Strap On Your Seatbelts
May 16th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
It’s going to be a bumpy ride tomorrow when lawmakers in the House take up a 62-page highway bill known as SB 792. The bill, which was hammered out behind closed doors, is being offered as a substitute for HB 1892, which passed the House and Senate by veto-proof margins and was sent on to the Governor’s Office.
Pretty Ricky had a fit when he saw HB 1892 and threatened to hold a special session. So dozens of state legislators, local officials from Dallas and Houston, the Governor’s Office and TxDot got together and drafted the compromise legislation.
Although Sen. John Carona and his fellow legislators made a valiant effort to keep some of the toll-road controls in place, the compromise bill has so many authors, so many special interests, and so many exemptions that the final product is very difficult to decipher. (How we yearn for the days in the not-too-distant past when Sen. Robert Nichols offered up an elegantly simple two-page moratorium bill.)
When the action shifts back to the House tomorrow, members will have a number of choices. If they go along with the Senate version, the bill in all likelihood will be rushed to the Governor’s Office. Ricky has already indicated he will sign that one.
But if the House members are in a “mischievous” mood, as Round Rock Rep. Mike Krusee delicately puts it, they could tack their own amendments onto the Senate legislation. Then the package heads back to conference committee. If no compromise can be reached, the bill probably will die.
The Legislature could then begin the ugly fight to override Perry’s veto of the original legislation. And that’s where the road could get really rough. Stay tuned.
