The Governor's Wife (37 page)

But even Jim Beam couldn't improve the speaker's mood.

"We're twenty-seven billion in the hole," the speaker said, "but all my House members want to talk about are Mexicans and abortions."

Bode groaned. "What now?"

"Voter ID and sonograms."

"Sonograms?"

"They want to make a woman getting an abortion see a sonogram of the baby."

"Before or after the abortion?"

"Before. And make the woman listen to the fetal heartbeat."

"Shit, that's creepy."

"They want to force girls to have babies they don't want and can't afford," the speaker said, "but they don't want to pay more taxes to support and educate those kids once they're born."

Speaker of the House Richard Warren was forty-three, young to hold the most powerful elected office in Texas—hence, he had not outgrown his nickname "Dicky"—and considered far too liberal to be a Republican in Texas because (a) he didn't believe abortion was murder, (b) he didn't believe in the death penalty, (c) he didn't believe the Second Amendment applied to assault weapons with thirty-round clips, (d) he didn't hunt, and (e) he didn't cuss. And worst of all, (f) he had chosen college at Yale over UT or A&M, always a subversive act in Texas.

"An abortion is a helluva lot cheaper than funding twelve years of school and ten-to-life in prison," the lieutenant governor said.

Bode shook his head. "Sonograms. Do these abortion folks just sit around all day dreaming this shit up? Don't they have jobs?"

"Governor," the speaker said, "I need you to declare the voter ID and sonogram bills emergency legislation so we can ram them through in the first week after opening gavel, then I can get my members to focus on the budget. House Bill One is going to be ugly."

The Texas legislature met every other year for one hundred forty days. The first bills introduced each session in the House and the Senate were the general appropriations bills, traditionally designated House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1. The speaker presided over the House of Representatives, the lieutenant governor over the Senate.

"State constitution requires a balanced budget," the lieutenant governor said. "No exception for when Wall Street assholes screw up the world's economy."

"Only two ways to balance the budget, Governor," the speaker said. "Raise taxes or cut spending."

"Dicky … it's an election year."

"So we cut spending." He opened a notebook. "I figured that, so I've taken a shot at the cuts. First, we fire ten thousand state employees."

"Hell," Jim Bob said, "we got two hundred forty thousand. Fire a hundred thousand."

"And we gut the public health programs. Twelve million to prevent teen pregnancies—"

"Like that worked," the lieutenant governor said. "Our teen pregnancy rate is the highest in the nation. Cheaper to give away condoms at school."

"Abstinence-only, Mack," Bode said. "That's official state policy."

"That's official state bullshit. TV ran a story the other night about high school girls in East Austin, showed them kissing their babies goodbye before they went to their senior class prom. They ain't abstaining, Governor."

—"ten million for the
colonias
—"

"Shit."

"—two billion from higher ed—"

"Christ, the UT president's gonna be over to the Mansion crying in his beer—he's sitting on a fifteen-billion-dollar endowment and he bitches every time we cut a dollar from his appropriations."

"If he's got a hundred million to spend on the football team," the lieutenant governor said, "he can pay his own fucking way. Hell, if we spent that much money on our team, we'd beat UT like a redheaded stepchild."

Mack Murdoch wore his Texas A&M class ring as if it were a Purple Heart.

"Dicky, is the House on board with the 'guns on campus' bill? My boys at A&M are chomping at the bit."

"Mack," the speaker said, "I'm a little concerned that a kid who gets a B on a term paper might pull his piece and drop his professor."

The lieutenant governor shrugged. "One less Democrat in Texas."

Bode gestured at the speaker's notebook. "What else is on your list?"

The speaker had taken notice of Bode's grim mood.

"It's fun to talk about cutting spending out on the campaign trail, Governor, not so much actually doing it. And we haven't even gotten to the big budget items, K through twelve and Medicaid."

Bode exhaled. "Tell me about Medicaid."

"Bottomless hole and getting deeper by the day. Fifteen billion a year, a third of the budget. Six out of ten births in Texas are Medicaid babies, we're adding two hundred fifty thousand more people to the rolls each year. Just to keep up, we need three billion more. Every year. Forever."

"Why do poor people keep having kids they can't afford?" the lieutenant governor said. Then he answered his own question. "Because they don't have to afford them. We do. Problem is, won't be long before there ain't enough working people to pay for all the poor people."

Bode stared out the window at Texas twenty thousand feet below. Mack Murdoch was a cantankerous old fart who drank too much bourbon, but that didn't mean he was wrong. The great State of Texas was poor and getting poorer by the day. By the birth. Texas' population had exploded by 4.3 million during the last decade—twenty-five percent of the total U.S. population growth—and ninety percent of those new Texans were poor. They were making a poor state desperately poor. The future of Texas was not bright and shining. It was Mississippi.

"I'm telling you, boys," the lieutenant governor said, "this is the end of civilization as we know it. And with our demographics, Texas will be the first to go." He sighed. "This used to be a great goddamn state." He held up his glass as if to toast. "To Texas."

Bode and the speaker didn't join him in the toast. The lieutenant governor shrugged then downed his bourbon. Bode turned to the speaker.

"Tell me about K through twelve."

"Ten billion."

"
Ten billion?
Shit, Dicky, that's what, thirty percent of the education budget?"

"Thirty-seven. And another two billion for pre-K."

"We're gonna cut twelve billion from public schools?"

The speaker turned his palms up. "That's where the money's at."

