CAPITOL LETTERS

Two shoulda-been shoo-ins that Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, wound up needing help on: Adding "under God" to the Texas pledge, and the Jessica Laws fry-the-child-rapists bill.

Like I said. Shoo. In.

Remember when Dan Gattis had to grab her from the brink when she almost lost Jessica's Laws?

Well, today she got huffy at Rep. Scott Hochberg over her pledge bill, which passed with flying colors (get it?) last night right before 1 a.m. During the final passage today, Hochberg, admitting that it was late last night and he wasn't on top of his game, tried to debate her.

She got annoyed. "You couldn't have thought of this last night?" Then she left the mic while someone was .

Newsflash: It's perfectly legal to debate bills that are on the floor, before the vote.

So Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, chairman of the House Culture, Recreation and Tourism committee that passed the bill to the floor, had to take the mic and answer questions for her. Again.

Not that the pledge bill would have failed. It had 90 co-sponsors, for cryin out loud. So I wonder why she didn't want to - or couldn't - defend it from the front mic.

p.s. Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, went up to the mic earlier today and introduced his bill something like this: "This bill regarding the egulation of state banks and state trust companies under God."

The first part i'm kind of fudging. The "under God" part was hilarious.