August 10, 2013

Top Special Session Performers Stood Out from the Pack
By Putting Out Fires on Two Major Issues or Fueling Them

A dozen state lawmakers delivered the strongest performances in a special session marathon this summer with pivotal roles that required them to operate in the face of unprecedented chaos that a few of them actually initiated.

The Capitol Inside Best of the Legislature list for the three special sessions of 2013 contains seven Republicans and five Democrats including the chief sponsors on transportation and abortion packages that proved to be two of the most difficult challenges that lawmakers have undertaken in years.

But while the majority party has the most slots on the all-special session team for a legislative overtime extravaganza that consumed 67 days from late May to early August, the most valuable players in the House and the Senate this summer turned out to be a couple of Democrats.

While a majority of the lawmakers who fared best were on the winning side in the abortion and highway funding fights, Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis of Fort Worth claimed MVP honors on the east side of the rotunda on the basis of a body of work that she performed in a period of less than 24 hours. Davis became an overnight sensation with an 11-hour filibuster on an abortion bill that provided the fuse for an unbelievable activist uprising in the Senate gallery that made it impossible for Republicans to pass the measure before the clock ran out on them on a historic night in late June. As a result of the instant celebrity status that Davis achieved with a major assist from Senate Republicans who tried to derail the talkathon with creative rulings that backfired to the max, the second-term legislator is weighing whether to run for governor with influential and deep-pocket Democrats from Washington to New York to California cheering her on in hopes that she makes the big leap.

But other Democrats who aren't quite as partisan may take the position that their party's biggest star in the summer show inside the Austin beltway was State Rep. Joe Pickett, an El Paso lawmaker who emerged in the leading role on the transportation plan that was proved to be a much more time-gobbling and complicated challenge than standing by a desk and talking all day. While Republican State Senator Robert Nichols deserves a heap of credit as the designer of an innovative strategy that's expected to pump $1.2 billion a year into highway construction if voters give their blessings next year, Pickett is an easy choice for the House special session MVP as a result of the imposing obstacles he faced in the sales job required there.

The list of the best Texas legislators in the summer special sessions features some obvious choices and a few that may seem somewhat surprising. Ironically - perhaps - none of the lawmakers on the summer all-star list are on it as a result of anything they did or didn't do on the original issue that prompted Governor Rick Perry to call the first special session before springtime had ended. All of the heavy lifting on redistricting had been done in regular session - and the map recycling effort was a slam dunk that took two weeks to complete in special session after some initial stalling that created the opportunity for the Republican governor to drop abortion and transportation on the Legislature's plate.

Taking the Bull by the Horns

Speaking of Rick Perry, a compelling case could be made that he was the real star of the show at the statehouse this summer by the time the curtain had fallen on the third and final special session at the end of its first week. Perry confirmed during the first half of the second special session in early July that he wouldn't seek re-election in 2014 - but he didn't get any memos about lame duck ineffectiveness or irrelevance in what may have been his strongest showing yet in a dozen years on the job that he's held longer than anyone in Texas history.

Perry's committed his most significant error when the question of whether he'd run again or not was still lingering in June. By waiting two weeks to expand the first special session call, the governor made it possible for Democrats to use the clock as a fatal weapon on abortion in a move that took the highway funding plan down with it. Perry may have been distracted during the second special session by speculation on what his political future may behold and whether he take a second shot at the White House in a 2016 bid for president. But Perry has always seemed to do best when he gets mad - and he was fuming when the second special session ended in failure with the transportation package collapse in the House. Perry made it clear that he'd keep the Legislature in session as long as it would take to pass a highway expansion plan - and he dove head first into the heart of the battle when he summoned conservative House Republicans to his office during the early August debate on transportation to demand their support for the package. The wages of defiance would be the governor's wrath on the re-election campaign trail in 2014 - and more than 20 House Republicans responded to the threat by flipping on a proposed constitutional amendment on road funding that cleared the lower chamber with six votes to spare.

In the final analysis, passing legislation propelled some House and Senate members on to the best of the 2013 special sessions list. The accomplishments that several others on the all-star team achieved will be gauged on political and legal measuring sticks outside the brass rails on the House and Senate floors. It's a highly subjective process. Here are our choices ...

