Floor Pass

One of this session’s hottest issues has been whether Texas will take a Medicaid expansion deal offered by the federal government. Under Medicaid expansion, roughly 1.5 million more Texans would be covered under the health insurance program, while the feds would provide $100 billion to pay for it, and the state would have to pay $15 billion over a 10-year period. Many states have accepted the deal. But Texas’ leaders remain opposed.

Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz will hold a press conference later this morning at the Capitol to reiterate their strong opposition to Medicaid expansion in the state.

The Texas Tribune reports that an unauthorized source involved in the event planning said all three lawmakers will “stand together to demand greater flexibility from the Obama administration to operate the state’s existing health care system for poor children and the disabled as Texas sees fit.”

The Tribune also reports that the Dems are ready with a response press conference led by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio), his brother, San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro, and the Texas Hospital Association.

Weekend Headlines:

1. The Observer‘s Melissa del Bosque reported Friday that some county jails need a bailout. State legislators are looking to more affordable rehabilitative programs rather than filling the state’s 10,000 empty jail beds.

2. Pre-filed budget amendments—in advance of the House budget debate—by House Appropriations Committee Chair Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie) would limit the authority University of Texas System regents would have over the Available University Fund. The Texas Tribune reports regents could lose power over how funds are spent.

3. The Dallas Morning News compiled a brief legislative “crunch-time” summary of where we stand in the session so far.

Line of the Day:

“It’s not the same warm place Austin is. When people speak to me on the elevator, I’m kind of surprised.” —New U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, on the differences between the Texas Legislature and the U.S. Congress, as quoted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

What We’re Watching Today:

1. The House chamber will convene around 2 p.m. today and will probably just hear honorary/congratulatory resolutions. We’re still waiting on the House to pass its version of the budget. The House is scheduled to take up the budget on Thursday. The full Senate doesn’t meet until Tuesday morning.

2. The House Committee on Government Efficiency and Reform will hear a few bills that would change the definition of “information” in the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Texas Public Information Act. That’s always worth keeping an eye on.

3. This morning’s dueling press conferences over Medicaid expansion.

HB 9's outcomes-based funding model. HB 25 would elevate the cap to 25 percent. Chart courtesy the Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Two years ago, Rep. Dan Branch encouraged funding higher education based on “performance” measures like four-year graduation rates. A bill passed last session called on higher education leaders to craft a new performance-based funding model, and use it for up to one tenth of their funding request this year.

Lawmakers will decide later this session whether to go ahead with funding colleges based on performance, but Branch is already moving to expand the practice. Wednesday evening, the House Higher Education committee took up his proposal to raise the cap on performance funding to one quarter of the state’s higher ed spending.

Those performance measures include the total number of bachelor’s degrees awarded and degrees awarded to at-risk students. For community colleges, measure includes the number of entry level math and English courses students finish, and the number of students completing at least 30 course hours.

Performance funding has historically been a controversial approach, but it’s spreading across the country and has support from President Obama. In Texas, it’s found a champion in Branch, the influential Dallas Republican who chairs the higher ed committee.

In a 2011 report from the Texas Center for Education Policy report, University of Texas researcher Angela Valenzuela wrote that the “outcomes” state leaders are likely to prize could leave out students who truly need more time to finish their degrees or who pursue liberal arts, humanities and other subjects that the state deems less critical. Those are precisely the areas that encourage “insightful and sophisticated decision makers,” she wrote. Discouraging them would amount to “potentially compromising the state goal of economic productivity.”

Branch’s new bill would take a gradual approach, raise the cap on performance-based funding to 15 percent for 2016-2017,  then 25 percent after that.

He stumbled last night as he explained how that would work, saying the bill would, “two years from now, plan a budget for the following two years that would move toward the first 15 percent in the first fiscal year of the next budgetary biennium and then 25 percent in the second fiscal year of the—not the coming biennium but the biennium following the coming biennium.”

He got a few raised eyebrows from the confused audience in the committee room, but his proposal didn’t draw much opposition.

Beaman Floyd with The Texas Community College Association said he opposed the bill, but not because he disagrees with outcomes-based funding. Floyd said he doesn’t think the model is strong enough yet to dictate more than 10 percent of university funding. “Part of what we want to do is fully understand the effect of outcomes-based education,” he said.

Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, vehemently approved of the bill, reiterating what he said at a press conference with Branch last month. He said outcomes-based funding is a wake-up call to the Higher Education Coordinationg Board and public higher ed institutions.

“These guys can do a lot better than what they are doing. The way you fund them now is crazy,” he said. “It makes no sense. Tap them on the shoulder. Tell them they have to do a better job.”

facebook.com/RepAllanRitter

Amid a worsening drought, the House overwhelmingly approved a plan to seed the state water plan with $2 billion today. Rep. Allan Ritter (R-Nederland) and his legislative allies shrugged off attempts by their Republican colleagues to significantly alter the legislation. House Bill 4 would create a water bank to pay for water supply projects from new reservoirs to conservation efforts. The proposal has received broad support from business groups, environmentalists, Democrats and Republicans spurred into action by drought and water scarcity. The 2012 state water plan estimates that over the next 50 years, Texas’ water supply will decrease by 18 percent while water demand will increase by 27 percent.

“We can’t control when it rains, but we can control how we use water,” said Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas in a statement. “State funding can help cut water waste, improve water conservation, and steer Texas toward a more sustainable water future.”

Despite the bill’s easy passage (there were 146 ‘ayes’ and just two ‘nos’), tea party-oriented members launched a challenge to key provisions in the bill-and spectacularly failed in what was another defeat for ideological enforcers like Michael Quinn Sullivan and Texans for Prosperity’s Peggy Venable, whose involvement in the spoiler effort lurked just beneath the surface of the debate.

Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) led an effort to remove a key water-conservation provision. HB 4 has earned the support of some conservationists because Ritter included a stipulation that at least 20 percent of the funding go toward water conservation. King’s amendment would’ve gutted that requirement. King’s fellow legislators didn’t buy it though; the amendment was killed with a vote of 104 to 41.

Rep. Van Taylor’s (R-Plano) proposed amendments didn’t go over so well either. Taylor, for one, wanted to ban the transfer of Rainy Day Fund money to get the water bank rolling.

Rep. Lyle Larson (R-San Antonio), in a moment of political drama, called Taylor out for being what he called “disingenuous.” He asked Taylor if, should his proposed amendment pass, he intended to vote for HB 4. Taylor replied that he would still not vote for the bill.

Larson blew up. “If you’re not going to vote for the bill and you’re offering up amendments, I think everyone in this body needs to recognize that. The idea of an amendment is to make the bill better … and what you’re doing I believe is disingenuous, to step up and offer amendments for political reasons, to try to gain some kind of favor instead of trying to make the bill legitimately better.” The House shot Taylor’s amendment down with a vote of 127 to 18.

House Bill 4 has survived relatively unscathed. Next up: House Bill 11, which would authorize the actual transfer of $2 billion to water fund from the state’s (irony alert!) Rainy Day Fund.