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Day 87 of the 82nd Texas Legislature

LINE OF THE DAY
“It’s raining, it’s pouring, Rick Perry is snoring.”
Protesters at the “Save Our State” rally yesterday afternoon calling for lawmakers to use the Rainy Day Fund.

FLOOR PLAY BY ABBY RAPOPORT
What role should standardized testing play in public education? That was the subject of yesterday’s fierce floor debate in the House. House Bill 500—legislation that would loosen graduation requirements in lieu of a new standardized STARR test—passed with an almost unanimous vote. But the bill generated some unpredictable debate. As Abby Rapoport writes, “amendments prompted heated discussions about just what role testing should play in school assessments. And the coalitions for and against were anything but predictable.” 

BEST OF THE REST
The Statesman’s Jason Embry is keeping a close eye on David Dewhurst. The Lite Gov will have to walk delicately between Democrats and GOP conservatives when considering how much to spend in this year’s budget—while not harming his chances at winning a U.S. Senate seat next year. 

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
There may be some new hope, or at least some new money, for Senate budget writers today when Sen. Robert Duncan’s special subcommittee tasked with finding $5 billion in non-tax revenue will meet in public for the first time since the panal was organized several weeks ago. Panel members will report back on just where the extra money will come from. Senators desperately need that $5 billion to help close the budget gap.

Day 86 of the 82nd Texas Legislature

LINE OF THE DAY
“We cannot allow flawed data to dilute the voting rights of the Texas Latino community.”
State Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer, D-San Antonio, on the lawsuit filed by a group of Hispanic lawmakers, arguing the census underreported the number of residents on the border

FLOOR PLAY BY ABBY RAPOPORT
After weeks of negotiating stalled the controversial sonogram bill, it looks like the measure—a Republican priority this session—is back on track. After a standoff between Senate and House members, a possible deal with one Democratic senator might have cleared the way to passing one of the most rigid sonogram bills in the country, reports Abby Rapoport. 

OBSERVED
Now that voter ID legislation has passed in both the House and the Senate, it’s next stop conference committee. Members of each chamber will hammer details and ultimately come up with a consensus on what the final bill will look like. With four of the five Senate appointees being Republican proponents of the bill, voter ID likely won’t have a problem passing, but conference committee member Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, told Daniel Setiawan that she intends to continue fighting against some of the bill’s more rigid provisions. 

BEST OF THE REST
Sen. Steve Ogden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters yesterday that the biggest problem in our budget is the structural deficit caused by an underperforming business tax. As Peggy Fikac reports, Ogden didn’t mince words about the systemic flaws. “Our biggest problem is our structural deficit,” he said. “We’ve got a tax system that is no longer equal, is no longer uniform and is not very efficient.”
 

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
Today thousands of Texans are expected to gather on the steps of the Capitol for the Save Our State rally. A coalition of advocacy groups for social services and education will lead the march against budget cuts made to the state’s most vital programs. 

Day 85 of the 82nd Texas Legislature

LINE OF THE DAY
“I’m concerned whenever we’re allowing people to hunt from helicopters,”
Rep. Ana Hernandez Luna, D-Houston, on a House bill to allow helicopter hunting of feral hogs.

FLOOR PLAY BY ABBY RAPOPORT
Texas school funding is a convoluted, antiquated system that leaves even the most diligent policy wonks scratching their heads. In her latest feature, Abby Rapoport breaks down Texas’ complex school financing formulas to explain just how we got into the mess we’re in today.  

OBSERVED
While conservative Texas lawmakers may bad mouth those damn dirty hippies in California, they have taken a piece of legislation right out of the their playbook. Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee passed a constitutional amendment that would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers to pass any tax bill. As Forrest Wilder reports, a similar measure in California has contributed to that state’s budget woes. 

BEST OF THE REST
Last weekend, House members voted to cut family planning funding by two thirds (We posted the number here). Now, some state senators are questioning the wisdom of that decision. According to Patricia Kilday Hart at the Houston Chronicle, state Sens. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, and Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, want to restore funding to the state’s family planning services. 

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
With the House budget bill cutting close to $8 billion from education spending, the House Public Ed. Committee will debate today on how we’re going to finance our schools. Meanwhile, the voter ID bill will be back on the Senate floor with all its House amendments.

Day 84 of the 82nd Texas Legislature

LINE OF THE DAY
“Help me understand and explain to the people of Texas that we’re going to spend millions of dollars on tourism and movie production but we’re going to be cutting back Medicaid, letting teachers go.”
State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, on incentives and tax breaks for the film industry

FLOOR PLAY BY ABBY RAPOPORT
Miss the House budget debate? Abby Rapoport broke it down to the most interesting moments—from the when a Christian conservative member got asked to define “pan-sexual” to the freshman Tea Party Republican who voted against the budget. “We should have started with corporate welfare and not with community colleges, not with the nursing homes,” explained Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, who was one of only two Republicans to vote against the bill.

OBSERVED
As the House budget debate wore on on Friday night, around 30 protesters gathered outside the Capitol to protest the austere cuts made in the House budget bill. But it wasn’t just protesters that chanted “Say No to HB1.” As Daniel Setiawan writes, some House Democrats got fired up as well. 

BEST OF THE REST
With all the discussion of budget cuts, it’s enough to make you want a drink. But if you’re into the fancier beers, you better not want one from Texas. While beers from other states can get sold anywhere, under current law, our 29 Texas brewpubs can’t sell beer on-site and can’t market their beers in grocery or liquor stores. But as the Austin American-Statesman reports, the coalition Texas Beer Freedom is out to change all that.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
The House budget debate may have left us all mentally exhausted, but today it’s business as usual for House committees. The Business and Industry, Ways and Means and Homeland Security and Public Safety are all scheduled to meet. 

Day 81 of the 82nd Texas Legislature

LINE OF THE DAY
“We have cut all we can cut. There’s blood all over the floor,”
State Rep. Dee Margo, R-El Paso,  during yesterday’s budget debate.

FLOOR PLAY BY ABBY RAPOPORT
During yesterday’s budget debate, two conservative Republicans who challenged House Speaker Joe Straus back in December, saw their amendments brought down by veteran Democrats and anxieties from their own party. As Abby Rapoport writes, “If Democrats can exploit those anxieties, they can win some small victories. Or at least keep the hard right from winning further cuts to state services.” 

OBSERVED
During yesterday’s debate on HB 275—the bill that authorizes use of the Rainy Day fund for this fiscal year—Democrats tried to convince their Republican counterparts to spend $1.1 billion more of the fund to keep nursing homes open. They failed, and now, as Forrest Wilder repors, “a lot of Texas grandmas and grandpas will be booted out of their nursing homes.”

BEST OF THE REST
In non-budget related news, the decision to switch the one of the drug used in lethal injections may end up in a legal fiasco. As the Texas Tribune reports, two inmates filed a lawsuit against the state’s corrections department this week claiming that the drug decision was made behind closed doors and violated state transparency laws.  

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
The budget debate continues today as the House turns toward budget bill for the 2012-2013 biennium. The $164.5 billion budget proposal cuts $23 billion from current spending levels. Pack a lunch—and sleeping bag for that matter. With more than 400 pages of amendments filed on the bill, this debate will likely last into the weekend.