Hot List

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.

Day 80 of the 82nd Texas Legislature

LINE OF THE DAY
“If you want to be a first-class state, protect the children.”
State Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, at a rally yesterday to protest budget cuts to children’s health care.

FEATURES FROM THE LEGE
Get ready for some federal lawsuits: In 2009, the state signed an agreement with the Department of Justice to improve conditions at the 13 state supported living centers, home to more than 4,000 Texans with mental retardation. But, as Dave Mann writes, this session’s proposed 16 percent funding cut for the facilities might unravel those reforms—and violate our agreement with the feds.

OBSERVED
In a hearing for the homeland security bill yesterday, state Sen. Tommy Williams agreed to remove the controversial measure allowing for police checkpoints to inspect driver’s licenses and car insurance. However, plenty of questionable requirements, including an automated license plate reader, were left in the bill. 

BEST OF THE REST
Over at Texas Monthly’s Burkablog, R.G. Ratcliffe examines some of the 371 pre-filed amendments to the House budget. With some taking aim at school vouchers and others at Planned Parenthood, the upcoming debate ”may be as much about the culture wars as state spending,” Ratcliffe says.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
Cue the beginning of the House budget debate. Today, representatives will focus on finding a way to get the bills paid for the current fiscal year, 2011. Starting at 8:30 a.m., the House will hear two bills—one to that cuts agency spending and another that would use $3.2 billion from the Rainy Day fund to bridge the gap. Lawmakers have already filed around 100 amendments.

Day 79 of the 82nd Texas Legislature

LINE OF THE DAY
“To me, it’s just a tool that prosecutors use to enhance their political careers.”
Exonerated death row imate Clarence Brandley on the death penalty.

FLOOR PLAY BY ABBY RAPOPORT
For over 60 years, school districts could count on the state to meet education funding obligations, regardless of how much the state had in the bank. But now education experts worry this year’s budget cuts may signal an end to that automatic funding philsophy, leaving the planning process—in one expert’s words—”significantly screwed up.”  

OBSERVED
Even ex-drug offenders have got to eat. So argues Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, who laid out a bill yesterday calling for Texas to opt out of a federal law that bans ex-drug offenders from accessing food stamps. Proponents of the bill argue that the move would come at no cost to the state.  

BEST OF THE REST
The Austin American-Statesman blows the whistle on some potentially dubious Capitol dealings. As Mike Ward reports, Rick Perry’s top aides met secretly with health care contractors Monday to discuss the option of privatized prison health care—leaving some state officials worried of foul play.  

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
School board members and superintendents will rally on the south steps of the Capitol at 2 p.m. today to protest the proposed cuts to public education and urge lawmakers to spend more of the Rainy Day fund.