And we have our first curveball of the legislative session. The House voted Tuesday to defeat a must-pass bill reauthorizing the Texas Lottery Commission, a stunning move that casts doubt on the lottery as a whole and may potentially cost the state billions in revenue. House Bill 2197 began as a seemingly routine proposal to [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Lon Burnam’
Student RFID bill gets House hearing
We knew this day would come. Last fall, San Antonio’s Northside ISD began issuing radio-frequency identification (RFID) enhanced student IDs to help with its attendance records. Austin began a small opt-in RFID program last fall, and in 2010, two Houston-area districts began tracking kids with RFID. The trend has gotten national attention. Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) wants to [...]
Marriage equality bill filed
As I said before, some things you do because they’re the right thing to do. State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, filed a bill Thursday to permit same-sex couples to marry, calling it a “Valentine’s Day gift to all Texans.” His measure is one of several bills filed recently that deal with gay rights issues. [...]
Where are the doctors?
The Morning News tries to verify that the Dallas-area providers listed for the new Texas Women’s Health Program are in fact providing health care services to the women in this program as advertised. It goes about as well as you’d expect. A Dallas Morning News survey of 336 contacts listed online for the program showed [...]
School finance dispatches
Some bad news for the state in the school finance lawsuit. State District Judge John Dietz directed state attorneys Wednesday to redo a key study that underestimated the funding advantages of higher-wealth school districts — a blow to the state’s arguments in a school finance lawsuit that current differences among districts are insignificant. Dietz asked [...]
No injunction in state lawsuit for Planned Parenthood
Bummer. Travis County District Judge Stephen Yelenosky on Friday refused to grant Planned Parenthood’s request for a temporary injunction to be included in the Texas Women’s Health Program. “Probable injury is not really sufficient,” said Yelenosky, who ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood at a hearing in December, “… because it is unlikely that the [...]
White Ds and non-white Rs
A few points to make about this. White Democrats are an increasingly vanishing species in the Texas Legislature, where there will be only 10 when the new legislative session starts in early January. The face of the Legislature has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past 25 years, and the state’s rapidly changing demographics are [...]
The out candidates
There are four LGBT candidates running for the Lege this year. Since 2003, when Austin Democrat Glen Maxey left the Texas House, no out LGBT person has served in the Texas Legislature. The Lone Star State is now one of only 18 states that lacks an openly LGBT state legislator, according to the Gay and [...]
Primary news: HD90, HD113, HCDE
State Rep. Lon Burnam has an opponent in March. Fort Worth School Board trustee Carlos Vasquez has announced he will challenge state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, in next year’s Democratic primary. Vasquez, a former elementary school principal, has been on the board since 2008 representing the district’s north side. “After careful consideration I have [...]
Budget passes
It’s official. The Texas House and Senate passed a state budget Saturday that cuts billions from public schools, state universities and health care for the elderly. The $172 billion legislation now goes to Gov. Rick Perry for his signature. Facing a massive revenue shortfall, lawmakers crafted the budget by making cuts and using deferrals rather [...]
From the “Stuff I’d like to see happen but won’t” files
You may recall that one of the LBB recommendations for helping to close the budget gap was to impose a $100 surcharge on the purchase of fuel-inefficient vehicles. I said at the time that I loved the idea but thought it had zero chance of being adopted. This Star-Telegram story about the surcharge does nothing [...]
The state of the state
Is strong, according to Rick Perry. So strong, in fact, that we’re going to kick the legs out of social services, because clearly we don’t need them. When the state faced a budget crisis in 2003, Gov. Rick Perry’s office released a budget proposal that was full of zeros, stating that each agency would have [...]
The Pitts budget
Here it is, and if it is a shock to you, you haven’t been paying attention. The House’s starting-point budget proposal would provide for a total budget of $156.4 billion in state and federal money, a decrease of $31.1 billion, or nearly 17 percent, from the current budget period. The budget proposes nearly $5 billion [...]
We have a number for the hole
There’s actually more than one number that can be used to accurately describe the state budget deficit, depending on what your perspective is, but however you look at it, it’s big and it’s no longer projected or theoretical. State Comptroller Susan Combs today said lawmakers will have $72.2 billion available to spend in general revenue [...]
