By Charley Wilkison
Director of Public AffairsLast week the Texas House voted 78-65 to amend the Worker’s Compensation Sunset Bill and expedite first responder cases to the front of the line. The amendment removed some of the obstacles to helping officers get well faster and return to work sooner.
What was stunning wasn’t that the vote was so close or that we barely pulled it off. It’s been that kind of legislative session. In fact I would recommend you get on YOUTUBE and listen to R.L. Burnside sing “It’s Bad You Know” as a kind of background to this article.
What was stunning is that we’d have to run with an amendment to fix issues that should never have happened in Texas. What was amazing is that anyone would be opposed to it, get up on the floor of the Texas House and argue against it. After all, this was not an employment rights bill or a labor union issue or a retirement measure. This amendment wasn’t some radical attempt to limit gun ownership nor a secret attempt to promote gay marriage. This was about badly needed medical care for cops and firefighters who had been seriously injured in the line of duty.
We had worked hard to get two bills filed, SB 1174 by Senator Bob Deuell, MD., R-Greenville and HB 1961 by Representative Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont. Only one bill has been heard and neither one is moving through the process.
The one hearing that did occur in the House Committee on State Affairs was very adversarial with the Texas Municipal League pointing out that the bill would cost cities too much money and other city employees regularly faced the same amount of danger on their jobs. Equating first responders to city sewer workers the General Counsel of the TML shot down the need for the bill and many lobbyists and interest groups signed up against the bill. Even the next week the bill hadn’t been brought up for a vote and we began eyeing the Worker’s Comp Sunset bill as a possible legislative vehicle to solve the problem.
When Worker’s Comp was reformed during the last decade it was intended as a conservative fix to what many considered lawsuit abuse. But nobody intended to shut cops and firefighters out of timely medical care did they? Surely that was not the intention of the insurance companies, political subdivisions or the traveling medical shows they employ as physicians.
As my grandmother used to say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and whether intended or not first responders, whose injuries are more serious, wound up getting the shaft.
What’s wrong with the Worker’s Comp System? That’s a question that would deserve a large book to answer but I first heard of Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Ed Martin I was sure that there was some kind of mistake. He was shot at point blank range with a 12-gauge while answering an open 911 call. Somehow he survived only to have the Texas Worker’s Compensation system fail him at every turn.
I asked our lawyers to check over his paperwork to see if there was some kind of error. There wasn’t. I went through every kind of scenario that I could think of but there was nothing to point to a mistake. When I first met him, saw his injuries, heard about his physical battle to recover and return to work and began wondering why he was the only one having these problems. I began asking officers around the state, local union presidents, and field representatives if there were other officers suffering from the same problem?
Law enforcement officers were having giant problems all across the state but were suffering in silence and thinking somehow they had done something wrong or just gotten the wrong doctor. Melinda Griffith and I organized a statewide meeting about the issue at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel here in Austin and many CLEAT representatives and injured officers gathered to share information and tell their stories.
From Laredo to the Panhandle came the stories of physical suffering, denied surgeries, accusations as to the need of the medical care and as Deputy Martin pointed out—Worker’s Comp challenged the need and the cost of the helicopter Care Flight that obviously saved his life.
In the end, our Chris Jones wrote an amendment and Chairman Deshotel and his staff performed heroically to get the amendment on the bill. We had hoped to make it an acceptable, friendly amendment that would be acceptable to the author, Rep. Larry Taylor R-Friendswood, but it was not and our friends on the floor had to fight for us.
We had a plan in place and there were many heroes on the floor that day that fought for Texas officers. It was a narrow, squeak of a victory that your enemies did not expect and we were pleasantly pleased in the end result. Chairman Deshotel was able to re-word his amendment so that it finally was accepted with a voice vote.
However, it was the 78-65 vote that was extremely telling. 47 Democrats voted with 31 Republicans to create the majority. Those who voted with us when we were under fire and being accused of costing more taxpayer money should be given special consideration when your local unions are thinking about future races and consideration. It should not be the only important vote considered this session—but it sure should be considered.
The Sunset bill is headed to the Senate for consideration and it will be interesting to see if anyone in the upper chamber will seek to strip it out or fight to remove our language or substantively change the bill.
We have worked hard, we have listened and we have compromised to get to where we are on this important issue. There is no middle ground on this important issue. It is a time for us to remember our friends and also those who are attempting to hurt injured officers who are fighting to regain their health and their careers.
Below is the actual vote on the motion to table our amendment. Opponents voted yes to table, friends of law enforcement voted not to table.
ON THE MOTION TO TABLE THE AMENDMENTA “YES” VOTE IS A VOTE AGAINST THE CLEAT AMENDMENTRV# 417 — Unofficial Totals: 65 Yeas, 78 Nays, 1 Present, not voting
Yeas – Aliseda; Anchia; Anderson, C.; Anderson, R.; Aycock; Beck; Berman; Bonnen; Branch; Cain; Callegari; Carter; Chisum; Christian; Cook; Craddick; Crownover; Darby; Davis, J.; Davis, S.; Eissler; Flynn; Frullo; Garza; Gonzales, L.; Gooden; Hamilton; Hancock; Harless; Hopson; Howard, C.; Hunter; Isaac; King, P.; Kleinschmidt; Landtroop; Laubenberg; Lavender; Legler; Lewis; Lyne; Madden; Margo; Murphy; Nash; Orr; Otto; Patrick; Paxton; Perry; Phillips; Pitts; Price; Ritter; Schwertner; Scott; Sheffield; Shelton; Simpson; Smith, W.; Smithee; Taylor, L.; Torres; Truitt; Weber
Nays – Allen; Alonzo; Alvarado; Bohac; Brown; Burkett; Burnam; Button; Castro; Coleman; Creighton; Davis, Y.; Deshotel; Driver; Dukes; Dutton; Eiland; Elkins; Farias; Farrar; Fletcher; Gallego; Geren; Giddings; Gonzales, V.; Gonzalez; Guillen; Gutierrez; Hardcastle; Harper-Brown; Hartnett; Hernandez Luna; Hilderbran; Hochberg; Howard, D.; Huberty; Hughes; Jackson; Johnson; King, S.; King, T.; Kolkhorst; Kuempel; Larson; Lozano; Lucio; Mallory Caraway; Marquez; Martinez; Martinez Fischer; McClendon; Menendez; Miles; Miller, D.; Miller, S.; Muñoz; Naishtat; Oliveira; Parker; Pickett; Quintanilla; Reynolds; Riddle; Rodriguez; Sheets; Smith, T.; Solomons; Strama; Taylor, V.; Thompson; Turner; Veasey; Vo; Walle; White; Workman; Zedler; Zerwas
Present, not voting – Mr. Speaker(C)
Absent, Excused – Morrison; Woolley
Absent – Keffer; Peña; Raymond; Villarreal
