Gov. Rick Perry has said on several occasions that he thinks school finance ought to be rebuilt during his administration, which lasts four years, but that he doesn’t think the Legislature has either enough experience or enough time to do it during this legislative session.
Dark Clouds Over Sherwood Forest
Posted inState Government
Key Change: From Minor to Major
The last time the House got committees, Texas had a different speaker who was in his fifth term in office, running a chamber where his party had been in control for over 100 years. Turnover in the membership was slight, and the changes in committee assignments were slim.
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Health care
The Other Kind of Political Fundraising
The three guys at the top of Texas government are all sworn in and official, and they are scratching around for cash. The state’s current budget is flowing red, and the next budget mismatches declining revenues with increasing costs. Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and Speaker Tom Craddick started off with a letter to state agencies asking for the equivalent of 7 percent of their current year budgets. Some programs won’t be touched: public school funding, acute care Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and debt service (which can’t be cut without defaulting).
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Health care
Stacking the Deck
Lt. Gov.-elect David Dewhurst waited until the Senate had voted on its rules—maintaining the powers of the Lite Guv—but not for his inauguration to name committees and their memberships. Unlike his predecessor, who led a Senate with a one-vote Republican majority, Dewhurst fronts a Senate with a 19-12 GOP advantage, and he tilted the table strongly in their favor. Democrats will chair six of the 15 committees in the Senate, but only one of those panels—Veterans Affairs and Military Installations—will have a Democratic majority. The major committees will have solid GOP majorities: Finance, 10-5; Business and Commerce, 6-3; Education, which gets school finance, 6-3; and Health and Human Services, where budget cuts could be focused, 6-3. State Affairs, which typically gets a range of major legislation, also has a 6-3 Republican majority.
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Health care
All About the Money
No matter what you thought you heard during the election season, in the session starting on Tuesday, everything will be a sideshow to the main act: The state budget.
Posted inState Government
Ask Santa for a Five-Pound Sack of Money
The governor’s budget might be more than a doorstop this session. The three Republicans who’ll be running things in the Pink Building seem to be on the same page, saying they’ll team up on one starting budget instead of doing the usual thing. The usual thing: The governor presents a budget. The Legislature ignores it. The Legislative Budget Board prepares a budget, and that’s the working document for budgeteers for the rest of the session.
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Health care
Texas Democrats’ Circular Firing Squad
Some Texas Democrats, stung by the results of last month’s elections and left with only a short list of candidates who might make a strong statewide ticket four years from now, are circling the party headquarters in a bid to replace Molly Beth Malcolm as chairwoman of the party.
Posted inState Government
The Signpost Up Ahead: Ethics
The ethics dust-devil whirling around Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, is unlikely to harm his upcoming election as Speaker of the House, but it could make more trouble for him during the legislative session. It has made some House members on his side skittish—not an unnatural state for politicians in a time of change, and not a permanent condition. And it has emboldened and encouraged some of the people who don’t want the Republicans to do well in their first session in charge of things since the inventions of such contrivances as telephones, automobiles, income taxes and Velcro. That’s not a permanent condition, either.
Posted inState Government
The Wrong Kind of Boom
Republican budgeteers missed a shot at limiting the amount of spending to be done by the next Legislature, falling a vote short in their attempt to tie the state budget to a conservative measure of economic growth. And the numbers will have another chance or two to balloon over the next seven months, as lawmakers wrestle with the sputtering economy.
Posted inState Government
The Other Big Deal
The state budget is a big deal in Austin and in scattered pockets around the state where people who make their livings by knowing about this stuff are paying attention. But even though the people in the bubble—we include ourselves in that gray world—are certain that the budget and taxes will be the centerpiece of the legislative session, regular people have something else on their minds.