"What's that mean?"

"We cut art and music classes, PE, libraries, band … we'll try to save football and coaches. We won't be able to save the teachers. We'll have to fire thousands. Tens of thousands."

"Tens of thousands?"

"Fifty, sixty, some projections say a hundred. Thousand."

"A hundred thousand teachers?"

The speaker gave a grim nod. "A third of the work force. And they won't take it lying down. They'll march on the Capitol. You piss off a middle-aged woman, you're in big trouble."

"I know. I'm married to one."

"We'll have to amend the law to permit larger class sizes, maybe twenty-five kids per class, maybe thirty-five. Maybe fifty-five."

"Fifty-five kids per class?"

"Governor, we net eighty thousand new students every year. So we need a billion more each year just to tread water. Even with this budget, we'll still be drowning before the next biennium." The speaker blew out a breath. "It's what they call, unsustainable."

"Twelve billion, that'll gut public education."

"We could cut football," the speaker said, "stop building those fancy high school stadiums."

"Cut football? In Texas?"

"We could drain the rainy day fund."

"The tea partiers would go apeshit, vote us out."

"We could apply the sales tax to services. We've got law firms in Houston and Dallas grossing a billion a year and not paying a dime in taxes."

"Then they'll go apeshit," the lieutenant governor said.

"So?"

"So it'll never get out of the Senate."

"Why not?"

"Every one of my senators is a lawyer."

"Can't school districts raise their local property taxes?" Bode said.

The speaker shook his head. "Everyone's already maxed out the tax rate, and home values keep falling. Taxes are plummeting and costs are skyrocketing. Not a good scenario for the future of education."

"We've already got the highest dropout and lowest graduation rates in the country."

"First in executions, last in graduations," the lieutenant governor said. "The state motto."

Bode ignored him. "What else can we do?"

"Reform the property tax," the speaker said. "Eliminate the exemption for private country clubs and ag. We've got ranchers and farmers sitting on land worth millions, but paying a few hundred bucks in taxes. Urban taxpayers are subsidizing rural taxpayers."

Bode shook his head. "Not politically doable. Those ranchers and farmers would torch the Capitol."

"We could pass that real-estate sales reporting bill, make the closing agents report the price of all property sales."

"Which does what?"

"Right now, there's no reporting, so there's no comps for commercial property. Buildings worth a hundred million in Dallas and Houston are on the tax rolls for a fraction of that, so developers are paying only a fraction of what they owe in property taxes. Across the state, we're talking billions in lost school taxes."

"The business lobby will say we're raising taxes," Jim Bob said.

"We're collecting taxes due. Homeowners are paying at one hundred percent market value, but developers are paying at twenty-five percent. That's not fair."

"This is politics," Jim Bob said. "Not preschool."

The speaker looked to Bode; he just shrugged, as if to say, The Professor's the boss on all things political.

"Then we fire teachers and close schools."

"How many schools?"

"Hundreds."

"Any in Austin?"

The speaker nodded. "My wife's on the school board. They're talking five hundred teachers and nine schools."

"You know which ones?"

"Matter of fact, she sent me an email yesterday, begged me to raise taxes and save our schools."

"Wives are naïve like that," Jim Bob said.

The speaker opened his laptop and tapped the buttons.

"They'll have to close Oakwood, Barton, East Austin—"

"Shit. That's Lindsay's school. She volunteers there. I read to those kids."

"You read to kids in East Austin?"

Bode nodded. "Ms. Rodriguez—she's the teacher—she's working her butt off, trying to educate those kids. They close her school, what happens to the kids?"

"Bused to another school."

"What about the teachers?"

"Fired."

Bode downed another shot of bourbon.

"Christ, closing schools, firing teachers, making women get sonograms to have an abortion—if a mistress wasn't enough, this'll make Lindsay divorce me for sure."

"Oh," the speaker said, "we can all forget about conjugal visits next session."

"Hell," the lieutenant governor said, "I ain't had a hard-on since nineteen-eighty-nine. June."

"Thanks for sharing," Jim Bob said.

"Prostate?" Bode said.

"Yep. They yanked it out, left me insolent."

"Impotent," Jim Bob said.

"That, too."

"You miss it?" Bode said.

"My prostate?"

"Sex."

The lieutenant governor sighed. "Every day."

"Can we focus here?" Jim Bob said.

"Hell, Governor," the lieutenant governor said, "might be a good time to jump ship and make a run for the White House. Course, going from governor of a broke state to president of a broke country ain't exactly a promotion."

"You gonna do it?" the speaker said.

"Thinking about it."

"Can you beat Obama?" the lieutenant governor said.

"I beat Oklahoma."

"Governor," the speaker said, "you'd be leaving us at a bad time."

"Texas wasn't broke when George W. was in the White House," the lieutenant governor said.

"Now we're broke because he
was
in the White House," the speaker said.

"If Bode gets elected president, our budget problems are over. We'll be rolling in federal funds."

"I'll give all of New York's money to Texas."

"That ain't cheap," the lieutenant governor said, "running for the White House. It ain't like here in Texas where one John Ed Johnson can fund your campaign."

"Can you say Super PAC?" the Professor said. "Supreme Court threw out the limits on contributions to political advocacy groups. Freedom of speech. So all the candidates are forming Super PACs, shadow campaigns collecting hundreds of millions. This election, money's gonna decide who wins."

"Money can't vote," the speaker said.