And the crowd goes wild. Top House and Senate negotiators agreed to a two-year budget for the state of Texas Friday that restores about $4 billion of $5.4 billion in cuts to public education made in 2011. It also creates a path for lawmakers to put $2 billion toward water infrastructure projects. The five House [...]
Posts Tagged ‘special session’
Abbott predicts special session for redistricting
For the first time, someone says out loud the rumor of a special session on redistricting. Attorney General Greg Abbott let House members know in the Republican caucus meeting on Tuesday that he expects and is hoping for a special session on redistricting — sooner than later. Several lawmakers in the meeting confirmed that Abbott [...]
Maybe I buried Medicaid expansion too soon
I still think it’s dead, but I could be wrong about that. The fate of Medicaid reform in Texas could rest solely on an up-or-down vote on the 2014-15 budget. State Rep. John Zerwas, R-Simonton, a member of the conference committee that is hashing out the differences between the House and Senate budget plans, said [...]
Where things stand with two weeks to go in the legislative session
With the Thursday midnight deadline for bills to pass on second reading in the House, I figured this would be a good time to take a look at the status of some major legislation and legislative priorities. There are two weeks left in the regular session, and the specter of overtime is hazy but present. [...]
Perry works against his own stated interests
I don’t understand this at all. A bill that would have increased vehicle registration fees to raise money for transportation projects met its demise in the Texas House on Thursday. House Bill 3664 by state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, was designed to generate money to pay down the state’s transportation-related debt and fund improvements [...]
So where does redistricting stand?
From Texas Redistricting: The Texas Legislature is in the final stretch of its regular session (sine die on May 27), and, at this point, in the calendar, if anything gets done, it looks like it will have to start on the Senate side. Although a couple of redistricting bills – along with some proposals for [...]
Margins tax breaks passed
Someone’s getting a tax break. Probably not you, though. The Texas House on Tuesday tentatively cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s primary business tax — cuts that proponents say will keep the Texas economy humming and opponents argue cost too much. House Bill 500 is the primary legislative vehicle to address the [...]
Water, water, not so fast
So much for that. A major bill on the top of Gov. Rick Perry’s priority list that would authorize spending billions of dollars on state water projects faltered in the Texas House on Monday night after a contentious debate over where to pull the money from. “My understanding is it’s doorknob dead,” the bill’s sponsor, [...]
Weekend legislative threefer
That sound you heard on Friday was Rick Perry stamping his feet if he doesn’t get his way. Gov. Rick Perry is warning state legislators that it could be a long, hot summer in Austin if they don’t pass his top priorities: funding water and transportation projects and cutting business taxes. With a month left [...]
Texas Lottery Commission dies and is reborn
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 [...]
That’ll just about do it for gambling this session
Sen. Carona calls the chances “slim”, but it sounds like slim just left town to me. [Sen. John] Carona, chairman of the Senate’s Business and Commerce Committee, said last week he expected to vote his sweeping gambling bill out of his committee Tuesday. But the morning committee hearing came and went, and Carona declined to [...]
Still pondering Abbott’s redistricting motives
The Trib’s Ross Ramsey wonders what Greg Abbott is up to. Greg Abbott is selling a redistricting nostrum, telling Texas legislators they could cut their legal risks by adopting new political maps right away. It is a hard sell. Lawmakers are getting along so well they practically break out into song every day. Abbott, the [...]
Endorsement watch: GLBT Caucus for Sylvia
From the inbox: The Caucus membership met Wednesday evening to consider endorsement for the vacancy in Senate District 6 created by the passing of Senator Mario Gallegos. Members had to make a very difficult decision between two amazingly qualified and pro-equality candidates, former County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia and State Representative Carol Alvarado. After a lengthy [...]
Calling for a special session
It started with the Texas State Teachers Association. The Texas State Teachers Association today urged Gov. Rick Perry to call the Legislature into special session now to appropriate $2.5 billion from the Rainy Day Fund and head off another round of harmful cuts in local public school budgets for the 2012-2013 school year. “It is [...]
Shapiro backs STAAR delay
This was unexpected. Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said Monday in a letter to [TEA Commissioner Robert] Scott that ninth-graders taking the exams this year should be given a reprieve from the 15 percent requirement during the phase-in of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. “We strongly support the transition to [...]
As always, the hole is bigger than we thought
Remember how the Republicans in the Lege underfunded Medicaid by $4.5 billion, which they will have to tap the Rainy Day Fund in 2013 to deal with, in order to make the budget for this biennium appear to be “balanced”? Turns out we’re going to need a lot more than that. Kudos to the Quorum [...]
Why the budget almost didn’t pass in the special session
You may recall that just before the House passed SB1, which was a must-pass bill for the special session and whose failure would have necessitated a second special session, the House voted it down before reconsidering and passing it on a second attempt. The reason for the near-failure weren’t deeply explored at the time, but [...]
