The Texas Observer

“The purpose of the bill is to protect the freedom of speech. That’s what it does.”

So Republican Rep. Charlie Howard of Sugar Land defended his bill last night on the House floor – by invoking our dearly held First Amendment rights. The House leadership then attempted to pass the “free-speech” bill — aimed at making sure public schools provide forums to let students espouse their faith — by, um, limiting speech.

Republican Rep. Warren Chisum of Pampa motioned to limit the amendments to those already present on the speaker’s desk – a rare stab at curtailing the amendment process. “We could stay here all night, and these amendments could grow and grow and grow and grow,” he said. “You probably already know how you’re going to vote on this bill… We need to limit those frivolous amendments.” Twenty-five members signed the petition to do so.

Democratic Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco pointed out the irony: “For goodness gracious folks, this is a bill about free speech… We don’t shut down the debate because we don’t like the debate. We don’t shut down the debate because it’s an uncomfortable debate.”

The motion to limit the amendments failed narrowly on a vote of 70-65. Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) moved to have the 25 names on the petition read aloud. The chair, after much resistance and another House vote, conceded, and the names were read.

Only one amendment had been adopted by that point, an offering from by Rep. Yvonne Davis (D-Dallas), that would ensure that public forums of religious speech in schools would not turn into a “venue to promote discrimination” on the basis of sex, race, sexual preference or religious beliefs.

That was too much for Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Center). He opposed the amendment, because, by his logic, limiting speech about sexual preference is discriminating against Christianity.

Facing a palpably edgy House, Howard postponed his bill until Monday, when the House will again debate — or not debate — free speech.

Last week, Jessica’s Law was gathering dust in the Senate without popular support from senators, and the budget conference committee was stalled because Lt. Gov. Dewhurst hadn’t named his conferees. Skeptics wondered, as BurkaBlog reported, if the lite guv wasn’t holding the budget hostage to his “Texas tough” pet project.

Dewhurst put an end to such ridiculous speculation today, by naming his delegates to the budget conference committee (Ogden, Zaffirini, Duncan, Whitmire and Williams) on the day after senators passed House Bill 8, Jessica’s Law, 30-1. Glad we cleared that up.

The House sent HB 8 over to the Senate in early March, after it was rushed through the committee process and passed overwhelmingly on the floor. The hype quickly deflated once the ball was in Dewhurst’s court. From March 6 to April 24, the bill sat untouched in the Senate, while its sponsor, Sen. Bob Deuell let Dewhurst do his best to take the lead.

If this is one of the accomplishments Dewhurst is planning to campaign on someday, it’s also given us an interesting look at the kind of governor he’d make. Largely unresponsive to prosecutors and victims’ groups, for one. For another, he proved capable of sucking the wind from of a measure that was fast-tracked through the House. Until yesterday, he was just about the only one in the Capitol who couldn’t get his enhancement bill passed.

After months of insisting that the bill include 25-year mandatory minimums for child sex offenders, he softened his stance a little over the weekend, giving prosecutors a choice in whether to pursue the longer penalty. The death penalty language in the bill was reworded over the weekend as well.

To be eligible for the death penalty under the Senate’s version of the bill, a criminal must twice commit a child sex crime with a weapon involved, or by kidnapping — a “super-aggravated crime”, as Shannon Edmonds of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association puts it. “Frankly, I think most prosecutors would be fine if the death penalty wasn’t in there at all,” he says.

The circumstances for offering the death penalty are different in the House version, which ties it to repeat cases of “continuous sexual abuse of a child.” In practical terms, it’s unlikely either will produce many new death sentences, but nobody really knows for sure because states only recently started to make some sex offenses capital crimes. “There’s no way to know how the cases are going to flesh out in court, or how often they’re going to apply,” Edmonds says.

Applying the death penalty at all in child sex abuse cases is of dubious constitutionality (though probably even less constitutional under the House version), and across the country just one person has been sent to death row under a Jessica’s Law-type penalty. The Supreme Court ruled against the death penalty in a rape case 30 years ago, but has yet to hear a case where the crime involved a child. Smart move, then, to play up the less measurable impact of the law as a deterrence in the official press release.

Still, walking away from this legislative ordeal with the the death penalty in there at all is a win for Dewhurst, who can tell voters in 2010 that he’s the toughest one of all. Who’s going to remember three years from now how weak he looked trying to get the law passed?

Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) passed his System Benefit Fund bill through the House earlier today. Finally. Sent back twice this session on a point of order and the threat of a point of order, HB 551 moves towards restoring a program to help low-income folks out with their utility bills.

If you haven’t heard before, the government collects a little $.65 fee on your electric bill each month with the stated purpose of helping out those less fortunate. That adds up to more than $150 million each year. But at least since 2003 our esteemed legislators have seen fit to spend these millions collected for the System Benefit Fund on balancing the budget.

HB 551 would provide for a 10-20 percent rate reduction for the elderly and poor as well as critical care patients. Consumer advocates and social services agencies have been agitating for proper use of the System Benefit Fund for years now, warning that Texans are getting hammered by record-high electric rates in the deregulated areas of the state. Turner says that combined with the 15 percent electric rate reduction barely passed two weeks ago, the Lege is moving closer to making electricity considerably more affordable in Texas.

For HB 551 to make a dime’s worth of difference, however, it will need budget conferees to actually appropriate the money. The House budget dedicates $170 million to the fund for the biennium. That represents about 22 percent of the total funds that will be available over the next biennium, according to Carol Biedrzycki, executive director of the Texas Ratepayers’ Organization to Save Energy.