TEXAS HOUSE Most Valuable Player Joe Pickett

Democrat Joe Pickett is a testament to the virtue of patience and quiet dedication - a veteran lawmaker who understands complicated issues because he's been doing his homework on them as a member of the House for the past 18 years. But Pickett also has been the kind of legislator who's easy to forget because he radiates about as much charisma and flash as a parking meter that's not the new solar variety. Pickett's clout in the House appeared to have peaked four years ago during a one-term stint as the Transportation Committee chairman before being shuffled to lower-level slots on Speaker Joe Straus' leadership team when the total number of GOP members had increased substantially. So - in a chamber where Republicans hold 63 percent of the seats and expect to carry every major piece of legislation as a consequence - Pickett wasn't exactly in the lineup of usual suspects to take the lead on one of the biggest issues of all in a summer special session where the spotlight is much brighter than it would have been during the spring. Pickett - a curly haired white guy who represents a district that's 80 percent Hispanic - turned out to be the perfect choice as the House sponsor of a highway funding package partly because he's an expert on transportation and the shockwave effect it can have on state budgeting. Pickett, however, landed the most prominent role of his long political career just as much or more because he specializes in legislative bridge-building and doesn't have a clue what the word flamboyancy means. His most compelling qualification in the final analysis though was probably fact that he's a member of the minority party in a chamber where the constitutional amendment route that legislative leaders had chosen for this particular ride would be a dead-end with the support of a fairly significant number of Democratic colleagues on board. House leaders had the foresight to realize that the transportation package would face a much steeper climb in a second special session than it did when they slipped it through relatively quietly in June when all of the attention was on a nuclear abortion bill. The longer that conservative Republicans in the House had to ponder the way the road plan would be sucking up Rainy Day Fund money in a creatively-crafted shell game, the more imposing Pickett's challenge became at a Capitol where the GOP majorities were dead set on passing a highly expensive highway expansion plan without raising a dime of new money. Like an understudy getting jerked into a Sunday matinee on Broadway without a lot of warning, Pickett stumbled at first when the transportation package ran off the road amid opposition on both sides of the aisle as the second special session was winding to a close. After Pickett failed to persuade the House to back the program, Governor Rick Perry rejected his plea for a cooling off period with a more deliberate approach by calling a third special session immediately after the second blew up. But Pickett, who has a passion for antique cars that he collects, put his mechanic hat on and fashioned a Rainy Day Fund minimum safeguard guarantee that got the plan back on the path to its eventual package in a move that set the legislator hostages free. The alteration that made stiff conservative opposition suddenly disappear may have been more body work than transmission overhaul - but it worked to perfection - for the time being at least. Pickett nonetheless may need a personality transplant or a fancier magic kit if he wants to lead the parade down the stretch to an election in 2014 when voters will make the final call on the biggest accomplishment of a distinguished lawmaking career that had gone relatively unnoticed until now.

