State Government

Texas Democrats are having their moment in the political desert. Hope is thin. Provisions are slight. The opposition is strong. Heroes have not appeared.

Throw Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Carole Keeton Strayhorn into one three-day convention, and it doesn’t matter how heavy you lay on the religion and an uncomfortably detailed platform: The main subject of conversation is the next Republican primary for governor in 2006.

Texas Republicans are in a pleasant sort of mess. They control state government. Candidates who want to run for statewide office — or for office in about two-thirds of the congressional and legislative districts in Texas — have little chance of success unless they’re running as Republicans.

The Texas Legislature handles tax bills like a finicky relative working the line at Luby’s. First they have to look at everything. Then they have to talk about all the things they’re allergic to. Then they go on about the things they like and don’t like and repeat all the stories about the good times and bad times with food. Then they go indecisive on you. Sometimes their hungers overcome their anxieties and they fill up their tray and move out. Sometimes they don’t eat.

Let’s do this backwards, to see where things are and to see what’s been proposed in the last week on the theory that no proposals are dead while lawmakers are still working. Particularly when education and taxes are the subjects of the day.

A week into the special session on school finance, the House countered Gov. Rick Perry’s revenue proposals with a combination of state property taxes, new and higher sales taxes, a new tax on payrolls and a $1 dollar surcharge on tickets for movies, sporting events, concerts and other amusements. In return, school property taxes that now average about $1.47 would be capped at $1, and the increasingly unworkable business franchise tax would be eliminated altogether. They raised the estimate of what they think they could raise from new gambling, even as support for slot machines — video lottery terminals, if you prefer — came under fire.

Gov. Rick Perry wants the Legislature to interrupt its off year for a special session on public school finance, and he says he’ll call them back for a second session, and maybe a third, until they solve it. He doesn’t have the consensus he wanted, but the threat of a long summer grind might force a fix.

Now that Gov. Rick Perry has finally and publicly made his proposals for school finance, we’ve got everything but the date of the dance. Perry told reporters he’s not ready to announce that, but said with some conviction that the special session will start this month. April 19 is still a contender, and we’re starting to hear talk of April 26. If he were to wait any longer, he’d risk a legislative session in the middle of a sea of educators on summer break, and the management wants to avoid that scene if they can. The implication is that Perry wants to get this thing through the Pink Building in one session, starting this month and ending before the rug rats and their seasonal handlers are free for summer.

Gov. Rick Perry isn’t going to get a consensus in favor of a school finance plan without calling the Legislature back to town, and his aides are telling other state officials to saddle up for a mid-month special session, with a consensus hopefully to follow. He plans to unwrap a revenue plan – don’t go calling it a tax plan or they’ll bite you – within the next week. That, along with his incentive plans and his local property tax caps, will form the structure for his call on lawmakers.

Limiting the growth of homeowners’ taxable property value can shift the property tax burden to businesses and other commercial property owners even when cities and counties and hospital districts aren’t increasing the revenue they receive from those taxes. We erred — semantically — when we called it a split roll in last week’s issue. But the 3 percent limit on homeowner appraisal increases touted by Gov. Rick Perry and others ends up shifting the cost of public schools from Texans who own homes to businesses and, indirectly, to renters.