Opinion

I remember that my grandmother never missed an episode of the old western tv series “Gunsmoke.” As an adult, I, too, became a fan of the show—in fact, Marshall Matt Dillon is one of my heroes, along with Captain Kirk and “The Rifleman” Lucas McCain, guys with morals and courage who never left a call to do what’s right unanswered (unlike so many in the real world). There’s a curious “Gunsmoke” episode about a wayward aunt of Festus Haggen (Dillon’s right-hand man) who rides into Dodge City looking for a husband. Aunt Theodore is a self-proclaimed preacher down from the hills who wasted no time putting up a still since, as she chides Festus over his concern about illegal moonshine, “Wine and nectar, it’s in the book, and you know that!”

With the 87th Texas Legislative session underway, those of us advocating for the approximately 146,000 state employees were—like other groups—looking for a way to make the case for funding their needs. Then a winter storm brought brutally low temperatures, shaking our power grid and cutting off water for many.

As Texans across the state continue to deal with the damage from the mid-February winter storm, so does the political fallout in Austin.