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Hot List: Day 136 of the Legislature

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The Lead:

The House and Senate spent most of yesterday at a standoff, waiting for the other to budge on two major pieces of legislation that are key to the state budget. Senate Finance Chair Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands) broke the impasse by introducing House Bill 1025, which is the supplemental spending bill. The House previously supported the bill when it included $200 million in additional spending for education, but Gov. Rick Perry got involved and helped derail the agreement when he told the Senate too much money was allotted to education.

That led to a tense few days between the House and Senate. But everyone apparently came to their senses, and Williams proposed a bill accepted, even lauded, by his Democratic counterparts last night. Under the plan, the basic education allotment per-student-spending would reach $5,040 in 2015, which Williams claimed would be the highest ever.

As the Senate was passing HB 1025, the House finally took up Senate Joint Resolution 1 that it was holding hostage to get the $200 million for schools under HB 1025. The House quickly approved the resolution that asks voters to OK creating the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas, which would distribute $2 billion for water infrastructure projects under HB 1025. With both bills passed, the budget deal can go forward.

Yesterday’s Headlines:

1. Rep. Craig Eiland (D-Galveston) tearfully told the House that he wouldn’t seek reelection to spend more time with his family, as the Texas Tribune reports.

2. Democrats successfully killed all abortion-related bills this session before they got to the House or Senate floors this session, writes the San Antonio Express News.

3. Protestors in favor of Medicaid expansion interrupted a speech yesterday by Gov. Perry who responded that he would meet with them at his office. The Tribune writes that the 15-minute meeting didn’t go far.

4. The Observer’s Beth Cortez-Neavel documents the impact of the split between UT-Brownsville and Texas Southmost College. Hundreds of employees lost their jobs.

Line of the Day:

“I’ve had committee dinners since I’ve been here for seven terms. Lobby pays. They follow rules. Everybody knows up front. And we even post it, so we are all in compliance.” –Rep. Todd Hunter (R-Corpus Christi) told the Texas Tribune about a dinner bill for 140 people that totaled $22,241.03. Sorry we missed that one.

What We’re Watching Today:

1. With several deadlines passed, the House and Senate will now focus on conference committee reports and bills passed by both chambers.

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Hot List: Day 135 of the Legislature

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Texas State Capitol in Austin, Tex.
Patrick Michels

The Lead:

Five days left till sine die, and the deadlines are coming fast. Today’s the last day for the Senate and the House to pass bills and joint resolutions from the opposite chamber on third reading.

The House agreed—except for Rep. David Simpson’s lone “nay” — to postpone voting on Senate Joint Resolution 1, a key component of this session’s budget deal, yet another day. (That gets the bill around last night’s midnight deadline for voting on Senate bills and resolutions on second reading). The Dallas Morning News has the details.

The House will take up SJR 1 today. It’s a constitutional amendment to create SWIFT, the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas, and pave the way for the Lege to fund water infrastructure projects.

The word is the House will postpone a vote on SJR 1 up to Thursday, if necessary, until the Senate hears House Bill 1025.  The emergency spending bill is the House’s attempt to add $200 million to the public school system, and Gov. Rick Perry has threatened to call a special session if the bill doesn’t pass. Right now, the level of trust between the House and Senate isn’t too high.

Yesterday’s Headlines:

1. The Senate passed a much-amended House Bill 500, the controversial bill that would exempt quite a few businesses from the franchise tax, according to the Quorum Report (subscribers only). Sen. Tommy Williams tacked on an amendment that ties the passage of the bill to SJR 1, to muck up the budget game of chicken between chambers even more.

2. The House tentatively passed a bill Tuesday that allows for “hotter,” or more radioactive, waste to be dumped at a site dangerously close to water tables. The Observer‘s Forrest Wilder reports this is just one more favor granted to a major GOP donor.

3. The Senate passed House Bill 29 yesterday, which requires universities to offer a flat-rate, four-year tuition option for incoming students. But the Texas Tribune reports the Senate Higher Education Committee’s restrictions on university regents might solicit a veto from Gov. Rick Perry.

4. Last but certainly not least, House Democrats managed to kill SB 11, the drug screening-f0r-welfare-applicants bill on the floor last night. Dems lined up points of order and stalled the bill until it—and about 50 other Senate bills on the calendar behind it—were dead. The Statesman has details.

