Score one for Juan Garcia - almost

State Rep. Juan Garcia moves to deliver on a promise.

Corpus Christi first-term Rep. Juan Garcia scored a coup this afternoon as colleagues agreed to his proposal that the House hold record votes on all legislation and that member-by-member results be promptly posted online so constituents can more easily monitor their representatives.

Garcia, a Democrat who had campaigned vowing to seek recorded votes on all measures, noted that commercial services already make vote results ready instantly to customers.

Critics of more public votes have said they would allow political opponents to create a record against legislators and slow down the legislative process.

Turns out it's not so simple:

The House just adopted, without objection, a provision to require recorded votes on all second readings - unless they suspend the rules. That's a huge step from what they were originally going to do, which was requiring them on final passage (meaning that the bills that die don't get a record vote).

It seemed awfully easy. Too easy. Turns out, it was.

Reps didn't realize, after amendment and discussion, what they were voting on. They thought Rep. Juan Garcia, D-Corpus Christi, had whittled his original proposal down to just the final passage, with votes available on the internet within the hour. Everybody thought he'd cut out the second-passage provision.

So it's being reconsidered.

So they're going to actually read the amendment and vote again.

And the second time around, they voted it down. Alas. Nice try, Rep. Garcia.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on January 13, 2007 to That's our Lege