoman and several committee members seemed clearly offended when Hawkins stood up the panel, it appears that Chávez knew from the start that the HHSC commissioner wouldn't be at the meeting that day.

HHSC officials said Hawkins had a family vacation commitment and had essentially asked for a rain check until the meeting that's scheduled in the Rio Grande Valley the last week this month. The agency sent three officials to El Paso in his place. Despite the sharp words of admonition over the El Paso no-show, the committee is giving Hawkins at pass at a meeting this week in Laredo, even the subpoena is reportedly ready to go out if so ordered.

Hawkins, a former Legislative Budget Board analyst who worked as Bush's budget director in the governor's office, has already been grilled this month by legislators investigating funding irregularities in Children's Health Insurance Program contracting handled by the HHSC. The House General Investigating Committee has asked for more information in an attempt to determine if criminal wrongdoing may be at least partly to blame for revelations that the state paid millions of dollars more to a private CHIP contractor than it should have for the administration of rural services under the state and federal program. The excessive payments were discovered in a state auditor's examination amid questions that prompted the state to switch contractors for the rural CHIP services. Hawkins went to work at the agency two years after the apparent problems began and ordered a new round of bidding for the contract during his first year on the job.

The Border and International Affairs Committee is also interested in the CHIP rural contract and how it may affect the delivery of services in deep South Texas, El Paso and other parts of Texas across the Rio Grande from Mexico. The members who voted for the resolution to issue the subpoena for Hawkins were State Rep. Bob Griggs, a North Richland Hills Republican who serves as the panel's vice chairman, along with State Reps. Gabi Canales, D-Alice, Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, Juan Escobar, D-Kingsville, Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, and Chávez. Canales, a lameduck lawmaker who lost her re-election bid in an April primary runoff, made the motion to adopt the resolution.

The unanimous vote is further indication of the speaker's apparent approval of the decision to force Hawkins to testify if he won't do so on his own.