House and Senate leaders are in the midst of intense negotiations over a budget rider that could kill a proposed $12 billion bullet train project connecting Dallas and Houston.
Charles Schwertner
Posted inState Government
The Brief: May 20, 2015
House and Senate negotiators are down to one final challenge: working out the timing on their complicated tax cut dance.
Posted in
Health care
Video: Health Care and the 84th Legislative Session
At our 5/4 symposium on health care, state Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, the chairman of the House Public Health Committee, and state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, the chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, talked about how the issue is playing out in the 84th session.
Posted in
State Government
Senate Announces Budget Negotiation Team
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has named the Senate lineup of budget negotiators who will meet with House counterparts and hash out a final version of the two-year state budget.
Posted in
Politics
Contracting Overhaul Sails Through Senate
Amid an ongoing scandal over how the state awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to a private company, the Texas Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill that would overhaul the state’s contracting processes.
Posted in
Economy
Senate Passes Patrick’s Tax Cut Package
The Texas Senate on Wednesday approved Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s multibillion-dollar tax relief package to cut property and business margins taxes, tossing the ball into the House’s court.
Posted inState Government
The Brief: March 25, 2015
GOP budget writers had help closing the books on the Medicaid program for the current fiscal year with help from an unlikely source — the Affordable Care Act.
Posted in
Health care
GOP Leaders Say They Won’t Expand Medicaid
Leading Texas Republicans on Monday asked the Obama administration for greater flexibility to administer Medicaid — a move that has gotten little traction in the past — while reiterating that they would not participate in an expansion of the program under the Affordable Care Act.
Posted in
Health care
The Brief: March 2, 2015
The Tribune’s Jay Root and Neena Satija filed a story over the weekend on the problem of deferred maintenance at state government buildings in multiple agencies. It makes for some grim reading.
Posted in
Health care
Revamped Cancer Agency Faces New Questions
A reinvented Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas says its darkest hour has passed, but the agency faces new conservative lawmakers unconvinced more money should be devoted to the agency.
