The Houston Chronicle's Matt Stiles has a great profile today of state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston.

A snippet:

The jovial, raspy-voiced Ellis has pursued an ambitious legislative agenda for nearly two decades in the Senate, where he’s amassed a significant list of accomplishments. He’s known for pushing long-shot bills, especially criminal-justice reforms, and persistently waiting for them to ripen.

“Occasionally, Senator Ellis will pick an issue whose time has not yet come, but that’s the legislative process, in that sometimes it takes a little time so we can get a consensus and a majority,” said Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican, who calls Ellis one of the state’s “brightest, most charismatic senators.”

In 1991, for example, he introduced a hate-crimes bill that went nowhere. Two years later, he introduced it again, getting a scaled-down version passed. He continued working on the idea until he won passage of provisions to strengthen the law in 2001.

The story mentions our recent piece on Ellis' work for an investment firm that stood to profit from a bond issue by the Houston Independent School District -- a bond issue Ellis had publicly supported.

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