You are here: Home >> Southwest Austin >> People >> Elliott Naishtat, candidate for Texas House of Representatives, District 49

Elliott Naishtat, candidate for Texas House of Representatives, District 49

Attention: open in a new window.

Written by Christi Covington Friday, 26 September 2008

Elliott Naishtat, Democrat (Incumbent)

Texas House of Representatives candidate (running unopposed) • District 49

463-0668 • elliott.naishtat@house.state.tx.us
Served in district: Since 1991
Education: Bachelor’s degree, Queens College; master’s in social work, University of Texas; law degree, University of Texas
Career: VISTA volunteer and trainer in Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, staff counsel for Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, director of the UT School of Social Work’s Legislative Training Program, private law practice, adjunct assistant professor at St. Edward’s University

Q. What legislation would you like to author for the next legislative session?: A. I used to chair the Human Services Committee for the Democratic Party, and my focus ever since I got elected, and even before, has been on health and human services. I originally came to Texas from New York City as a VISTA volunteer, [which is] Volunteers In Service To America. Today you hear more about AmeriCorps, but VISTA was the original War on Poverty program created by Lyndon Johnson and modeled after the Peace Corps, which John F. Kennedy started.
So there are a couple of pieces of legislation. One has to do with Medicaid and CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program]. Last session, we authorized 12-month continuous eligibility [for CHIP]. It had been six months, so a family had to go back and be recertified. We fixed that in CHIP, but we haven’t done that for children’s Medicaid. [Eligibility] is still six months. We wanted to expand it, so you don’t have to go back and be recertified every six months. With CHIP, I want to fund the reinstatement of about 100,000 low-income children who lost their coverage in 2003. We have made progress in the last two sessions, but there are still about 100,000 children who don’t have CHIP and are eligible. Also, right now, if you are a family between 100 to 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, you are eligible for CHIP. We want to expand it so that kids and families up to 300 percent of the Federal Poverty Level would be able to buy into the program.
Q. You serve on the County Affairs Committee. Will county authority change?: A. It is a serious issue. Just look at Travis County and see how the hands of the county commissioners and the county judge are tied with their inability to meaningfully regulate land use and manage growth. Rep. Valinda Bolton and I are eager to introduce legislation dealing with local land use authority, so counties like Travis, urban counties and counties experiencing tremendous population growth, would have ordinance-making or land use authority to regulate and manage land fills, roads, air and water quality and development. Counties should be able to do, at the county level through ordinance-making authority, what cities can do, especially in respect to health and safety issues. What we are talking about, in many cases, is simply giving counties ordinance-making authority and, in some situations, expanding that.
Q. What was one of your most memorable experiences serving in the Texas Legislature?: A. One of my most memorable experiences as a member of the House took place in 2003 when 51 of us Democratic members returned to the Capitol from Ardmore, Okla., and we were welcomed home as Texas heroes by several thousand people. We had broken a quorum and journeyed from Ardmore to stop Tom Delay from pushing through a partisan, controversial and unnecessary congressional redistricting bill in the middle of the decade. Ultimately, Delay’s bill was passed and resulted in Austin being carved up into three separate congressional districts.
Q. What will be some of the major issues during the session next spring?: A. Some major issues addressed will include public education, specifically funding formulas, accountability, special needs students and bilingual education, career and technology education and how we calculate GPAs.
Directly related to public education will be the ongoing issues of property tax relief and appraisal reform and efforts to revise or eliminate the new business margins tax, which is hurting small business owners. There will be competing interests related to a projected $2 billion to $4 billion budget surplus, ranging from further lowering property taxes to adequately funding key health and human service programs and education.
Q. What other legislation do you plan to author?: A. I will have legislation to ban the disposal of electronic waste, including computers and televisions in landfills, and require all manufacturers of electronic products to take back and recycle e-waste. We do have a law right now, the Take Back Law, for computers, but it also has to include televisions.
This [other] one is controversial, and it has to do with medicinal marijuana. This would be for a person with a bona fide medical condition like cancer or AIDS, multiple sclerosis, etcetera, following a medical recommendation from a doctor. It can’t be a prescription because that’s against the law. A doctor could say, “You have multiple sclerosis, and I can see how much pain you’re in. You might want to try marijuana for medicinal purposes.” If they get arrested for using it and they go to court, “They can say, ‘Look at me. I am not a criminal. This helps me stay alive. This helps me to live with debilitating pain. This helps me to have a job.” The jury can say, “Go home.” It is called an affirmative defense where if they are doing this and the police can bust them, they can explain their situation.