State Government

Judging from the reaction to the latest solution to the school finance mess, a special session on the subject would come as a huge surprise to legislators and lobsters alike. Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, is proposing a combination of business, sales, and tobacco taxes to raise money for education and to buy down local school property taxes. If lawmakers and voters are willing, they could increase the size of the property tax cut by allowing slot machines in Texas.

Aides to Gov. Rick Perry tell us he hasn’t changed his tune on the likelihood of a special session. Perry told a reporter in Tyler that he doesn’t see any reason to call members back if they can’t reach a deal in the next few weeks, but didn’t back down from his plans to call one if there’s any way to do so. By the time that news reached the mainland, it had morphed into a story saying Perry had lowered the alert level on a special session by a couple of notches, and was maybe even leaning against it.

While the delegates to the state convention in Houston were busy in caucuses and buying buttons and listening to speeches, a small group of Democratic legislators, aides, consultants, and political hacks met privately with the University of Houston’s Richard Murray, who talked them through an 11-page memo on what’s wrong with the Party and what he thinks they should do about it.

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.