Line of the Day:

““We believe, simply, that this bill is wrong,” —Democratic Rep. Chris Turner on SB 11, which would have required drug screening for some welfare applicants.

What We’re Watching Today:

1. HB 1025 in the Senate and SJR 1 in the House. Here’s hoping the House doesn’t move the vote to Thursday.

2. The Senate has yet to hear HB 972, which would allow for licensed concealed handgun owners to pack heat on university and college campuses.

3. Today’s also the last day for the House to consider Senate Bills on the Local and Consent calendar, including a bill that would set requirements for election interpreters and one that would update the definition of “autism and other pervasive developmental disorders.”

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Hot List: Day 134 of the Legislature

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The Lead:

It’s not every day you see the Texas Legislature vote to tighten ethics standards, but that’s what happened yesterday when the House initially approved the Ethics Commission sunset bill.

As first written, Senate Bill 219 made minor changes to the agency that oversees campaign and lobby disclosures. But House members added a series of amendments on the floor that transformed the legislation into one that, as the Observer’s Beth Cortez-Neavel reports, would “force Railroad Commissioners to resign from the position if they decided to run for other offices; mandating that lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms are posted online (without their home addresses); requiring that 501(c)(4) nonprofits report their donors if they get involved in Texas elections, and requiring legislators and their families to report any government contracts in which they hold more than a 50-percent stake.”

Rep. Charlie Geren added the amendment that would require politically active nonprofits—501(c)(4) groups like Empower Texans and its head Michael Quinn Sullivan—to disclose their donors. You might be thinking, “didn’t that bill already pass?” And indeed it. The amendment was a version of SB 346, which has already been sent to the governor, who’s expected to veto it. By attaching it to the Ethics Commission sunset bill, Geren may have found a way to circumvent Rick Perry’s veto.

 Yesterday’s Headlines:

1. The House voted for an amendment yesterday to ban Medicaid expansion. As the Texas Tribune‘s Becca Aaronson reports, Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano) added an amendment to a Medicaid bill that would ban HHSC from expanding Mediciad under Obamamcare. The amendment could always be stripped out in conference committee, but if it does survive, it could preclude any deal with the feds on Medicaid expansion.

2. Yesterday, Dan Patrick celebrated the imminent death of the curriculum management program CSCOPE. Patrick announced that “the era of CSCOPE lesson plans has come to an end,” the Observer’s Patrick Michels reports. And once again the land was safe from the menace of curriculum tools.

3. The Dallas Morning-News reports that the House’s initial approval of a ban on cell-phone tracking without cause has police associations none too pleased.

 Line of the Day:

“The big lesson here is that if you can generate a witch hunt that includes enough incendiary and distorted claims, then there are politicians at the Capitol who are ready to throw their supposed commitment to local control out the window,” —Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller in a statement this morning in response to CSCOPE administrators turning over thousands of financial documents to Senator Dan Patrick’s (R-Houston) office.

What We’re Watching Today:

1.  SB 11—the watered-down bill that would implement drug testing for some welfare applicants—is slated for debate on the House floor today.

2. Tommy Williams’ transparency bill—SB 14—is also set for debate in the House. The bill would institute a number of provisions to give the public more information on schools, taxes, and government spending.

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Hot List: Day 133 of the Texas Legislature

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Texas State Capitol in Austin, Tex.
Patrick Michels

The Lead:

Just one week left in the legislative session, and as usual lawmakers are cramming last-minute law-making like it’s the night before final exams.

The House has a long calendar of bills today, but the big one deals with ethics reform. Senate Bill 219 relates to the functions of the Texas Ethics Commission and concerns itself with transparency for political contributions, expenditures, advertising, and lobbying.

House members have pre-filed 34 amendments to the bill. As the Texas Tribune‘s Emily Ramshaw writes, some of the amendments could result in tough votes for lawmakers. That includes a proposal to require lawmakers to disclose contracts their family members hold with government agencies. One amendment would shift the Public Integrity Unit, which investigates allegations against state officials, from the Travis County DA to the Attorney General’s office. That’s a change some Republicans have long sought and an idea recently boosted by Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg’s DWI arrest. (Some Republicans would rather have a Republican AG investigating state officials rather than a Democratic DA).

Ethics debates are always fascinating. We’ll see how far House members are willing to go in regulating themselves.

