The Texas House Monday night approved a bill to strip pension benefits from lawmakers and other elected officials who are convicted of public corruption, but watchdog groups say it is still a very low bar for lawmakers to be held to, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"This is good news, sort of," said Carol Birch, legislative counsel for the watchdog group 'Public Citizen.'
"Legislators have already passed a law ending themselves and other public officials to their home districts for prosecution--reducing the likelihood of convictions," she said.
Birch was referring to a measure approved in the 2015 session which dismantled the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney's Office, and ordered that any statewide elected official or legislator charged with a crime instead be tried in his or her home county.
Supporters of the 2015 law argued that Travis County is biased against Republicans, pointing to almost comical prosecutions of top Republican officials like Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both of which ended up with the charges dropped.
But opponents of the law point out that the prosecutors and judges in the lawmakers' home counties are likely to be political cronies of the lawmaker, lessening a chance of conviction.
The pensions granted to elected state officials are amazing, and are something that today's private sector can only dream about.
For example, when Perry was running for President in 2012, it was revealed that, in addition to his $150,000 salary as governor, Perry was receiving an nearly $90,000 a year in pensions from his time as Lieutenant Governor, Agriculture Commissioner, and a State Representative.