Panhandle's Biggest Embarrassment

What is the Panhandle's biggest embarrassment? That would be Republican Texas State Rep. Warren Chisum. In the last legislative session, Chisum introduced legislation that would mandate teaching the Bible in all Texas high schools. Evidently, he doesn't think churches do an adequate job of teaching the Bible, so he makes the schools use taxpayer money to teach it.

Then he got a law passed that would significantly raise marriage license fees for couples that didn't take a marriage counseling course. Now I could understand warning couples against getting married, but mandating counseling seems to be taking things a little far.

It doesn't look like Chisum has changed much in the last two years. Now he is in trouble with the Texas Ethics Commission because he failed to include his $600 a month legislative salary from the state on the required financial disclosure form. He said he left it off because he doesn't think he's a "state employee", since the Texas Constitution says he is a "citizen legislator".

Chisum said, “I don’t actually have an hourly job where I draw a salary. In the truest sense of the word, I may be considered an employee of the state, but the constitution says we are citizen-legislators. I didn’t apply for this job. I don’t punch a clock. I don’t get overtime. I can’t sue the state if I get hurt on the job.”

That's some of the silliest reasoning I've ever heard. First, he did apply for the job. He applied when he put his name on the ballot. And there are many state employees who don't work for hourly pay, don't punch a clock and don't get paid extra for overtime worked. They are still state employees, and so is Chisum.

But even so, the financial disclosure requires the listing of all income, no matter where it comes from. He may be a rich legislator, but that doesn't mean he can ignore the small salary the state of Texas gives him. Amazingly, this financial whiz is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

But the silliness continues. Chisum has now decided he knows how to fix Texas high schools and it won't even require the spending of any state money. His solution is contained in a bill he has authored -- House Bill 131.

Texas, like many other states nowdays, has an unacceptably high drop-out rate in its high schools. Now the proper way to combat this is to provide enough money, training, counseling and programs to solve the problem. But Chisum has decided there's an easier way.

HB 131 would just change the definition of a high school drop-out. The bill would exempt anyone who has gotten a GED, anyone who committed a crime and was sent to a juvenile facility, or anyone who committed a crime and was sent to an adult facility. These three groups of students would no longer be counted as drop-outs when statistics are compiled.

This doesn't sound like a real solution to me. It sounds like he wants to hide a part of the problem by lying to the people of Texas and the federal government. Maybe he thinks if you don't acknowledge a problem, it will go away.

I can't even imagine what this nut will come up with next, but I'm sure it will be embarrassing to the citizens of the Panhandle.