Items of Interest Compiled By Arnold Public Affairs
Below are some general items of interest pertaining to the latest political developments and important events:
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The Brief: Top Texas News for March 28, 2011
“This week, we may find out just how hard the budget ax will swing — and who’s doing the swinging. The full House will take up its version of the budget on Friday, just over a week after the bill was voted out of committee. The bill cuts state funding by 12.3 percent for the next biennium, leaving services like Medicaid about $6 billion short and public education funding about $8 billion short under current finance formulas…”
(View full article here).
Inside Intelligence: Redistricting Will Be…
“The insiders, asked this week about redistricting and how it will affect other issues, are split on the outcome. Slightly more than half — 54 percent — think the Legislative Redistricting Board will have to clean up after the Legislature fails to come up with maps for the House and Senate (congressional maps skip that step and go straight to the courts if lawmakers can’t agree on plans). The Republicans have 101 members in the House and 19 in the Senate, but only 9 percent of the insiders think lawmakers will be able to draw maps that ensure future supermajorities in both the House and the Senate. Almost half — 48 percent — think that effort will fall short in both houses; 10 percent say it’ll work in the House and not the Senate, and 20 percent say it’ll work in the Senate and not in the House…”
(View full article here).
Lawsuit: Texas Failing Foster Children
“The national child advocacy group Children’s Rights has successfully sued for better conditions for foster kids in more than a dozen states. Now, the organization is turning its sights on Texas, for allegedly leaving children stuck in long-term foster care. Children’s Rights filed a class-action lawsuit against Texas officials this morning, alleging, on behalf of 12,000 abused and neglected children in long-term foster care, that the state hasn’t done enough to get kids in state custody into permanent homes. The organization argues that exorbitantly high workloads for inexperienced caseworkers, combined with a lack of foster homes and a reliance on remote care institutions, has created a system in which children are bounced from placement to placement — with little chance at a permanent home…”
(View full article here).
The Brief: Top Texas News for March 29, 2011
“The deck may now be stacked against the legalization of gambling in Texas, thanks to one state senator. With a House committee set to start hearing testimony on legislation aimed at legalizing several types of gambling, the Houston Chronicle reports that state Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, has said he won’t bring up any such legislation in the Senate State Affairs Committee, which he chairs. ‘There is no support in my committee,’ Duncan says. ‘I just don’t think there are the votes in the Senate. I don’t see any chance of passage.’ That’s a blow to gambling proposals, which arguably stood their best shot at passage in years with lawmakers scrounging to fill a $15 billion to $27 billion state budget hole this session…”
(View full article here).
Former Lt. Gov. Hobby Calls for End to Tax Break for High-Cost Gas Production
“Former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby called Monday for the elimination of a tax exemption on the production of high-cost natural gas, saying the oil industry tax break is siphoning off revenue that could be used to help ease the state’s budget pressures. Producers have relied heavily on the 22-year-old exemption as they developed natural gas properties in the Barnett Shale, which lies under about 20 counties in North Texas. Chesapeake Energy, one of the major producers in the Barnett Shale, has threatened to curtail activity in Texas if the exemption is eliminated. Hobby testified on behalf of legislation by state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, that would subject the natural gas tax break and other exemptions to a periodic state review to determine whether they should be retained or abolished. Hobby, who served as a Democratic lieutenant governor from 1973 to 1991, called Ellis’ proposal a “good idea” and said he “absolutely” shares the Houston lawmaker’s view that the exemption should be abolished… ”
(View full article here).
Texas Lawmakers Prepare for Sanctuary City Battle
“It’s been modified from its original form to allay Democrats’ concerns, but lawmakers are nonetheless gearing up for a battle as emotional and time-consuming as Voter ID when they take up legislation addressing another one of Gov. Perry’s emergency items — abolishing sanctuary cities. Several bills addressing illegal immigration have been filed in the Texas House but HB 12 by Carrolton Republican Burt Solomons has advanced the furthest, making it out of the State Affairs Committee. The Calendars Committee, which sets the House agenda, has received the bill’s committee report and it should be eligible for floor action as soon as next week…”
(View full article here).
