We’re fast approaching the “you just don’t understand” season of the Texas Legislature.
The comment is inevitably directed at constituents who express frustration when long-promised action on publicly popular legislation fails to materialize.
So, with Texas’ legislative session about to begin, you can expect to hear it with frustrating regularity.
The real problem isn’t that the citizenry doesn’t understand the legislative process; it is that we understand all too well the lack of policy results.
Whenever the ideas or results of politicians are criticized by the public, far too many elected
officials will lash out with one of several versions of that “you don’t understand” cliche.
One of my favorites is, “You didn’t attend the meetings at the Capitol where we hatched this scheme, so you cannot criticize it now.”
Well, by definition, 30 million Texans were not in those meetings. That does not, however, negate anyone’s right to speak out about the direction of legislation… or lack thereof.
The arrogance of suggesting otherwise reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the roles of citizens and elected officials. Citizens set the agenda that public servants are supposed to implement. Failure to do so is the politicians’ error, not the citizens’.
If every Texan is expected to participate in every segment of the creation of every policy, then the holders of public office are more superfluous than subtitles on a silent movie.
The people are allowed to miss every single millisecond of the legislative session and the secret-squirrel backroom “strategy” meetings, yet still opine loudly and vigorously about the results. What the politicians don’t understand, or simply refuse to acknowledge, is that is how our system was designed to work.
Never forget: Citizens are the masters in our republic, and elected officials are the servants.
The citizenry – the masters – set the expectations and leave it to their
servants (the elected officials) to get the job done. Sure, the details of the legislative process are interesting and sometimes informative. But, in the end, those details and even the process itself often serve as a weapon of distraction wielded by politicians more interested in serving themselves than the people.
It is up to the politicians to make sure their processes produce the results Texans want. The politicians need to understand a very basic truth: the citizens don’t want excuses; they expect results.