WHEN CONSERVATIVES DABBLE IN PROGRESSIVISM

There are, suddenly, a couple of freshets of progressive impulse from
political barrens ordinarily known instead for their aridity.

The Texas House of Representatives not only has passed a hate-crimes bill
but has included in it -- quick, hide the children -- sexual orientation as
a covered category, along with race, gender and religion.

And an Arizona Supreme Court study reports that after a year's experience
with the referendum-enacted Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act,
the new policies have cut both drug use and crime -- and have saved money to
boot -- by not sending users to prison.

Arizona voters enacted the proposition in 1996 by 65 percent to 35. It
requires that nonviolent users charged with possession receive mandatory
probation and treatment instead of prison sentences. It earmarks a liquor tax
to pay for placing drug offenders into targeted programs and sets up a
Parents' Commission on Drug Education and Prevention to run youth education.

The court study finds that in its first full year, the policy kept 2,622
offenders out of prison and placed 98 percent in recommended programs.
Seventy-seven percent of those tested drug-free after completing treatment.
(Unusually high: Expect some erosion over time.) Into the bargain -- with
treatment running $16 a day and
prison $50 -- taxpayers came out $2.6 million to the good.

The court report predicts, as well, "an increase in the quality of life
conditions of this population such as improved family and social
relationships, increased work productivity and wages, and decreased health
system costs."

The prospects for the Texas House's dabble in the mildly progressive are iffier.

In the past, the House had balked at hate-crime laws while the Senate was
amenable, but now that the House has turned around, the Senate, with a new
Republican majority, is questionable.

And a question mark hangs over Gov. George W. Bush, too. (Indeed, question
marks are stacking up there, as Bush, keen not to wreck his front-runner
status for the GOP presidential nomination, avoids dicey policy choices that
could estrange one or another of his party's demanding ideological
factions.) Bush in the past has supported hate-crimes legislation
generically but had never addressed the sexual orientation specific. Can he
stand up to the GOP's homophobic fringe?

Even in their mildest forms, hate-crime laws abrade conservatives. Add
sexual orientation and the religious and cultural right wings go more or
less nuts. (Isn't it odd that conservatives, who usually want to imprison
everybody else just on general principles, won't punish the terrorist intent
that gives hate-motivated crime its extra onus?) However the statehouse
politics work out, a recent statewide poll found strong majority support for
hate-crimes legislation, with 76 percent of Texans in favor of covering gays.

Imagine. A referendum for liberal drug laws in Arizona and popular support
for protecting gays from hate crime in Texas. The people are lapping their
politicians.

Tom Teepen writes for Cox Newspapers.
His e-mail address is teepencolumn@coxnews.com