hotlist day 85

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.