Stickland violated legislative trust

Agree or disagree with the political stands and tactics of state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, during his two terms in office, at least he is not just so much legislative furniture.

Stickland fights hard for what he believes in. And he may have done something in this year’s session that will have long-lasting impact on the way the Legislature operates — all because he stumbled into exposing a weakness in House rules.

Have no doubt, what Stickland did was wrong.

He allowed his staff — whether he knew they were doing it or not makes no difference, he’s still responsible — to sign people up as supporting his red-light camera bill at an April 30 Transportation Committee hearing, knowing those people had no intention of even being in Austin during the hearing.

Now the House will have to rewrite its rules specifically to say that’s a no-no — not just leave it to common understanding that it’s against legislative protocol. Maybe every other lawmaker through time knew it was the wrong thing to do, and maybe Stickland was just first to push the envelope by trying it.

But the House must now write clear rules. No more Stickland Witnessgate scandals.

Stickland may have made a political miscalculation earlier that day by having a run-in with the committee’s chairman, Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso. He used a procedural maneuver to kill a Pickett bill on the House floor.

Pickett, somehow tipped off to the phantom witnesses registered by Stickland’s staff, called Stickland out on it when the bill came before the committee. In fact, he called one of those witnesses on his cellphone during the hearing — the father of a Stickland staff member — using the speaker on the phone to expose to all that the man was not in Austin.

Long story short, the House General Investigating and Ethics Committee took up the matter, called in the Texas Rangers to investigate, and the Rangers discovered that 29 people had been registered as witnesses by Stickland’s staff.

Still, the Rangers and the Travis County district attorney’s office determined that no laws were broken.

Maybe all that was broken was legislative trust. Stickland should know that trust is worth a lot, even in the Texas Legislature.

This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Stickland violated legislative trust."