Exclusive: Governor says 'everybody's losing' in finance impasse

10:05 PM CDT on Friday, August 12, 2005

By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry admonished his fellow Republican leaders, House Speaker Tom Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, on Friday, saying they should turn down the rhetoric and stop letting personalities get in the way of state business.

On the day Mr. Craddick began airing a radio ad that criticized the Senate's school finance efforts, Mr. Perry said that the public expects better than "the lobbing of verbal grenades."

"There has been too much focus by the House and Senate on who gets credit, whose plan wins, who can go back and say we out-negotiated him, we won," the governor said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. "The fact of the matter is nobody's winning. Everybody's losing."

And acknowledging that Texans are frustrated by the failure, Mr. Perry plans to hit the road to build support for his initiatives on education and taxes.

The mounting frustration and blame over school finance issues have been simmering over the long summer, since the House and Senate failed to reach agreement in the final hours of the regular session that ended in May.

Mr. Perry has called them back into session twice more, but the two houses, both dominated by Republicans, have failed to agree on new taxes that would offset a property tax reduction, or on education initiatives and a school finance overhaul.

Alexis DeLee, a spokeswoman for Mr. Craddick, said the speaker wanted to get out the message that he thought the Senate plan fell short of meaningful school reform and that he "wasn't willing to pass a bill just to say we passed a bill."

She pointed out that the governor, while criticizing Mr. Craddick's radio ad, took to the radio airwaves himself this summer to push his own school plan.

Aides to Mr. Dewhurst declined to comment, other than to refer to an earlier statement that said the Senate will "continue working toward a better school system that we can all be proud of in Texas."

Mr. Perry, asked if he should shoulder some of the blame for the impasse and deteriorating relations, said only that he has pushed for lawmakers to pass legislation.

"If it's about taking the blame for bringing them here, I'll take my full measure. We ran for office to get the job done," he said.

Mr. Perry said he has laid out plans that would work, but they have withered under opposition from education groups, businesses who would face new taxes and consumers who would face hefty sales and cigarette tax increases.

He indicated that once the session ends next week, he intends to take the plans he has championed – including property appraisal caps and revenue caps on cities and counties – out on the campaign trail. Lawmakers debated those issues and have rejected them.

Asked if that meant he was running for re-election against the inaction of a Republican Legislature, he said: "We're going to have the opportunity to take that to the people of Texas and have a rigorous debate about it.

"I'm running on the issues," he said.

He said that Republicans have faced tough issues before but that on the question of passing a $7 billion tax bill to fund property tax reduction, they have balked.

"This one has stumped them at the moment, as it has Legislatures in the past," he said.

Mr. Perry said that he knows lawmakers are frustrated, but that so are constituents.

He said he spoke to a college classmate recently who asked, "Why can't y'all get the job done down there?"

"I didn't have a very good answer for him," Mr. Perry said.

He said he is not worried about critics who question his leadership abilities. "That is politics," Mr. Perry said.

E-mail choppe@dallasnews.com