Your government in action: Yesterday the House passed 118-21 a bill that would subsidize the nuclear power industry to the tune of roughly $200 million. HB 2994, the brainchild of none other than the increasingly notorious Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton), is a vulgar piece of corporate welfare crafted explicitly for the benefit of NRG Energy, a major power company with ambitious plans to double the size of its South Texas (Nuclear) Project in Matagorda County. (The City of Austin and the City of San Antonio also have an ownership interest in the nuclear plant).

The bill would allow school districts to sign a tax abatement agreement with nuclear or “clean coal” developers years in advance of a power plant’s completion, offering a giveaway for 8 years after the plant opens. The locals like it because it won’t cost them a cent. That’s because under our new school finance system passed last year the state would have to reimburse the Matagorda school districts for the lost revenue – around $29 million - each and every year, according to the conservative fiscal note estimate. This is money that would otherwise flow to underfunded schools across the state.

Lawmakers raised hardly a peep of protest yesterday with only anti-nuclear warrior Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) taking to the back microphone to call Bonnen’s bonanza “corporate socialism.” Burnam pointed out that NRG has already made a decision to add two units to the South Texas Project, so what, he asked is the point of a handout?

“This is something that is very seriously being considered but it is not on-line and it is not being built,” replied Bonnen. Technically, that’s true, but there’s nowhere else for NRG to go. And, according to their most recent SEC filing, the company is planning on filing a license application to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission sometime this year.

Dick Lavine, with the Center for Public Policy Priorities, argues that Bonnen’s approach is an abuse of the system. “The whole point of this economic development act is to compete with other states for [companies such as] Samsung and Toyota,” Lavine told the Observer. “Now in this case it’s to give a break to somebody that’s already decided to build a plant in the obvious place to build it.”

And it’s not as if the nuclear industry is wanting for subsidies. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 offers the industry “$10.1 billion in subsidies and tax breaks, as well as unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees and other incentives,” according to a 2005 Public Citizen analysis.

Luckily, Senate members in committee yesterday expressed a great deal of skepticism towards HB 2994’s companion, SB 1710 by Sen. Glenn Hegar (R-Katy). “The way our system is set up you’re gonna end up costing school districts in Tyler money,” said Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay). He left the bill pending.

But Bonnen, like many others, will be loathe to let nuclear power go unpromoted. Texas is being touted as a frontrunner in a “nuclear renaissance” in the United States, with tentative plans to triple the nuke plants in the state. Boosters like Bonnen are pushing nuclear power as a means to curb greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. “Nuclear is a zero-emission facility,” he told the House yesterday. “This is the most environmentally responsible way we can produce significant amounts of generation and low-cost generation for our constituents.”

Due to a technical blunder, two anti-abortion bills died despite overwhelming support in the House State Affairs Committee. House Bill 175, a trigger ban on abortion in Texas should Roe v. Wade be overturned, and House Bill 1750, an abortion and judicial bypass reporting bill, had the support of seven of the 9-member committee and were expected to pass. They only received a vote of 4-to-2, just one short of the five needed to pass them out of committee.

The committee’s chairman Rep. David Swinford (R-Dumas) called the vote in an April 18th meeting on the House floor upon adjournment. Though he saw seven members present, only six had in fact been recorded as present in the roll call, Swinford says.

“It was my fault,” Swinford says. “It was unintentional.” The bills can only be reconsidered at the request of one of the opposing votes, who have decided not to do so, he says.

The bills could prevail through their identical versions in the Senate. Plano Republican Sen. Florence Shapiro’s abortion and judicial bypass reporting bill is expected to be considered on the Senate floor today. An abortion trigger ban by Houston Republican Dan Patrick (R-Houston) has not yet been heard in committee.

Another abortion bill by Patrick passed out of the Health and Human Services Committee yesterday, with a few hastily-written amendments proposed by committee members. The original bill would have required women considering an abortion to view an ultrasound. With the amendments, the bill requires abortion providers to perform an ultrasound, explain it to the patient, and give her the opportunity to see it, though she may choose not to. Only Sen. Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso) voted against the bill.

“One a practical level, this bill really just states what is already practiced,” says Sarah Wheat, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region. Ultrasounds are a part of appropriate abortion care, and some women choose to see the sonogram while some do not, she says.

Staunchly pro-life Patrick has proposed other bills to discourage women from getting an abortion, like his so-called adoption incentive bill, by which Texas would pay women considering abortion $500 to choose adoption.

“These bills don’t prevent one unintended pregnancy,” Wheat says.

The House Corrections Committee: the source for early morning beauty pageant contestants. Who knew?

Some actual, nitty-gritty business deserves to be addressed first, though.

Chairman Jerry Madden (R-Plano) is carrying the omnibus TYC reform bill, HB 2807. It’s scope is broad; it took more than an hour to discuss just the amendments to the bill during yesterday’s hearing.

Amid the rapid fire adoption of most amendments, committee members questioned a few, giving a sneak peek at which reforms could run up against a “legitimate policy discussion,” Madden’s term for a potential dogfight. In particular, the chairman revealed, some judges have voiced opposition to the proposed ban on misdemeanor offenders in TYC. Nor do they care for the provision that prevents any inmates age 19 or over in TYC facilities. Read the rest of this entry »

Twelve border chiefs have released a letter raising concerns about HB 13, the bill that will grant Governor Perry law enforcement authority for Homeland Security.

The chiefs are worried that the bill gives a civilian and political office “authority to develop, administer, and execute programs that should be under a law enforcement agency.” They also express concern about the “Border Security Council” that the bill creates. The border municipalities are left out of the council, which does include border sheriffs. “We feel this severely jeopardizes our ability to obtain any of the funding the council will administer.”

Download a pdf of the letter.