Good news, if it goes anywhere. The Texas Senate approved a bill to regulate short-term lenders on Monday night, a milestone some thought the chamber wouldn’t reach after a personal and divisive floor fight on Thursday. But with the measure’s author, state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, calling the highly-altered bill an “ugly baby,” it remains [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Rodney Ellis’
Redistricting remains a partisan issue
We’re not surprised by this, right? Amarillo Sen. Kel Seliger offered a redistricting bill to the Senate State Affairs Committee that would formally adopt interim maps drawn by a federal court in San Antonio last year. The maps for Congressional, state Senate and House districts were used for the 2012 election while a federal court [...]
Court of inquiry issues arrest warrant for Ken Anderson
Wow. A judge issued an arrest warrant for former Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson Friday, after finding probable cause to believe Anderson withheld critical evidence in Michael Morton’s 1987 murder trial. Judge Louis Sturns concluded his court of inquiry by charging Anderson, who is now a state district judge, with tampering with government records [...]
Bad ideas never die
And so we find ourselves once again talking about tax breaks for yacht buyers. From capping the sales tax on yachts to phasing out the state business levy, some lawmakers are pushing for tax breaks even as others say the system is already riddled with too many special-interest exemptions. The breaks are most often cast [...]
Davis says she’s not running for Governor next year
So much for that. State Sen. Wendy Davis, who has emerged as one of the most visible Democrats in the Capitol this session, says she has no plans to run for governor in 2014, but will seek another term representing Fort Worth next year. “I’m running for my Senate district in 2014, and hopefully earning [...]
Why do we give tax breaks to country clubs?
As you know, I’ve talked before about sunsetting tax expenditures. Sens. John Carona and Rodney Ellis have filed a bill to require a periodic review of the many exemptions, exceptions, and other special cases in the tax code, with the aim of requiring legislative approval to renew or extend them. This is a good idea [...]
Senate passes its budget
Let the damning with faint praise for this jerry-rigged excuse for not adequately funding our needs yet not eviscerating them as badly as last time begin. The Texas Senate approved a $195.5 billion two-year budget Wednesday, with Democratic state Sens. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth and Sylvia Garcia of Houston voting against the spending plan. [...]
Reciprocal discovery
There’s a bit of controversy brewing over one of the criminal justice reforms that have been proposed. The bill at issue was filed on deadline day. Senate Bill 1611 would enact uniform discovery requirements in criminal cases across Texas. It would require prosecutors to give defense lawyers evidence in their files and to include essentially [...]
Not so fast on the North Forest charter plan
Not everyone is convinced that the plan to allow a consortium of charter schools to take over North Forest ISD is a good idea. In interviews Monday, state Rep. Senfronia Thompson and Sens. Rodney Ellis and John Whitmire, all Democrats, voiced reservations about the last-ditch attempt to prevent the annexation of North Forest to Houston [...]
TSTA polls about public education
From the inbox, via the TSTA: A strong majority of Texas voters support using some of the $12 billion in the state’s Rainy Day Fund to restore the $5.4 billion cut from the public education budget two years ago, and the support is strong across party lines, a poll commissioned by the Texas State Teachers [...]
Patrick files his own voucher bill
I guess if you want something done right, you do it yourself. Ending speculation over when — or whether — his widely promoted school choice legislation would emerge, state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, has filed a bill creating a business tax scholarship for students to attend private schools. The Equal Opportunity Scholarship Program, or Senate [...]
More on sunsetting tax expenditures
I say again, this is a good idea that really needs to happen. The Texas tax code is rich with tax breaks. There are tax breaks for industries relocating to the state and for anyone with an Internet connection. Tax exemptions for groceries and bottled water. Tax holidays for back-to-school supplies. Tax exemptions for golf [...]
Gubernatorial speculation: Mike Villarreal and Bill White
A few days back, BOR had a post about who was on deck for 2014, and the first two candidates they speculated about for Governor were two I had not talked about here before, State Rep. Mike Villarreal and 2010 candidate and former Houston Mayor Bill White. (They also listed State Sen. Kirk Watson, but [...]
Bike trail on utility rights-of-way bills filed
This is a big show of support for making bike trails on CenterPoint’s rights of way happen. Houston voters last fall approved a $166 million bond measure to expand the city’s trail system, to be matched by $105 million in private donations via the Houston Parks Board. About 78 miles of trails would get built, [...]
Medicaid expansion pressure is having an effect
Despite the mountains of evidence in its favor, I still can’t say that I see a path to Medicaid expansion in Texas. But stories like this do give me some hope. Adamantly opposed to expanding Medicaid coverage under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst had seemingly [...]
One big happy pro-gambling expansion family
If the pro-gambling forces in the state all join hands and agree to work together, will this finally be the year that gambling expansion gets a vote? Maybe. John Montford, chairman of Let Texans Decide, a coalition of gaming companies, track operators, trade groups and others who want Texas to legalize casinos, has met with [...]
