Straus Names Five to Rainy Day Fund Study Committee

Speaker Joe Straus named five representatives to a select committee set up to make recommendations on what constitutes a healthy balance in the state's Rainy Day Fund.

Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, will serve as co-chair. Straus also appointed Reps. Patricia Harless, R-Spring, Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, John Otto, R-Dayton, and Sylvester Turner, D-Houston. 

The joint legislative study committee would recommend a figure by Dec. 1. The recommendation will appear before both the House and the Senate as a concurrent resolution, which can be adopted or amended.

The committee itself as well as any recommendation from the panel is contingent on passage of a constitutional amendment in November. That measure would boost the state's highway fund by redirecting to road projects a portion of the state's oil and gas production tax revenues that currently go to the Rainy Day Fund.

Earlier this week Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst appointed five senators to the committee, including: Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, co-chair; Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville; Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury; Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler; and John Whitmire, D-Houston.