The consolation prize
The Republicans couldn’t get their act together enough to pass the “sanctuary cities” bill, but they did manage to do this. A provision in the approved Senate Bill 1, the special session’s must-pass school finance bill, will require people to prove U.S. citizenship or legal residence before they can renew or get a Texas driver’s [...]
Sine Die, take two
The House followed the Senate out the door yesterday, leaving a bit of unfinished business behind. The Senate’s version of a bill to criminalize intrusive pat-downs by federal agents with the Transportation Security Administration has died in the House, after the chamber couldn’t get the four-fifths vote needed to suspend the rules. The 96-26 vote [...]
House passes budget after brief meltdown
For a few brief moments, it looked like we were heading to double overtime, as Republicans voted down their own budget in the House. The Texas House, in a surprise turn of events late Tuesday afternoon, tentatively voted down a must-pass bill that distributes the pain of school-funding cuts and uses accounting tricks to help [...]
TWIA deal apparently reached
If this pans out we can definitely put a final wrap on the legislative season. Two key state House and Senate negotiators said today that they have reached an agreement on a bill to govern the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, said today that he and his Senate counterpart, Sen. John Carona, [...]
Fiscal and health care bills pass
Here’s one less reason for a special session. One key budget-related bill, Senate Bill 2, won final approval from both chambers this afternoon and is headed to the governor’s desk. SB 2 is an appropriations bill that goes hand-in-hand with Senate Bill 1, the main revenue and school finance vehicle. SB 1 is expected to [...]
How much time will the Lege waste this week on a stunt?
House Speaker Joe Straus got a little frustrated on Friday. Texas House Speaker Joe Straus unleashed a rare verbal assault Friday on an effort to criminalize invasive searches at airports, assailing legislation supported by Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and most of the House. “The bill — without some serious revisions — appears [...]
Down to the wire for “sanctuary cities”
There’s an 11th hour lobbying effort to stop the “sanctuary cities” bill as it is. As two of Texas’ most politically-involved business leaders emerged as opponents, a bill banning “sanctuary cities” lost crucial momentum Friday, raising the possibility the measure will be killed or substantially weakened before the special session of the Texas Legislature ends [...]
Senate approves Wentworth redistricting commission bill
It’ll never get past the House, but bully for Wentworth anyway. The Texas Senate [Wednesday] approved Senate Bill 22, which would create a citizens’ commission to redraw congressional districts. Congressional redistricting is a highly political task now handled by the Legislature. Senate Bill 22, authored by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, would hand the task [...]
GOP finally kills Howard amendment
In the end, this was no surprise. An amendment from Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, that would have directed surplus money from the Rainy Day Fund to pay for enrollment growth in public schools has perished in conference committee. The House voted to attach the measure, which Howard argued was a practical approach that would allow [...]
Senate not inclined to accept Amazon’s bribe
Good for them. It looks like the Texas Legislature is likely to say no — at least for now — to Amazon.com’s proposal to bring 5,000 jobs to the state in exchange for a temporary break on collecting sales tax. State Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, said this morning that the odds were slim the deal [...]
Senate approves TWIA bill
Reform of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Agency was the original reason for this special session. It may yet be the reason for the next special session. Like ringing the bell at the boxing ring, the Senate today approved a bill that is all but certain to restart a brawl with the House over how to [...]
All abortion, all the time
In-fight all you want, Republicans. The clock is ticking. Abortion-rights opponents in the House have threatened to scuttle a comprehensive health care savings bill if negotiators don’t add prohibitions against abortions at public hospitals in cases of severe fetal abnormality. Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, said House-Senate negotiators added “horrible language” to the special session’s big [...]
The strip club tax is on the table
Among the things that conference committee members will be discussing as they try to finalize the budget is a reworking of the strip club tax that was first passed in 2007. This session, while awaiting a ruling on the case from the Texas Supreme Court, lawmakers attempted a preemptive strike. Fearing, as lower courts have [...]
Smoking ban survives Senate committee
The statewide smoking ban still lives. Senate lawmakers pushed a ban on smoking in public places out of committee this afternoon, sending it to the full upper chamber for a vote. Senate Bill 28, which would ban smoking indoors in bars, restaurants and many public places, has failed to make it through past legislative sessions [...]
House passes budget
The main objective of the special session has now been accomplished. But not before one of the House’s biggest homophobes nearly derailed it on Thursday. Lengthy debate on a key budget bill featured many retreads of contentious topics from the regular session — but it was Rep. Wayne Christian’s revival of his famous “pansexual” amendment [...]
Bill in US Senate to make Amazon pay sales taxes
As someone who believes that online retailers like Amazon should collect sales taxes and who believes that federal action will be needed to make that happen, I’m glad to see this. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says he plans to introduce a bill, called the Main Street Fairness Act, mandating that all businesses collect [...]