Usually state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso displays a calm demeanor. But during the feistiest day of the Texas House this session, he got mad.

“I think I gave a grilling. I don’t think I took a grilling,” Pickett said Thursday, after engaging in a rhetorical joust with a handful of Republicans over House Bill 1462. “I made them look petty.”

The bill in question would allow state employees to take up to five hours per month of paid leave to volunteer for the CASA program, which advocates for foster children. Several Republican members tried to amend the bill while Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, forced a record vote. (House Speaker Joe Straus had wanted to opt for the “all in favor say aye” approach.)

“What they did was hurt something that was really good with the potential to go down because they’re so selfish and want to have votes on issues not related,” said Pickett after fending off all comers and seeing the bill pass 85-56. “I was very annoyed.”

Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, proposed an amendment* that would have extended the paid leave to state employees who volunteered at Crisis Pregnancy Centers. He knew it would have to be withdrawn -- but he wanted to make a point.

“It’s a bad practice for the state to get into, determining which charities they're going to support,” Chisum told NPT. “There’s a lot of other good charities out there.”

Randy Weber, R-Pearland, again using an amendment to make a point, proposed extending paid leave from five hours to 10 for for capitol staffers during session. Pickett called that “ridiculous.” Wayne Christian, R-Center, said that paying volunteers was an oxymoron.

"The only oxymorons we have are those who oppose this bill," flashed Pickett, by now quite obviously annoyed. Riddle then took the back mic and after a grumpy back-and-forth with Pickett forced a record vote.

Riddle told NPT that she called the vote because she, “wanted the taxpayers in my district and across Texas to know where I stood regarding making sure their money is well-spent.”

“The taxpayers, the people that pay the bills … I believe that they expect the state employees to get paid to go to work," she said. "To give them a week and a half every year to volunteer with full pay is fundamentally flawed.”

Pickett didn’t see the same fiscal altruism in Riddle's actions.

“People like Rep. Riddle wanted to use this for other things,” Pickett said. “To try to hijack a very easy, sensitive, simple bill to make a statement is embarrassing.

“They want to put on amendments about crisis pregnancy centers. So that’s what they're mad about. They're not mad about the bill. They're mad that they didn’t get a chance to go on the records supporting pro- life pregnancy centers.

"They're upset that they didn’t get to vote on pro-life, pro-choice issues on the appropriation’s bill. Who would have thought a volunteer bill for CASA would be the one they pick out to try to bolster their record with different groups who keep score on pro-life?” Pickett said.

The practice Pickett is referring to is that of engineering what one might reasonably call "hot-button votes," “hard votes,” or “bad votes.”

Take Crisis Pregnancy Centers, for example. Pro-lifers laud them as bastions of family values providing alternatives to abortion for pregnant women. Opponents argue CPCs pose as medical facilities but are often run by amateurs. By tacking on an amendment about CPCs to Pickett's bill, Chisum wanted to raise the issue and make state reps vote one way or the other. (Allowing pro-lifers to flex their pro-life credentials before their constituents and exposing other members as not pro-life.)

No doubt, certain groups keep tabs of such "hard votes" which are then used to give state reps “ratings” on things like life issues that can be used in campaign literature (often negatively) come election time.

“They wanted to take some hard votes because they didn’t in the appropriations bill,” said Pickett. Before last Fridays budget debate, agreements were made between the party leaderships to pull down the majority of amendments on hot-button issues and stick to money matters.

“A lot of them weren’t satisfied with that. Some of the more vocal in both parties** wanted to have more philosophical votes, not anything to do with money,” Pickett said.

Though the budget debate was one of the most cordial in years, the strategy may now be backfiring as state reps look for other bills to use as vehicles for hard votes, even ones aimed at helping foster kids.

“By pulling them (hard votes) off the appropriations bill, you denied us our ability to vote on that particular issue, but you know it's not over yet. We’ve got four more weeks,” Chisum said.

Chisum argued that because pro-life and pro-family bills often have a hard time making it to the floor (moderate state reps or those in swing districts don’t want to touch them with a barge poll) members like himself “have to refer to different tactics to get those voted on … the bottom line is a lot of us want to take those votes on pro-life issue and we’re willing to do that.”

“It is important to the voters to know where we stand on issues like abortion and pro-life and pro-family issues,” Chisum argued. “We’re going to make votes on them and people who disagree are going to vote against it.”

The problem with having a friendly budget process like last Friday is that it risks outsourcing the political energy behind controversial issues to more “vulnerable” bills like Pickett’s.

The appropriations bill is big enough and ugly enough to take care of itself (it has to pass) but that’s not true of other bills that may be great ideas but not carry the same expedience. Indeed, more political capital might be generated through hard votes rather than by the good small-scale bills they derail.

So should the House leadership have just let members “have it out” when it came to the budget bill?

House Republican Caucus Chair Larry Taylor, R-League City, doesn’t think so.

“You have this all throughout the session, it’s not just the appropriations bill,” Taylor told NPT. “We’ve had much worse appropriations bills in the past when we’ve had a lot more bad votes. But this is part of the process. We have amendments on bills all the time to put people in the corner and make them vote one way or the other. The Democrats have done it for years masterfully.

“What you want to do for the folks back home, you want to show there’s a difference between this group and that group,” Taylor said.

Taylor added that the appropriations bill debate last Friday was not the right vehicle for such votes. However he dismissed the idea that avoiding hard votes then meant more down the road on other bills.

The Texas House can expect to see more hard votes being offered by both sides as the session wraps up. Voted ID, gambling, sunset bills, and round two on the budget will offer Democrats and Republicans alike the chance to put their colleagues in political pickles.

But with less than 40 days remaining in the session, such votes consume the legislature's most precious commodity: time.

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* State Rep Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, successfully amended HB 1462 adding the provision that employees cannot get the paid leave, "unless the employee obtains approval from the employees’ supervisor before taking the leave."

** During the budget debate, a number of Democrat amendments aimed to put Republicans in a quandary by attacking the Governor's office budget or limiting the use of the Texas Enterprise and Emergency Technology funds.