This story about the use of “tags” by City Council members, which is a one-week delay on any Council agenda item, is interesting if not really revealing. I mean, raise your hand if you’re surprised that Addie Wiseman leads the pack here. What else is she going to do?
The question is how effective this is as a tactic for actually stopping things you don’t like. Far as I can tell from reading the article, at least as far as Wiseman v. White goes, the answer is not very. Wiseman scored a victory in the Houston Media Source affair, but not to put too fine a point on it, who cares? It was embarrassing for a few days, Mayor White lost the initial vote, but it wasn’t exactly a cornerstone of his administration. It was a political win, sure, but what did it accomplish from a policy perspective, and how big an impact did it have? Would anyone claim the HMS saga caused Mayor White to scale back his agenda or adjust his approach? I wouldn’t. If that’s the prime example of a tagging achievement, I can’t say I’m terribly impressed.