HOPE BLOOMS IN POLITICALLY ARID STATES

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 non-violent 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. Bush in the
past has supported hate-crime 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 is national correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based
in Atlanta.