Zerwas: Texas Health Insurance Exchange May Be Dead
“State Rep. John Zerwas, the Simonton Republican who has filed legislation to implement one of the key elements of federal health care reform, said his bill may be permanently stuck. Zerwas, who proposed establishing a Texas health insurance exchange not because he approves of federal health reform, but because he fears the feds will do it for Texas, said he’s been told Gov. Rick Perry’s office doesn’t support the measure. ‘I am absolutely disappointed,’ said Zerwas, who is an anesthesiologist. ‘I believe this is one of the most important things we can do to protect our insurance market, by putting a Texas exchange in place.’ Perry’s office didn’t say whether he’d veto Zerwas’ bill. But a spokeswoman said the governor ‘strongly opposes the federal healthcare reform bill and the one size fits all mandates that come along with it…’”
(View full article here).
The Brief: Top Texas News for March 30, 2011
“With the big vote on massive budget cuts two days away, the pressure may be getting to some House Republicans. Jim Pitts, Republican of Waxahachie and the chairman of House Appropriations Committee, told the San Antonio Express-News after a closed-door meeting with the House Republican Caucus on Tuesday that the sweeping cuts laid out in the House budget proposal — which will be taken up Friday — have some GOP members on edge. ‘There’s a huge concern about what’s going to happen in nursing homes,’ Pitts said. ‘And what’s close to all of us — we all have a public school in our district — is what’s going to happen to our schools?…’”
(View full article here).
Lawmakers Want Fewer Tickets for Students
“Chewing gum may be considered rude, maybe even disruptive. But in some Texas schools, it is a class C misdemeanor. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee today discussed a bill that would reverse the statute that allows police officers to issue misdemeanor citations to students for infractions like chewing gum, sleeping in class and cursing. The bill, proposed by Committee Chairman Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, would prohibit school district police officers from issuing citations for disrupting a classroom — the citation that most students receive for non-criminal offenses. The bill would also allow citations, if any, to go through juvenile courts rather than through municipal courts…”
(View full article here).
Rep Seeking to Raise Taxes on Smokes
“Lawmakers are prepared to suspend the state’s smoking prevention program because of budget problems, despite estimates that smoking-related diseases cost Texas at least $1.6 billion a year in Medicaid payments alone. The House appropriations bill, scheduled for debate this weekend, would cut out the $10 million-a-year anti-smoking campaign, which remains a legacy of the state’s 1998 tobacco settlement. To save the anti-smoking effort, Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, is pushing a bill to increase the state cigarette excise tax by $1.05 per pack…”
(View full article here).
Graphic: The Texas Budget Cycle
“Confused about the state’s budget? Trust us — you’re not alone. The Texas Legislature creates a spending plan every two years, but it takes almost as much time to prepare that plan. This session, lawmakers will set a budget that will be implemented in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 (Sept. 1, 2011, to Aug. 31, 2012). This week, House members will be tested when they vote on their version of a general appropriations bill. Lawmakers are considering unprecedented cuts in every area of state spending, from public education and health services to public safety. Below is a flow chart to help you understand where we are in the process (highlighted in yellow) and what steps are next (highlighted in gray)…”
(View full article here).
Politics, Not Just Numbers, In Budget Amendments
“The House will launch Friday morning into a $164.5 billion budget proposal for 2012-13, which is about $23 billion, or 12.3 percent, smaller than the current budget. General revenue funding —which comes mostly from state taxes and fees — would fall $4.6 billion, or 5.2 percent, from current spending. The state’s debt service — what it pays on its borrowing in the budget — would rise 18.5 percent, to $3.3 billion, in the proposed budget. But numbers aren’t all that’s buried in the details of the budget. Lawmakers have filed hundreds of amendments that are largely political objectives, from repealing in-state tuition and financial aid for illegal immigrants to making abortions tougher to obtain. Here’s a look at the numbers — and the politics — behind what lawmakers are slated to debate…”
(View full article here).
