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Dan Gattis/Patrick Rose Transcript

V/O: Described as divisive and inefficient, the political process is often portrayed in a negative light. But behind the scenes, legislators are solving the problems of the American people with compromise and cooperation.

DG: There is nothing in life that isn’t political in some form or fashion.

PR: Political parties are what you make of them. This government is what you make of it. The government is only as good as the people who are involved in it.

DG: Learning politics is learning how to exist in society in today’s life.

DG: I get here at the capital at about 6:30 -7:00 in the morning, which means I have to leave pretty early. I start by coming into this office. Getting the lay of the land and figuring out what the schedule is for today. On the appropriations committee, we start committee meetings fairly early in the morning.

PR: All the bills are referred by the Speaker to their respective committees and whatever committees you’re assigned to that you sit on. You spend a lot of time listening to testimony hearing bills having bills introduced by your colleagues. To the committee, voting on those bills.

DG: If your not in a committee meeting, you’ll have meetings w/ constituents, meeting with people on different issues, coming in this office and that will last usually until about 6-7:00 usually you have a dinner that you need to attend with somebody along those lines.

PR: The bulk of the time that you spend on the floor either debating or waiting or working or whatever it is, on the floor is toward the middle and later part of the session.

DG: There are some day though that our committee meets go til to 2, 3, 4:00 in the morning.

PR: And those are the long nights, those are when the very contested bills that have 150, 200, 250 amendments to them. And all the back and forth there so you get a lot of time on your seat on the floor.

DG: Its fun though.

DG: You cannot ignore the other side. The Democrats can not ignore the Republicans in the crafting of their legislation. The Republicans cannot completely ignore the Democrats in crafting their legislation, nor should they.

PR: And people, god help us, see things, sometimes the same thing, very differently. And that’s a strength for us, not a weakness, I think. And our democracy should honor those differences and respect them.

DG: Each and everything we do in life is affected by the political process and is affected in some form or fashion by the legislature. The classes that you take in high school,

PR: what kind of schools that you have,

DG: what your requirements are to graduate,

PR: how much you pay in tuition,

DG: your job opportunities in the future…

PR: We have a decision to make as a state right now and in the next 5-10 years over whether or not we are going to truly invest in our institutions of higher learning. Those decisions are driven partly by our university heads and by our business community but primarily our legislature needs to wake up to the awareness of the connection between higher education and our economy.

DG: The kids of Texas don’t compete against the kids from New York or California. They compete against the kids from Asia, India, and China and all the other countries around the world.

PR: As you sit in your high school classroom and you think about how much it’s going to cost for college or where you are going to go for college or to how good a school UT or A&M or Texas Tech or Texas State is, as you think through those things, as I did a few years ago, don’t ever underestimate the importance of you calling your legislator.

DG: Every law that ever went into effect over there on that floor was because somebody went to their legislator, their Senator somewhere to fix that problem, and got it through this process. 90% of them are from people that back in my district who recognized a problem and recognized a solution to it and said, “Dan, would you carry it? Will you help me get this passed?”

PR: People can influence the process much easier than they think by picking up the phone or walking into an office. As a legislator, to sell that program, to sell the priority of higher education to the legislature it takes grassroots support from people themselves contacting their legislator so that when I walk up on the house floor in committee in the House higher education committee and talk about the importance of those issues, they’re well informed about how important it is to the people they represent.

DG: My greatest challenge probably in public office, I think, is keeping perspective sometimes. And I think it’s probably every politician’s biggest challenge if they’ll admit it. What happens is you get up here in this capital and it becomes a bubble. Everybody tells you how smart you are and how great you are and “oh, you did so wonderful at this.” If you have good friends that tell you that you really aren’t that smart and you didn’t look that great, then you are in a whole lot better position.

PR: Politics is not a perfect profession but it’s an important one. I think more good people, honest people, moderate people need to be involved in it.