April 4, 2007

Most Leadership Team Members Back CHIP
Bill Despite Watchful Eyes of Conservatives

Children's Health Plan Had Been Critical Bargaining Chip
for House Democrats Who Backed Speaker's Re-Election

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

A Children's Health Insurance Program bill that some lawmakers have viewed as a conservative litmus test was tentatively approved Tuesday night in the Texas House with the support of the vast majority of top lieutenants on Speaker Tom Craddick's leadership team. The CHIP bill appeared destined to pass because it had been a key negotiating chip for more than a dozen House Democrats when they'd agreed to back Craddick's bid for re-election in a competitive speaker's race that was decided on opening day of the regular session in January.

The House voted 126-16 for the bill, which is expected to add about 100,000 children from relatively poor working families to CHIP rolls at a cost of $242 million in state and local funds. Sixty-two Republicans voted for House Bill 109 by Democratic State Rep. Sylvester Turner of Houston on second reading while all of the opposing votes were cast by lawmakers from the GOP.

While some members of the GOP leadership team were among the lawmakers who voted against the CHIP bill, the list of legislators who cast votes for Turner's plan had four times as many Republican committee chairmen on it as the dissenting group featured. The bill had the support of most of the chamber's most powerful Republican members including State Reps. Warren Chisum, Jim Keffer, Phil King and Dianne Delisi, who chair the Appropriations, Ways and Means, Regulated Industries and Public Health committees respectively. State Rep. Frank Corte, a committee chairman who doubles as the House Republican Caucus chair and is generally considered to be one of the chamber's most conservative members, also voted in favor of the Turner measure.

The vote that conservatives might be more inclined to have under the microscope came when a majority of House members teamed up to kill an amendment that would have preserved the six-month enrollment period that the Legislature approved four years ago instead of stretching it back to a full year as the Turner measure would do. The amendment by Republican State Rep. Dan Gattis of Georgetown fell victim to a motion to table with 92 House members voting to bury the amendment and 49 attempting to keep it alive.

Republicans cast all of the votes against the motion to table the Gattis proposal while 26 House members who represent the GOP joined Democrats in effectively voting to extend the CHIP enrollment period to 12 months with their opposition to that particular amendment.

Gattis, the vice-chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health & Human Services, argued that it was wrong to be putting health insurance for children in working families over the needs of the elderly, the severely ill and the poorest people in Texas. But after losing the vote on the amendment despite an emotional plea for support for it, Gattis voted for the bill along with about four out of every five Republican committee chairs and other members of the leadership team.

While giving families with CHIP coverage twice as long before they have to apply again, Turner's bill would make it easier to qualify for CHIP benefits by basing eligibility on the net incomes of families instead of their gross incomes. The bill would do away with a 90-day waiting period for children who haven't been covered by another private or public insurance plan - and it would force the state to spend more money on outreach so families that are eligible won't go without health insurance for their children because they didn't know it was available. The bill restores cuts that were implemented in 2003 when the Legislature faced a $10 billion budget deficit that it vowed to erase without the need for a major tax state increase.

But while lawmakers avoided a major tax bill, the CHIP cuts became a political hot potato that contributed to the electoral defeats the following year of the two House Republicans who were most associated with them. Democrats picked up six House seats over the course of the past two election cycles with CHIP as a centerpiece issue for the campaigns of challengers and candidates for open seats.

The potential for political repercussions has made voting on CHIP a sensitive issue for some Republicans in the Legislature this year. While votes for HB 109 would ostensibly help Republican legislators in general election races against Democrats, they could turn out to be ammunition for potential GOP primary opponents in 2008 to use against incumbents who supported the measure.

Two House Republicans - State Reps. Charlie Howard of Sugar Land and Linda Harper-Brown of Irving - voted to table the Gattis amendment before casting votes against the bill. The list of House members who opposed HB 109 on second reading included State Reps. Leo Berman of Tyler, Joe Crabb of Atascocita, Rob Eissler of The Woodlands, Dan Flynn of Van, Carl Isett of Lubbock, Jodie Laubenberg of Wylie, Nathan Macias of Bulverdre, Sid Miller of Stephenville, Tan Parker of Flower Mound, Ken Paxton of McKinney, Larry Phillips of Sherman, Debbie Riddle of Tomball, Robert Talton of Pasadena and Larry Taylor of Friendswood.

Almost half of the House Republicans who voted to kill the Gattis amendment are members of the GOP leadership team as committee chairs appointed by Craddick.