Passing the Bill
CRITICAL MASS AND THE PASSAGE OF HEALTH FREEDOM LEGISLATION IN THE STATE OF TEXAS
When someone uses the term “critical mass,” most scientifically literate people immediately associate it with the field of nuclear physics. Indeed, in that field critical mass is the amount of nuclear material which, when placed together, can precipitate a nuclear chain reaction.
However, “critical mass” has wide applicability to other fields as well. In particular, it is a crucially important concept when dealing with the political and legislative arena. There, critical mass is defined as the amount of people and resources which can be successfully applied to the enactment of a particular piece of legislation.
The history of complementary and alternative health legislation in this state is littered with numerous attempts on the part of different groups to attempt to pass laws benefiting their particular members. All of them have failed. While each of the bills had different particulars, one element common to all stands out: none of the bills had sufficient critical mass of one kind or another to enable successful passage.
Why is that? There are several reasons. Some of the bills were too narrowly drawn to generate sufficient popular and legislative support. Others, such as the 1997 bill which attempted to enact licensure of naturopathic doctors, had the additional weakness of running afoul of powerful interest groups, e.g., the Texas Medical Association. Still others, such as the dietitians’ bill defeated during the 2005 legislative session, attempted to enact exclusionary provisions to that group’s benefit, thus generating a huge grassroots response in opposition. Again, in each case the common element was that the bills generated insufficient critical mass to ensure successful passage.
The second common element with all these failed efforts is that they did not have large enough financial resources, in combination with popular support, at their disposal to ensure success. A late 1990s effort to attract support for a naturopaths-only registration bill raised only $200. The bill died, and with it the organization sponsoring the bill. Estimates from separate legislative experts disclose that the minimum financial resources necessary for successful passage of any Texas bill, absent overwhelming grass roots support, vary from $50,000 to $120,000.
The need for critical mass is the reason why the Texas Health Freedom Coalition exists. If history has proven that the various subgroups of the complementary and alternative health community cannot successfully enact legislation on their own, then it stands to reason that their chances are greatly increased if they band together. But how is that to be accomplished?
The first and most necessary prerequisite is that there exists broad agreement as to the overall goals of the group. This requires that the different subgroups be willing to subsume their own individual desires and agendas for the good of the entire group. It also means that the agenda of the combined group be sufficiently broad and inclusive to generate agreement across subgroup lines.
Second, the goals of the group must be carefully drawn so as to not generate such vocal opposition that any proposed bill the group introduces is “dead on arrival.” In the case of the 1997 naturopathic licensing bill, the Texas Medical Association was so vehemently opposed that they directed the personal physicians of all the legislators to call and lobby personally for the bill’s defeat. Obviously, any Coalition bill must be carefully drawn to avoid such opposition.
Third, the goals of the group, as reflected in the bill, must be seen by the citizenry at large, and the complementary and alternative health care community in particular, as being beneficial to their collective interests. This requires both a large number of complementary and alternative health care professionals affiliated with the Coalition to support and advocate the bill before their clients and the public in general, and a significant number of that same group to be actively involved in its successful enactment.
This in turn means that group members must be willing to assume organizational positions which materially enhance the chances of the bill’s success, such as legislative watch, bill drafting, lobbying, public affairs, etc. NO bill will reach the status of law without this level of involvement.
Finally, there must be sufficient financial resources available to the group to enable it to both support its own activities and, when necessary, to hire lobbyists of sufficient political stature who can positively influence the legislators to support the bill. While the influence of lobbyists varies from state to state, in the state of Texas the evidence is clear and unmistakable: bills don’t get passed, especially controversial bills, without influential lobbyists supporting and advocating them. That means that the group must have the financial resources to hire such a lobbyist.
While the ideal would be that the majority of people directly involved in any such group are ordinary citizens (after the “citizen-legislator” model), the reality is that complementary and alternative health professionals are uniquely situated to serve as leaders of such a movement. Because their very livelihood depends on a favorable health freedom legislative environment, they are usually the most passionate and vocal proponents of this type of legislation.
At the same time, they are uniquely suited, by virtue of their education, qualifications, and degree of familiarity with the issues, to serve as expert advocates, especially when encountering opposition from entrenched interests. As such, complementary and alternative health professionals serve as a useful interface between the general public, the legislature and other interest groups on these issues.
The bottom line here is that there are really three kinds of critical mass required: the first is a sufficient degree of general public support; the second is a sufficient number of people who are willing to actively work to achieve the group’s goals; the third is the necessary amount of financial support, without which the other two kinds of critical mass are unable to be successfully applied in Texas.