Sarah Davis Sarah Davis found herself in big demand on the national media circuit this summer as a result of the iron nerve she displayed as the only Republican on either side of the rotunda to vote against the abortion bill that took centerstage at the Capitol during the Legislature's first two special sessions. At a time when some Republicans who thought the abortion bill went overboard backed it anyway simply to stay out of the hornets nest, the feisty second-term lawmaker from Houston not only opposed the measure but took an active lead in efforts to soften it up in hopes of mitigating possible political backlash for the GOP. While Davis had no delusions about making the vote on the abortion bill close much less stopping the legislation, the lonely stand that she took on the hottest-button measure there is has the potential to alter the course of GOP primaries in Texas a bit if conservatives rally behind an opponent who fails to unseat her. But Davis seems to be the kind of competitor who'd savor the challenge if critics on the right seek payback - and she'd probably be inclined to view herself as a test case that could make the Republican Party here stronger and more expansive as long as she wins another term next year. Davis thinks her GOP colleagues run the risk of scaring women away from the party with hardline legislation on which men who won't be directly affected frequently take the lead. Davis hopes to be setting an example that demonstrates to other young women who might be contemplating political campaigns that they can be conservative and run as Republicans without having to go to extremes. But Davis is still relatively new in state politics - and even though she ended up running unopposed last year in her first re-election race despite a vote against the 2011 sonogram bill - she had the guts to challenge conventional wisdom again in a way that could make a difference if it doesn't end her career. Joe Deshotel In an era of increasing scrutiny on pork barrel politics, Democrat Joe Deshotel headed back to the Beaumont district that he represents with a massive slab of bacon that he scored for the folks back home in one of the most surprising and impressive moves in years at the statehouse. Despite a chorus of crowing about an inadequate amount of money for roads in the transportation package that passed in special session number three, Deshotel sold the House on an amendment that would allow some of the oil and gas taxes that would be siphoned away from the Rainy Day Fund for highways to be spent on construction projects and security needs at ports in Texas coastal areas as well. In a brilliantly executed tag team play with the Golden Triangle's other state representative who's a key GOP player on Speaker Joe Straus' leadership team, Deshotel packaged the proposal in a way that made it appear to have a glowing endorsement from the chief Senate budget writer who also represents a swath of the Gulf Coast. Such an assertion seemed believable enough when considering that it would have certainly backfired if it hadn't been true when the plan made one final swing through the Senate. But Texas legislators trust Joe Deshotel as someone who's about as authentic and devoted and downright nice as politicians ever get - and being a member of the minority party hasn't stopped him from being effective during a 14-year House career that's featured stints as the chairman of three separate committees under two GOP speakers in the past six years. An attorney who served as a city councilman and state university regent before a promotion to the Legislature, Deshotel has an abundance of institutional knowledge and political savvy that he put use when he tacked the port amendment on to the highway bill initially on a division vote with minimal attention from colleagues who were eager to get the show over and go home. Once conservatives realized what they'd done with the port funding proposal over the highway plan's sponsors objections, Deshotel was forced to defend the amendment with an argument that was economically articulate but compelling enough to make the case. The House responded by voting 95-35 against a motion to reconsider the original non-record vote on the Deshotel port plan. Even more amazingly - perhaps - was the fact that the amendment stayed on the bill when the Senate approved it a little while later with only one member voting against it on the apparent grounds that legislators were confusing port with pork in the amendment's wording. Glenn Hegar The state Senate's youngest member didn't earn the designation as the abortion bill sponsor strictly as a function of political ideology. The only Texas lawmaker who's a suburban farmer with a law degree and other lofty diplomas is a genuine conservative but isn't married to the far right like several Senate colleagues. Hegar isn't the Senate's most experienced GOP member even though he has been in the Legislature longer than 13 out of his 30 colleagues on both sides of the aisle. But Hegar was the perfect point person on abortion in back-to-back special sessions this year because he's one of the most unassuming, amicable, gracious, mellow and smartest Republicans in the east or west wings at the Capitol. While that might be stretching it slightly, Hegar does radiate a down-home charisma that has a way of making a very sharp intellect much less obvious to the casual observer. While Democrats who opposed the abortion bill saw the Republicans' claim of concern about the health and safety of women as lame and fabricated spin, that line seemed more authentic when Hegar repeated it like all of the positions he takes as a legislator. But even though Hegar may seem like the nicest guy in Austin when he's around, he's tough as he needs to be below the calm and collected country boy exterior. That's why he was able to hold his ground under some of the most intense fire ever unleashed in the Legislature without losing his cool or train of thought when Democrats with far more experience were grilling him for hours in a way that would have caused lesser lawmakers to melt under the pressure. Unlike some GOP colleagues, Hegar didn't show any signs of being