Sunsetting tax expenditures
Sens. John Carona and Rodney Ellis have the right idea. Over the past 18 months, many of our constituents told us they have trouble finding a reliable, accurate and up-to-date source of information on these tax breaks, exemptions and special treatments — often called tax preferences or loopholes. Unfortunately, so do we. The Legislature makes [...]
How about Ellis 2014?
Michael Hurta makes an observation. The only Democratic legislator in Texas who is not up for reelection in 2014 yet also has seven figures in his campaign bank account is Rodney Ellis. Will we hear any Ellis for Governor rumors before session is done? You can see a copy of Sen. Ellis’ January report here. [...]
I’m glad someone is optimistic about the possibility of Medicaid expansion in Texas
Because I sure can’t say that I’m optimistic about it happening. State Senator Rodney Ellis, Democrat of Houston, said fiscal conservatives have an incentive to reach an agreement “because the alternative is going to cost us much more economically and dig a much deeper hole in our budget.” Some Democratic lawmakers have already proposed legislation [...]
Support Senate Concurrent Resolution 2
Until something is done at the federal level about the awful Citizens United ruling, there’s not much states can do about it. One thing they can do is tell the feds that they want them to take action against this ill-considered expansion of corporate power. State Sen. Rodney Ellis has filed Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 [...]
Not dead yet
As they say, reports of their deaths have been greatly exaggerated. Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Don Sumners said Monday that he would not purge from the voter roll before the November election any of the 9,018 citizens who received letters from his office in recent days notifying them that they may be dead and are [...]
Why better eyewitness ID procedures matter
Because bad eyewitness ID procedures can lead to the wrong people being executed. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, stopped short of claiming Texas wrongfully executed suspect Carlos DeLuna for the February 1983 murder of store clerk Wanda Lopez. Gallego, however, said the way Corpus Christi police handled the suspect’s identification [...]
More trouble for TAPPS
Maybe they just can’t help themselves. Even as they face calls for reform, TAPPS board members also face a fundamental question in the Beren Academy controversy: whether to discipline Beren for a rules violation or to let the matter slide, the group’s executive director said Monday. Edd Burleson, executive director of the Texas Association of [...]
Examining the voter ID lie
I’ve complained quite a bit at how the media in Texas lazily reports the voter ID issue as a simple “he said/she said” dispute when a cursory examination of the facts shows how ridiculous the pro-voter ID case is, so I’ll give the Chron some credit for this story that asks whether the facts justify [...]
Catholic schools doing the right thing
I’ve had a lot of disagreements with the Catholic Church on policy matters lately, but this is something I applaud. The organization that represents Texas’ Catholic high schools on Thursday called for a comprehensive review of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, calling TAPPS’ treatment of Jewish and Muslim schools unacceptable. “Failure to [...]
News flash: The voter ID law will do exactly what it was intended to do
And that is to make it harder to vote. Mostly for the poor, the elderly, college students, and minorities. This is a feature, not a bug. The state’s contested voter ID law could provoke widespread complications in the upcoming presidential elections, with as many as 18 percent of all registered voters across Texas apparently lacking [...]
Court of inquiry appointed in Morton case
Maybe now we’ll get some answers. A special court will examine whether Georgetown District Judge Ken Anderson acted improperly when, as Williamson County’s district attorney in 1987, he prosecuted Michael Morton for a murder the authorities now acknowledge he did not commit. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson convened a court of inquiry Thursday [...]
Court of inquiry recommended in Morton case
Good. Former Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson should face a court of inquiry to examine allegations that he hid evidence that could have spared Michael Morton from a wrongful murder conviction and almost 25 years in prison, a state district judge ruled Friday. The finding means District Judge Sid Harle found probable cause to [...]
Texas files suit to preclear voter ID
They’re a mighty busy bunch at the OAG these days. The Texas attorney general’s office today filed suit against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice to have the state’s controversial voter ID law implemented without further delay. The law, Senate Bill 14 by state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, was scheduled [...]
The Tour de Houston 2012
If you’re not into long distance running, perhaps you might like to go on a long bike ride around town? If so, you will be glad to hear that the Tour de Houston is coming back after a year’s absence. From the press release: Mayor Annise Parker and Senator Rodney Ellis will ride along with [...]
TCEQ denies Valero tax break
Good. Texas environmental regulators have rejected Valero Energy Corp.’s request for a tax break that cities, counties and school districts feared would lead to devastating cuts to their budgets. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality denied the request because the San Antonio-based oil giant could not show an environmental benefit at its six Texas refineries [...]
It’s not “he said, she said” if one of them is factually correct
This Chron story from Monday about a mishap at the County Clerk’s office really annoys me for what it doesn’t say. A manual being using to train election judges for next week’s elections contains inaccurate information, reflecting a new voter identification law that has not yet taken effect, Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart said Monday. [...]