For twenty-years or more the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce has hosted the West Texas Legislative Summit. For a number of years it was a very good event. I stopped going several years ago. As the political climate changed the event began to change. It turned into a time for Republican elected officials, Federal and State, to praise themselves, tout their right wing ideology and attack Washington in general and liberals and Democrats in particular. Speakers also began to include a heavy dose of partisan insults, jokes and criticism of others. Not policy based, but personal In my opinion It had become a rally for the local GOP power base and big business, in particular the oil and gas industry. So I stopped attending. This year, as the new Democratic County Chair of Tom Green County I decided to attend and hear what they were talking about and see if things had changed. They had not.
This year's WTLS was another lost opportunity. There was good information provided and it did include two border county Democratic state legislators to talk about the border. But they were relegated to one panel, and the very the last panel of the day and were drowned out by Sen. Charles Perry. There was no real dialogue about policy solutions or creating the critical will to address immigration reform, and the many problems created by or alternatives to the state continuing to pour billions of dollars into creating a hard-militarized border.
The rest of the sessions were focused on industry and the things we need to do to promote industry in our state. Oil and Gas and Energy as usual led the discussion. While the information provided by some of the panelists was informative, much of the point of the discussion was about avoiding, stopping or repealing government regulation, or just getting the government out of the way so these large, wealthy, heavily capitalized industries can make more money off the people.
Water infrastructure projects were also discussed, particularly about reuse of produced water from the oil patch. But the focus again was on industry, what industry and future industries needs for water were so the economy can keep growing. The needs of our dry desert environments, small towns, the poor and the current residents of rural West Texas were mentioned rarely, and only in passing. Climate change, its impacts and what we should be doing about it were never mentioned even though they are a necessary part of the discussion.
The hubris displayed by our elected and business leaders was frightening when you think of the vast scopes of the problems, the billions of dollars of our tax dollars they propose to spend, the experimental and development status of some of these new technologies, the lack of any serious opposing viewpoints being presented, the externalities and the unintended consequences of some of these ideas. Our children and grandchildren's future is at stake, I agree. That is why WTLS does San Angelo and the West Texas community a disservice by not presenting a real summit of government, industry and thought leaders from across the political, scientific, and economic spectrum.
In my opinion, the WTLS also lacked focus on West Texas and the issues that are important to West Texans. In this crucial legislative year for public education, it was not even mentioned. Neither was the decline in rural hospitals and healthcare. It did not touch on what needs to be done to promoted economic development, diversity and the sustainability of rural places. How do we keep our towns from drying up and blowing away? The question was not even asked.
Then of course, there is the partisan nature of the event. Nothing could personify that more than former Governor and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry as the key note speaker. While he added nothing new to the discussion about any of the topics of the summit, he did very well at his primary job--cheerleading and campaigning for Donald Trump. I suppose Rick is angling for a job in a second Trump Administration, and his words in San Angelo helped shore up his chances.
Perhaps the organizers did not know he would do that. If they did not realize that would happen, then they were naive. To allow the former Governor to turn what is supposed to be a regional non-partisan legislative summit into twenty minutes of praise for the GOP candidate for President and not giving equal time to someone to speak about how disastrous for the country that would be, for both national security and domestic policy reasons, was ill advised.
The only conclusion I can come to is that, in its present form, the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce's West Texas Legislative Summit adds nothing to the public dialogue and we would be better off without it. It does more to fuel political and ideological division in San Angelo and West Texas than bring people together. Not everyone in San Angelo or West Texas shares the same point of view. If we changed the name to the West Texas Republican Business Legislative Summit, at least there would not be any confusion about what to expect.
It is long past time we start hearing from and listening to other voices than our own, and those who think like we do, if we want to create a great place to live and do business.
Jon Mark Hogg is a West Texas Lawyer, Democratic County Chair of Tom Green County, Texas and co-founder of The 134 PAC.
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