flustered when an unprecedented protest in the Senate gallery turned the floor below into a three-ring circus when he was on the verge of passing the abortion restriction measure on the final night of the first special session. But the imaginative and heavy handed rulings that shortcircuited a Democratic filibuster in a move that sparked the uprising didn't seem to fit the easy-going style that Hegar will be touting as the early favorite in a campaign for state comptroller in 2014. As the chairman of a Senate subcommittee that deals with taxes, Hegar spent a good amount of time in regular session shoring up his credentials for the statewide race as the sponsor of a business tax reform measure before shifting his focus to the social arena for the summer fireworks. Jodie Laubenberg Collin County Republican Jodie Laubenberg seemed to be throwing herself under a bus that Democrats were steering with no shortage of road rage when she stumbled badly as the abortion bill sponsor during a line of questioning on women who are pregnant as a result of sexual assaults. Laubenberg - a suburban lawmaker who's been one of the House's most conservative members throughout the past decade - apparently confused morning-after pills with rape kits that are used for the collection of criminal evidence while under intense heat from some Democrats who second to none when it comes debating issues on the floor. The hole that Laubenberg had created only got deeper when she tried to talk her way out of it - and it didn't lake long before the rhetorical fumbling had gone viral in a way that ignited a chorus of righteous indignation and vicious criticism from coast to coast from folks on the other side of the abortion debate. She finally decided that she'd already said way too much and refused to answer any more of the Democrats' inquiries that day in a move that they simply couldn't seem to believe. While a lesser lawmaker might have been ready to turn the wheel over to a GOP colleague who had a law degree or a flack jacket, Laubenberg demonstrated substantial resiliency and perseverance when she marched back to the front mic in a second special session when she knew the darts that were flying her way would be sharper than ever considering the volatile climate that the abortion bill had fueled. Laubenberg managed her words more judiciously and economically while weathering a piercing nine-hour grilling on the bill that had sparked a greater emotional uproar inside the beltway than any piece of legislation that had ever been debated there. The faux pax that Laubenberg had committed in the heat of battle hadn't turned a single vote on abortion during the first special session and it wouldn't the second time around either as the chief House sponsor successfully persuaded her Republican colleagues to shoot down every amendment that Democrats sought to tack on to the legislation. But Laubenberg's most significant contribution wasn't as obvious in terms of spotlight awareness when she led the charge in the Capitol's west wing to put the teeth back into an abortion regulation package that had emerged from the Senate somewhat diluted. The bill that the Legislature finally passed was the tougher measure that Laubenberg championed in a gutsy display of grit and determination that should not only preserve but bolster her icon status on the Republican right in Texas and beyond. Jane Nelson The most impressive and impactive performance at the Capitol during three special sessions arguably came from a lawmaker who didn't have her name on the authorship line on any of the major legislation that the assembly-line churned out this summer. That distinction would have to go to Jane Nelson - a veteran GOP lawmaker who arguably did more to help Senate Republicans reclaim control of the chamber after they'd fumbled it away with an ill-advised strategy that sparked a riot in the gallery that killed the abortion bill the first time around. As the Senate Health & Human Services Committee chair, Nelson presided over a hearing on the abortion bill that took some of the fire out of the Democrats' complaint about pro-choice activists being denied the opportunity to make all of their voices heard on the matter. When hundreds of the bill's opponents showed up for the hearing expecting to have the door shut in their faces, Nelson announced that everyone who wanted to speak on the bill could do so as long as they limited their remarks to two minutes. But Nelson drew the line in the dirt the moment that testimony started to stray from the subject at the center of the policy debate into a more personal realm. When one witness angrily accused the Legislature of being filled with women-hating men who are all liars, Nelson kept cutting her off each time she attempted to criticize GOP senators individually by name. While that particular citizen ended up being hauled away by Capitol police, Nelson demonstrated that she'd been listening to the concerns that had been raised when she called during a speech on the floor at the end of the abortion debate for an interim study on how the state could improve access to health care for women. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst immediately agreed to honor Nelson's request for the interim committee review - and you can bet that whatever her committee recommends will pass in 2015. Nelson, who entered the Senate in 1993, has evolved into one of the Legislature's most influential and effective members over the course of the past decade. While Nelson's resume would require several pages worth of bullet items to list all of the major legislation she's passed since landing her current committee chair in 2002, she had one of her finest hours with minimal fanfare with the crucial part she played in the re-establishment of the boundaries of decorum at a statehouse where chaos seemed to be ruling for a while more than the Republicans were. Robert Nichols Jacksonville Republican Robert Nichols had been the logical choice last year for a Senate Transportation Committee chair opening as a former small town mayor who'd served nine years on the state highway commission before winning a seat in the Legislature in 2006. But