Word: laney
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...theme of the post-post-election period has emerged: Bipartisanship and grit-your-teeth cooperation. And George W. Bush and Dick Cheney didn't waste any time hard-selling the concept. In an attempt to create an air of unity, Bush chose Pete Laney, Speaker of the Democrat-controlled Texas House of Representatives, to introduce Wednesday night's acceptance speech (which the president-elect delivered in the House chamber). But while Wednesday's rosy images played well on television, political insiders are hardly convinced that Bush's record in Texas will have any bearing on his success in Washington...
Bush was introduced before his speech by the highest-ranking Democrat in his state, House Speaker Pete Laney, and he is considering appointing a few Democrats to Cabinet posts. In his speech, his mentioned one of Texas's most endearing politicians, the late lieutenant governor, Bob Bullock, a Democrat with whom he became close friends...
...four reform issues: welfare, public schools, the juvenile-justice system and "frivolous" civil lawsuits. He chose them carefully--all were popular in Texas--but getting them done was no sure thing. To improve his odds, he cultivated relationships with the two Democrats who could make him a success--Laney, a West Texas cotton farmer who controls the house; and Bob Bullock, the profane, driven, endlessly colorful Lieutenant Governor who ran the senate and was the most powerful pol in Texas until shortly before he died last year. The three men would meet for breakfast every Wednesday--first at the Governor...
...guys Bush couldn't hammer were Laney and Bullock. At first, neither was sure about this new Governor who tried so hard to ingratiate himself. Could they trust him to keep his end of a deal? They found out during Bush's first session, when push came to shove on tort reform--a package of bills designed to rein in what Bush called "junk lawsuits that clog our courts." While it wasn't clear that frivolous lawsuits were out of control, business groups looking to limit their liability had for years been pouring money into the issue, helping create...
...with smaller groups and individual legislators--and discovered the limits of the personal approach to politics. He couldn't get enough Republicans to vote for a plan that smelled like a tax increase, even though its offsetting tax cuts were much larger. The bill was dead--and that, says Laney, "is when he grabbed his little piece of his pie." The $1 billion budget surplus was still on the table, and Bush used it to fund a $1 billion property-tax cut that passed easily. He didn't get his ambitious reshaping of the tax code...