The Brief: Top Texas News for March 31, 2011
“House debate over this session’s heavyweight bills — the only legislation that has to pass this year — gets under way today. This morning, the House will take up House Bills 4, which cuts about $1 billion from the state’s current budget (through 2011), and 275, which authorizes lawmakers to tap the state’s Rainy Day Fund. Expect both to pass, but not without lengthy debate. (Keep an eye on freshman Republicans, in particular, many of whom have said they were elected in November to make cuts, not to tap the state’s reserves.) Prepare for even lengthier debate tomorrow, though, when the House will take up the full budget bill, HB 1, which appropriates funding for 2012-13 — and includes those sweeping cuts to virtually all areas of state government (an $8 billion cut to public education, for instance) that have ginned up so much unease among concerned Texans and lawmakers alike…”
(View full article here).
Higher Oil Prices Have a Silver Lining for Texas: A Bigger Rainy-Day Fund
“Higher oil prices might irk consumers, but unrest in the Middle East could mean a tax revenue windfall for Texas’ tight budget. The money is coming from Texas oil producers that have increased drilling to take advantage of prices that spiked in mid-February, when fighting in Libya squeezed off shipments that had supplied nearly 2 percent of the world’s oil. A percentage of the price from every barrel of oil and cubic foot of natural gas produced in the state goes into the rainy-day fund. The fund was created by a constitutional amendment in 1987 and receives most of its money using a formula based on that year’s oil and gas severance taxes. In years that Texas severance taxes top the 1987 figure, 75 percent of the excess is moved into the fund, typically in November. While natural gas prices have been low recently, U.S. crude oil futures closed above $104 a barrel Wednesday, way above the $70 figure used to estimate state tax revenue this fiscal year…”
(View full article here).
Senate Panel Votes to Spend Additional $4.3 Billion on Human Services
“The Senate Finance Committee voted Thursday to restore a less-than-expected $4.3 billion in health spending in 2012-13 but promised to try to find more money in the coming weeks. The panel adopted most of the recommendations made recently by the Medicaid subcommittee, including a widely sought provision reversing a planned 10 percent cut in Medicaid reimbursements for doctors and dentists. Advocates had feared the cuts would force many physicians, already operating on thin margins, to stop seeing Medicaid patients. But the committee held off on plans to reduce steep cuts to nursing home and hospital reimbursement rates despite fears that the action would force nursing homes to close and hospitals to pass higher costs on to other patients…”
(View full article here).
Texas State Senators in Tricky Search for Money
“It’s not just that state Sen. Robert Duncan doesn’t like gambling. He doesn’t think he could get legalized casinos out of his Senate State Affairs Committee, or out of the full Senate. And why, the Lubbock Republican asks, would you waste the Senate’s time on something that might not win approval in the House? Better to wait. In the meantime, the senator — assigned with several colleagues to find some new sources of money that can’t be called taxes — says he’ll take another week or so to get that job done. The mission is to find $5 billion to $6 billion…”
(View full article here).
The Brief: Top Texas News for April 1, 2011
“In the House budget battle, it’s two bills down, one to go. But this one’s a doozy. The Texas House gave early OK to two bills on Thursday that collectively balance the budget for the remaining fiscal year. House Bill 275, which authorized use of the Rainy Day Fund, passed by a vote of 142-2. But HB 4, which outlined about $1.5 billion in cuts to state agencies, split the House, as expected, along party lines. Lawmakers filed 65 amendments to HB 4, many from Democrats attempting to restore funding for public education, higher education and health care. Republicans are “unwilling to protect those priorities, and they are willing to sacrifice them in favor of ideology,” said state Rep. Joaquin Castro…”
(View full article here).
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