Nichols had never been forced to pull rabbits out of a hat like he found himself doing when GOP leaders and legislators proclaimed transportation to be a top priority before putting any apparent thought into how high the bill for that would be. When Governor Rick Perry vowed to veto a House highway funding plan that would have jacked up car registration fees, Nichols and his Senate pals were sent scurrying to the drawing boards in search of a way to pay for one of state government's most expensive needs without an infusion of new revenue. The task became all the more complicated when conservatives made it clear that spending Rainy Day Fund money on anything would be almost as blasphemous as tax and fee hikes. Nichols knew he'd have to be innovative in a way that bordered on magic to pull this circus act off - and he did so with a blueprint for a highway system expansion that would rely on taxes that had already been paid before they flowed into into the sacred waters of the rainy day savings pool. The Nichols plan was a shell game at best that will cough up less than one dollar for every five that transportation officials say they need to keep Texas freeways from turning into the world's largest parking lots. Nichols gave up the push for a Rainy Day Fund floor that conservatives wanted as a necessary concession to move the package through a House that's been somewhat of a tea party haven - but he had all of his Republican and Democratic colleagues on board for what he convinced them to be the best they could do under the circumstances if they ever wanted to get out of Dodge. Nichols sold the scheme to fellow legislators as a constitutional amendment that would give them a measure of immunity by allowing voters to make the final call. Lawmakers may be hoping now that Nichols designed the deal in a way that's too confusing and convoluted for Texans to understand exactly what they're voting on. The problem with that, however, is that the Senate agreed to push the election to 2014 so a potentially-fragile highway expansion plan doesn't sink a water funding measure that the Legislature had already approved for the ballot later this year. With more than a year for conservatives who disapproved of the use of Rainy Day Fund money for highways to organize opposition, Nichols could find that selling other legislators on something is a cake walk compared to the voter education and awareness task that he and other road funding advocates face now. Larry Phillips One of the reasons why Republican Larry Phillips is such a good legislator is the ability to put the ego aside long enough to recognize his own individual strengths and occasional liabilities. His value to Speaker Joe Straus' leadership team is immeasurable in light of the fact that he's a very smart person who can play the tough guy when needed. There have been times, however, when some colleagues thought he'd crossed the line from enforcer to bully after interpreting his words as implicit threats as opposed to friendly warnings of the potential for retribution when lawmakers are more defiant than accommodating. But the Sherman attorney who entered the House 10 years ago has been able to push the envelope in that regard in large part because he'd established his conservative credentials and partisan allegiance long before Straus became speaker with a winning boost from the Democrats. As the powerful chairman of the House Transportation Committee for more than two years, Phillips demonstrated his willingness to be a team player when he turned the official lead role on the highway funding plan over to a Democratic colleague after serving as the chief sponsor during the first special session. Phillips wasn't being punished for screwing up. Quite the contrary. He'd passed the package on its first swing through the lower chamber before it fell victim in the Senate to a riot in the gallery on an abortion bill. But complications began to arise on a number of fronts as the second special session unfolded without other distractions once the abortion bill had gone to the governor - and Phillips adapted his role to the fluid dynamics in a way that appeared to make him even more effective than he'd been as the main sponsor. Phillips knew that he'd rubbed some of the conservatives who support would be needed the wrong way - and he knew he'd been viewed over the years in a partisan light that wouldn't be good for a goodwill crusade that was needed to ensure some critical support from House Democrats. While deferring on the floor to the new Democratic sponsor who'd chaired the highway committee before him, Phillips remained the chief force behind the plan in House GOP Caucus meetings where he explained the constantly changing technical and political intricacies in compelling yet simple enough ways that colleagues who weren't as experienced or cerebral could understand. Phillips arguably delivered his finest performance as a legislator after giving up his most prominent role so he could take one for the team. That's rare in this sport and business. Jim Pitts Veteran lawmaker Jim Pitts of Waxahachie has locked horns with Governor Rick Perry more than any other Republican in the Legislature - but he caught him completely off guard like never before with a move in June to remove a lightning-rod regent from the University of Texas System governing board. After working round the clock on the state budget during the regular session as the House Appropriations Committee chairman, Pitts finally had enough free time to zing Perry with a resolution that initiated a highly-rare impeachment process aimed at giving Wallace Hall the boot from the UT board. Pitts, who's the House's second most powerful member behind Speaker Joe Straus himself, got the impeachment ball rolling the day before the first special session ended with a stroke of timing that ensured that an investigation into Hall could continue for an indefinite amount of time after lawmakers were no longer in session. The Pitts motion prompted Straus to assign the task to a special House committee that the speaker had created and appointed a conservative Republican and a Democrat to co-chair. Pitts and other GOP