Weekend Headlines:

1. A budget deal was reached late on Friday afternoon. Negotiators from House and Senate agreed on a water infrastructure fund of $2 billion, $3.4 billion to public education, and agreed to have public schools contribute $530 million toward Texas’ Teacher Retirement System, the Observer‘s Beth Cortez-Neavel reports. 

2. Speaking of ethics, the Tribune’s Jay Root examines the conflicts of interest that emerge when lawmakers legislate on issues that effect their businesses. He centers the story on Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) who oversees bills dealing with HOAs and runs one of the country’s largest HOA-management companies.

3. The AP reports on major proposed changes to the Texas Water Development Board that would accompany the $2 billion in spending on water projects. The number of board members would be cut in half, and the current board and executive director would be replaced.

Line of the Day:

“I never make summer plans.” —Rep. Todd Hunter, on Thursday regarding House plans to reach a budget. Maybe now he can rent that condo in Maui.

What We’re Watching Today:

1. Senate Joint Resolution 1 is on the floor today. It’s a spending vehicle authorizing funding for water projects, and would establish the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT).

2. A bill that would authorize certain educators to carry concealed handguns in schools is also on calendar. Senate Bill 17 has received plenty of praise from national gun groups.

3. We’re also keeping an eye on Senate Bill 791, which alters the kinds of low-level radioactive waste that Waste Control Specialists can accept at its West Texas dump. That bill, authored by Sen. Kel Seliger, is scheduled for debate on the House floor.

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Hot List: Day 129 of the Legislature

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Texas State Capitol in Austin, Tex.
Patrick Michels

The Lead:

Lawmakers negotiated late into the night in an attempt to finalize the 2014-2015 state budget. Conference committee members have agreed on a number of spending issues, including how much money to put into public education ($3.2 billion) and water infrastructure projects ($2 billion).

But as the Texas Tribune reports, Medicaid expansion remains a problem. The budget doesn’t include money to expand Medicaid for working poor families under Obamacare (don’t be silly). But conference committee members have included a rider that would set up a framework under which Texas would expand Medicaid if it chose to. That’s apparently too much for some House Republicans. The House GOP caucus voted earlier in the session against Medicaid expansion. And some Republicans are threatening to vote against the budget if it includes the Medicaid provision. Now’s the time for deal-making. Once the conference committee sends the budget back to House and Senate, the bill can’t be changed.

Yesterday’s Headlines:

1. Yesterday, the House voted down a proposal to impose term limits on elected officials. SJR 13 would have limited the governor, lieutenant governor and four other statewide officials to two consecutive terms in office. So much for that.

2. The House did approve an amendment by Rep. Matt Krause that would allow university student groups to discriminate against prospective members. We had termed this proposal a “bad bill.” As the Observer‘s Patrick Michels reports, Krause’s bill had died, but he brought it back as an amendment to the Higher Ed Coordinating Board sunset bill.

3. The Senate gave final approval to SB 15, a bill that would place stricter limits on university regents’ power to fire campus presidents, the Associated Press reports. The subtext of this bill has been the fight between the UT Regents and President Bill Powers.

4. The story of the day came from the Texas Tribune‘s Emily Ramshaw, who reported that doctor and GOP activist Steve Hotze has recorded songs (yes, you read that correctly) about his opposition to Obamacare. The Trib story includes a sampling of Hotze’s heavily autotuned tracks.

5. And congratulations to Quorum Report, which turned 30 yesterday.

Line of the Day:

“Let’s say there’s a red hat club. Anybody who wants to come in and subvert that, ‘I don’t like red hats.’” —Rep. Matt Krause, torturing an analogy during House floor debate trying to explain why university student groups should be allowed to discriminate against who can join.

What We’re Watching Today:

1. The House is scheduled to debate Sen. Dan Patrick’s charter school bill today. SB 2 would increase the number of open-enrollment charter schools in Texas.

2. The Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Matters will hear HB 500 this morning. The bill reforms the franchise tax, including hundreds of millions in tax exemptions for businesses. The franchise tax’s less-than-expected collections have contributed to the state’s budget woes since its creation in 2006.

3. Gov. Rick Perry will ceremonially sign SB 1611—the Michal Morton Act—this afternoon. Sens. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) and Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) and Reps. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) and Tryon Lewis (R-Odessa) will be present for the ceremony. So will Michael Morton, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1987 and exonerated with DNA evidence in 2011. The bill aims to improve Texas’ criminal justice system by ensuring that defense attorneys have access to all key evidence.

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