"In Texas, we do not hold high expectations for the [governor's] office; it's mostly been occupied by crooks, dorks and the comatose."
-- Legendary reporter and columnist Molly Ivins
You think the Capitol press corps is tough? Mean?
Not here. Not even close.
In Florida -- in the 21st century, anyway -- reporters and legislators don't spar, they frolic. They share jokes in the rotunda,leak secrets to each other in the food line in the Capitol's lower lobby, succumb to each other's relentless Tallahassee schmooze. They're all pals at the palace.
Smart legislators in Florida don't fear the press. They take reporters out of their pocket when they feel like it, dance them around on a string for awhile, then stuff them back in.
In the year I've been in Tallahassee, I've seen it close up.
Smart legislators give up the colleagues they don't like or trust. Turn "secret" info about some poor representative or senator over to their favorite reporters, who are happy to jump on the stories. And all of a sudden we're reading some press guy/gal's great "investigative scoop." It's a scoop all right, and it may or may not be great. There just isn't much investigation involved.
Here's the problem: It's like police and their informants. Because police need these low-life characters to rat-out their buddies, their crimes get a pass. The informants are home free. They can go on their merry way and tuck their policemen back in their pockets.
This is all very strange to me. But I was warned.
Molly Ivins warned me years ago what I'd find around a state legislature. I wish she were still here to talk to.
I'd like to tell her she was right -- that there's precious little "tough stuff" coverage of state legislatures anymore, that it's pretty much just pretend.
I certainly can't say Molly Ivins and I were close friends in the '80s and '90s -- her columns were already nationally syndicated by the time we met -- and my newspaper, The Stuart News, didn't even carry them. But over the years, through various associations, we knew each other as colleagues; I think we liked each other and from time to time we talked.
Molly was one of the best political journalists in America. She wasn't just a liberal, she was a liberal preacher, every day, every column, in the whole body of her life's work. She firmly believed that ruthless, careless corporations have created a cash-and-carry caricature of democracy. You argued with her on that point -- as I often did -- at your own peril.
But here's the thing about Molly: You didn't have to share her political philosophy to appreciate her. It didn't matter whether she was Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. Talent, intelligence and heart? She had it in spades. But she was 90 percent attitude and she had a gloves-off, roadhouse writing style that made any argument stick.
Maybe it didn't charm everybody, but it lit a fire in me every chance I got to talk with her.
Molly was an imposing presence. When she walked into a room, she sucked the air out of it. At 6 feet tall, she towered over most everybody else. Her eyes always danced, they gave you her full attention and if they ever failed, her now-mama's-talking-to-you voice took over.
Molly Ivins died of breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 62.
She would have fallen out of her chair laughing if I told her that columnists in Tallahassee are scolded if they call politicians names, that they get phone calls complaining they're not very nice.
"You call it like you see it," she told me more than once. "You don't have to laugh and joke with any legislator. Stay away from the sons, write the truth, they'll call you back. You serve beloveds, you don't serve politicians." Molly always called readers her beloveds.
She never had more fun in her career, she would tell me, than in those early days in Austin, Texas, when she covered the Legislature for the Texas Observer, a newspaper that made a point of pushing the envelope. She gave me a frayed, yellow copy of one of the first stories she ever wrote for the Observer. I still have it in the desk drawer in my study at home. It begins, "When the Legislature is set to convene, every village is about to lose its idiot.
Looking back at some of the stories in the newspaper's archives, how can you fail to conclude that the Capitol press corps in Tallahassee not only lets Florida politicians off lightly, but scrambles like groupies to fraternize with them.
Here's one of Molly's stories from Sept. 20, 1974. Short, to the point, told with wit and wisdom. Imagine anybody writing this inTallahassee today -- and then tell me how tough and mean you think the reporting at the Capitol is:
The Little Prince
AUSTIN The man most likely to reign over the tiny kingdom of the Texas House of Representatives next session has a 12-year political record that is utterly without redeeming social value.
Rep. Billy Clayton of Springlake was first elected to the Legislature in 1962 and during the six sessions since then, he has compiled a consistent and dreary record. It is a record more reactionary than it is conservative it is anti-labor, anti-urban, anti-reform, anti-progress and anti-human concern. The man who amassed this unenviable record is a prince of a fellow personally no horns, no tail. Hes a 46-year-old Aggie, grandpa, rancher, farmer, Mutscherman and quondam water lobbyist. He says he has always voted his district just voted the way folks out there wanted him to, thats the way they all think out there. One is tempted to ask why he didnt move long ago.
Tedium, ennui, limbo, apathy
July 21, 1972
AUSTIN In a new all-time worlds record, the Texas House of Representatives became the first left-handed deliberative body with a squint and 70 drunken members to meet non-stop for 18 hours on an appropriations bill. Aside from deciding how to extract money from the states citizens, deciding how to spend it is the most important thing the Legislature does, so the process deserves close inspection.
Mister Roberts ship the USS Reluctant used to sail from Tedium to Apathy to Limbo to Ennui with an occasional rare stop at Elysium. Thus also sails the Texas House during its marathons.
Turn out the lights the partys over
June 15, 1973
AUSTIN The weekend before the Legislature went home, roving bands of conferees were attacking bills, attacking one another, slyly joining and disbanding in a frantic hunt for passable legislation. For a while, it looked as if nothing would be left except the ravaged carcass of Prince Daniels reform package.
Midnight finally came, however, and the legislators turned back into slick city lawyers and small-town pharmacists, toy store owners, ad men, bankers, insurance salesman, neer-do-wells, two morticians and a shrink. Whether the reforms make any difference in terms of the way the people elect their representatives and the way their representatives conduct the states business remains to be seen. But the laws at least are in the books for the schoolchildren of Texas to read and believe.
Story after story, coverage of the Texas Legislature like this and far stronger. They're funny, they're a good read, but they demean the Legislature and, and God knows, they do call names.
Reach columnist Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
