Minority Rules
The strongest tool in the box for House minorities — and here we're talking about political minorities — is the rulebook. Full Story
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Unexpected Endings
A House committee bungled its votes on divorce and abortion bills, killing a couple of the session's most controversial issues. Full Story
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The Briar Patch
It's hard to explain just how things in the Senate got the way they are, but you can mark the beginning. Last Spring, senators figured out how to maneuver around Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst while they were passing a new business tax bill and approving legislation to replace local property tax money in public schools with state money. Full Story
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Catch and Release
Corrections to a tax bill could save thousands of small businesses in Texas from the gross receipts tax approved by lawmakers a year ago. Lawmakers might raise the minimum revenue requirements, letting more companies escape the new levy. Full Story
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Crunch City
When this last break of the legislative session is over next week, there will be seven weeks left in the 80th regular session of the Texas Legislature. And you know, even if you're new to this, that the rules start killing things before the last day. Full Story
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Spending Time
The House kicked out its budget early Friday morning after 18 hours of debate; the Senate Finance Committee planned to send its version to the printers a few hours later. Put the Senate plan in play the week after the Easter break, and the conference committee that really writes the budget will get started. Full Story
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Record Spending, Record Restraint
A $150.1 billion state budget is on its way to the full House, which already approved another $14.2 billion spending plan for school finance. Those bills, along with a "supplement" appropriations bill to patch thin spots in the current budget, would bring state spending for the next two years to about $164.3 billion, up from $144.6 billion in the current budget. Full Story
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Bummer, Dude
Pity Tom Pauken. The Dallas lawyer tapped to head a task force on property tax reform turned in his report in January, with plenty of time for lawmakers to work on it. The governor listed property tax reform as a priority in all of his pre-session interviews with reporters. The Guv mentioned it again in his state of the state speech. Full Story
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Wanna Bet?
Legislation that would expand legal gambling on two fronts while also funding a quarter of a million college scholarships could go to voters if two-thirds of the Texas Legislature approves. Full Story
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Push Back
Rick Perry and George W. Bush are the only recent governors to stay in office long enough to name every member of every board and commission — every appointed official. It takes six straight years in office to go all the way through the batting order, and when a governor is done, it all belongs, for better or for worse, to that governor. Full Story
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A Persistent and Spreading Affliction
The call for a mandated vaccine against HPV in pre-teen girls might get the opposite result. A House committee voted this week to make it against the law to mandate the shots. The only company with a government-approved vaccination said it'd stop its 50-state lobbying effort on the drug. The issue leapt from Texas to national news and talk shows and all that in a matter of days and — more importantly — stayed there. And Gov. Rick Perry's power to issue executive orders found a tall speed bump in an Austin courtroom, when a state district judge said —in an unrelated case — that a state agency isn't required to follow Perry's orders. Full Story
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Never Say Always
It's usually true that the Lege is a slow-moving machine, but not always. Look at the moves to jump around constitutional constraints on increased state spending: Mired two weeks ago, coupled with a tax break for elderly homeowners one week ago, and now out of the Senate, out of the House Appropriations Committee and on its way to a floor vote next week. Full Story
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Need to Hide Something Big?
Ask Gov. Rick Perry for advice. He managed to bury headline-grabbing proposals for the sale of the state lottery, a $3 billion war on cancer, $100 million for border security, a $2.5 billion tax rebate, and health care for up to two million of the state's working poor behind a vaccine for pre-teen girls against a sexually transmitted disease. Full Story
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Real Soon Now
The last act, usually, of the "fixin' to fixin' to" phase of every legislative session is the governor's State of the State speech. They're hard to remember, for the most part, because the Legislature has a tradition of listening politely, clapping a lot, and then ignoring some or all of the items on a given governor's wish list. But some of it gets into the wiring, and into the ears of lawmakers and even, sometimes, the public. Full Story
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Big Mo and Little Mo
Gov. Rick Perry's appraisal reforms don't have nearly the momentum of last year's school finance package, though both came out of task forces headed by political figures and comprised of business folks. School finance was hard to crack, but the Legislature wasn't split on the need to do something. This time, you'll find disagreement on the nature of the problem and the proposed solutions. This package will be harder to pass. Full Story
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Government, On the Rocks
It probably tickles the Yankees when a little ice shuts down the Texas government this way, but until the cabin fever set in, it offered a nice break from the head-banging that went on during the first week of the legislative session. Full Story
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Setting Sail
Gov. Rick Perry starts the session with higher education, health care, border security, appraisals and the state budget on his list of things to do. The governor, who'll be sworn in for his second full four-year term next week, lived through a day of serial interviews with reporters, taking small bunches for a half-hour at a time. You'll see varied reports depending on what he said to which group and what they thought was important. Some high points from our interview: Full Story
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Crystal Balls
One of the rules of political reporting: Don't predict the future. Full Story
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Borderline Trouble
Democrat Ciro Rodriguez soundly beat U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio in an election triggered by redrawn congressional districts. Full Story
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About that Fence
While business groups were trying to temper efforts to seal the border between the U.S. and Mexico this week, and Gov. Rick Perry was puncturing anti-immigrant proposals from the Legislature, the state's chief financial officer was saying undocumented immigrants are a pretty good deal for Texas. Full Story