Potential challenger for Burnam
Via Campos, I see that State Rep. Lon Burnam of Fort Worth may get a primary challenger next year. City Councilman Sal Espino has heard a lot of frustration from constituents about what state lawmakers did not accomplish in the recently completed legislative session. Now, he’s trying to see what he can do about it [...]
Special session coming
Ugh. Speaking to reporters this afternoon at a roundtable on national energy legislation, Gov. Rick Perry said there will definitely be a special legislative session. But he declined to say when, or how many issues it will include. “We’re in the process now of making the decision,” he said. Perry said immediately after this most [...]
Burnam drops impeachment resolution
I had wondered what would happen with Rep. Lon Burnam’s resolution to impeach Sharon Keller, given that we were coming down to the wire and there was a lot of pressing business that needed to be taken care of in a very short period of time. Now I know. Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, today [...]
Lon Burnam
The Star Telegram has a nice profile of Rep. Lon Burnam of Fort Worth, who we all know was anti-Tom Craddick before it was cool. If he were a baseball or basketball player, you’d say he’s one of those guys who does things that don’t show up in the box score. Burnam doesn’t pass a [...]
Burnam makes his case in the papers
State Rep. Lon Burnam writes an op-ed about his resolution to impeach Judge Sharon Keller. Last week, a group of 24 national experts on judicial ethics issued a statement that Judge Keller has consistently demonstrated a lack of impartiality in cases involving criminal defendants like [Michael] Richard that violates their constitutional right to due process [...]
Followup on Keller impeachment resolution
I had a brief conversation with Rep. Lon Burnam about HR480, the House resolution to impeach Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, which had a hearing on Monday. He’s working on getting enough support in the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence to get it voted out of committee and brought to [...]
The Keller impeachment resolution
Rep. Lon Burnam’s resolution to impeach Judge Sharon Keller was scheduled to get a hearing Monday. Burnam vowed that it would come to a vote on the House floor. If that resolution does not move in committee, Burnam said he will seek a majority vote for impeachment on the House floor. But he said he [...]
House hearing set on Keller impeachment resolution
Mark your calendars for Monday, April 27, for that’s when HR480, the resolution filed by State Rep. Lon Burnam back in February that called for the House to begin the impeachment process against Judge Sharon Keller, gets a hearing. From Burnam’s press release: “It is important that the committee be made aware of the public’s [...]
Statewide smoking ban update
Earlier in this session, I thought the odds of a statewide smoking ban getting passed were pretty good. As of this point, however, it appears to be a dicier proposition. The chairman of the House committee considering a proposed statewide workplace smoking ban said [Wednesday] that it’s unclear whether the measure has a future this [...]
The Statesman on the state of beer in Texas
The Statesman visits an issue with which we are familiar. Ever wondered why you can’t go to the store and buy a six-pack of the North by Northwest Restaurant and Brewery’s beer? How about one more: Ever wondered why, in a state of 24 million that ranks second-thirstiest in terms of beer consumption, Texas has [...]
Time again to support your local microbrewer
I’ve mentioned before that the microbrewers are going to try again as they did in 2007 to get a law passed that would allow them to sell their wares at their bottling plants. Here’s an update in the Chron on where that stands. State Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, introduced a bill this week allowing small [...]
Judicial conduct commission moves against Keller
About damn time. The state judicial ethics commission has charged Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the state’s highest criminal court, with violating her duty and bringing discredit upon the judiciary when she declined to allow a death row prisoner to file an after-hours appeal in 2007. The inmate, Michael Richard, was executed about 3 [...]
Burnam files resolution to impeach Justice Keller
State Rep. Lon Burnam (D, Fort Worth) has dropped a little bomb called HR480, the text of which calls for “House of Representatives of the 81st Texas Legislature [to] adopt the following procedures to consider the impeachment of Judge Sharon Keller, Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, for gross neglect of duty [...]
Microbrewers to try again
May they have better luck this time around. A bill has been introduced in the 81st Texas Legislature to allow microbrewers to sell their product on the premises of the brewery. Such sales are currently allowed for winemakers, but not beer producers. A similar bill was filed in the 80th Lege two years ago, but [...]