leaders and lawmakers had tried and failed earlier this year to have Hall and several other Perry appointees to back off a crusade to oust Bill Powers as the president of the UT flagship campus in Austin. The governor had responded with a very public snub by vetoing legislation that would have curtailed the authority that regents on public university governing boards are allowed to wield. But Perry had taken his time before adding abortion and transportation to the June special session call - and that gave Pitts time to exact some unforeseen payback when legislators were forced to stick around Austin for another week or so after the veto period ended. The magnitude of the sting seemed apparent when a Perry spokesperson hinted that Pitts and other lawmakers might have been pulling strings to get the kids of cronies into law school at UT. Pitts, however, showed no signs of backing off the impeachment case that he'd filed amid allegations that Hall had failed to disclose lawsuits, refused to follow board policy and swamped UT with costly and frivolous open records requests as part of a witch hunt. Pitts - in the meantime - was helping clear the path for a vote on college construction bonds in the event that Perry added that issue to the summer agenda in a second or third special session. While the vote higher education facility expansion plan never materialized, a Select Committee on Transparency in State Agency Operations has an investigation into the impeachment case under way with no time restraints despite the fact that legislators have gone home for the summer. Senfronia Thompson Senfronia Thompson entered the Texas House before many of its current members were ever conceived - but the way she's respected and revered on both sides of the aisle has little to do with longevity as the lower chamber's longest serving Democrat. Thompson is probably the only state lawmaker who could show up for a fight on abortion with a coat hanger and a bottle of turpentine as props for the sermon she was about to unleash without causing eyes to roll and sparking angry rhetorical pushback. But the power of Thompson's personality, the force of her words and her elite and unique status make her impossible to ignore no matter how hard her adversaries in the abortion debate might have been trying to tune her out. As Republicans and Democrats spent hours fencing over whether the abortion bill would be good or bad for women's heath in Texas, Thompson cut to the heart of the chase in brutally vintage fashion when she portrayed the legislation as an inadvertent assault on women who were already trapped in their own private hell as the victims of rape and incest. The Houston attorney expressed righteous indignance without the slightest hint of spin as she questioned how men like many of those in the audience could have the audacity to treat women who'd taught them how to use the bathroom as though they were incapable of making decisions for themselves on life's most critical issues. While Thompson knew that the most compelling argument in the world wasn't going to turn a single vote at that point, but she articulated her point in a way that will grab judges by the jugular when they start reading through the transcript of the House debate before deciding whether the new Texas abortion law is really legal. But Thompson didn't evolve into one of the most effective state lawmakers of all time by marching in partisan lockstep or living on the laurels of oratory alone. She's been wielding more sway behind the scenes than she has at the front microphone as the top-ranking Democratic lieutenant on Republican Speaker Joe Straus' team - and he selected her for the conference committee on the transportation package because he knew the House couldn't lose at that bargaining table if she had a seat there. Kirk Watson Democrat Kirk Watson showed the world how he'd become a successful trial lawyer when he pulled off an amazing improvisation act after Republicans cut off the filibuster that was killing the abortion bill slowly but surely on the final night of the first special session. A former Austin mayor who'd been a good friend to business as a high-ranking chamber of commerce official before winning a Senate seat in 2006, Watson didn't waste a second as he sprung to his feet with an urgent look of alarm on his face that mirrored the mood in a gallery that was on the verge of going haywire. Before Republicans could start calling the roll on a vote that would clear the path for the abortion measure, Watson throw a giant wrench into their plans by announcing that he wanted to appeal a third and final point of order that Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst had just sustained in a move that pulled the plug on the filibuster. With one eye on a clock and 90 long minutes left to kill before the special session expired, Watson outlined the motion he was making to challenge the ruling with a long-winded string of convoluted questions that Republicans in charge of the proceedings stumbled over themselves trying to answer. Watson, who's served as the Senate Democratic Caucus chairman for the past two years, put his considerable occupational skills to use by seeking highly-detailed explanations on questions that he knew were impossible to answer. Watson refused to yield the floor - and chewed up several critical minutes explaining why Wendy Davis' reference to an abortion sonogram bill in her filibuster had been germane to the measure on the floor at the time. The foot-dragging bought time for other Democrats to come up with their own ideas on how to keep the Republicans sandbagged - and it put activists in the gallery in position to finish the bill off with a 15-minute shouting marathon. While Democrats couldn't stop the bill in the second special session, Watson came to the rescue of activists when he persuaded Capitol police to back down from searches and seizures they'd initiated in attempt to defuse a potential tampon-throwing protest. Thanks in no small part to Watson's supporting role, Texas Democrats are more energized and equipped for fundraising than they've been since was leading the Republic of Austin back in the day.