Burnt Orange Report

40/40: An Interview with Donna Howard

By Phillip Martin

Ed. note -- As part of the 40/40 project, we're trying to interview every candidate we feature. Below is the interview with Donna Howard. Later this afternoon, I'll post my interview with Kathy Rider.

Q. Obviously, school finance is the most important issue of this special election, since whoever wins will represent HD 48 in the upcoming special session(s). What experience do you have in school finance?

A. Well, I've always been involved with our community schools. I was active in some community groups that we’d started to help our schools, and from there I was encouraged to run for school board. I served on the Eanes ISD school board for a few years. Then, after the 2002 election, I helped launch a group called the Texas Education Crisis Commission, which is a grassroots group whose purpose is to work throughout the state to educate people about school finance. We monitored legislation, hosted forums in several communities in the state, testified before the legislative committees about school finance – things like that.

What made you decide to run for office?

When it came time to look for somebody to fill Baxter’s seat, some people came to me and said they wanted someone that had a great deal of understanding about school finance and asked me to consider filing. I know Andy Brown had already filed, and I met with him a couple of times, and after several weeks of looking at it I decided that, even though Andy was doing a great job, that I had something to offer here that was important for me to do. I had an opportunity to continue to try and make a difference in our community, so I decided to run.

Do you think the answer to fix school finance is simply a reworking of the tax structure, or do we need to invest more money into education?

Both. We can’t invest any more money right now since we don’t have any money. The problem we have is that we bring in less money per capita than just about every other state in the country. We need to restructure our tax system – which is what the Sharp Commission is looking at – so that we can bring in revenue that can grow with the economy, has some fiscal capacity to it, and may fully fund public education as well as some of the other services that we expect from our government.

Ben Bentzin has come out as a staunch supporter of vouchers. Would you consider vouchers at any level, even as a focused pilot program? What are your views?

I’m 100% against vouchers. There could be something in the future that’s proposed – if we’re fully funding public education, of course – that says “let’s try something outside of the box.” That may be a possibility to look at something, further down the road, but at this point in time and where we are in our state, I believe it’s totally unacceptable to consider using public dollars on private schools, especially when public schools are struggling and don’t have sufficient resources. Bentzin, you know, he’s cut from the same cloth as Todd Baxter, and he’s backed by the same people. He’s had a fundraiser hosted by the top five HMO insurance lobbyists. Basically, his funding is coming from the same sources as those that are requiring a lock-step mentality of voting, so it’s pretty impossible to believe that he’s going to vote for the best interests of the HD 48 community – like he’s saying on TV – and not for the people who funded his campaign.

For the rest of the interview, including what Donna Howard thinks about CHIP vs. the Texas Enterprise Fund, property tax relief, health care issues, and her favorite place to go in Austin, click on the jump below.

Do you think we should look at an increase in the sales tax to help grow the economy?

I’m not in favor of raising the sales tax, primarily because we already have one of the highest sales tax rates in the country, and it’s a very regressive tax. I know Kathy Rider has proposed an increase in sales tax for alcohol and cigarettes, and I recently heard compelling testimony that increasing the sales tax for cigarettes could help reduce smoking. As a health care professional, I’m very interested in anything that’s going to help reduce smoking, since that’s what leads to a lot of our chronic diseases. Yet, at the same time, I think it’s pretty obvious that if you follow that through, if you do decrease smoking, you will decrease the revenue you might generate from that tax. I’m supportive of the positive effect an increase in the cigarette tax could have on health care in our community, but it’s not a tax that is necessarily stable and that you can count on for funding in the future.

In order to help reduce people’s property taxes, Democrats have pushed a plan to increase the homestead exemption. In some cases, 144 of 150 house districts in the state would save more money on their property taxes with the Democratic plan than the Republican plan. However, due to the large amount of wealth in HD 48, your district would be one of the few that wouldn’t benefit under the Democratic plan. Would you support a homestead exemption if it did greater good for the state, or would you only vote for what helped your district?

I think anyone who is elected as a State Representative has a responsibility to their constituency and to be a voice for the people they represent. That’s why we elect people from areas and not just statewide. At the same time, I think most everyone understands that we’re functioning as a state, and we have to consider the big picture as well. Most everyone I’ve spoken with in HD 48 is interested in having the kind of tax structure that is going to be fair, broad-based, and is going to give us the kinds of schools we all want to have. Now, how we do that is where the rubber meets the road. In terms of increasing the homestead exemption...I think there’s merit to increasing the homestead exemption, but we really need to solve the bigger picture here first, so I’d want to see how the details of the homestead exemptions and how they might work with what the Sharp Commission and the Legislature try to do to solve the bigger picture.

If you could fix just one area of health care, what would it be?

The answer there would have to be health insurance. Looking at it from a couple different perspectives, the first thing we’d need to do is fully fund the CHIP program so that we take care of all those kids that don’t have health insurance. The other part of that is making health care more affordable to the general public. Health insurance costs have created a myriad set of problems for our economy. Small businesses are often unable to give their employees the types of benefits that employees expect, and even large businesses are having trouble funding employee health insurance. There’s also the problem of helping our teachers. The Legislature cut the health-care stipend for teachers in half during the 2003 session, and the support staff has yet to see the restoration of their health benefits. Too many people rely on the emergency room as their primary health care provider, which ups the cost for local communities. The lack of health insurance really impacts a wide segment of our communities in a lot of different ways, and we’ve got to find a way to address that.

During the 79’th Regular Session, there were a few budget amendment votes that would have redirected funds earmarked for the Texas Enterprise Fund to areas of health care such as CHIP or improvement of nursing home facilities. Do you think we should redirect such funds, or keep investing in the Enterprise Fund?

I think one of the problems with the Enterprise Fund is the perception that it’s the Governor’s slush fund, to be able to give extra money to contributors and friends. There isn’t the accountability in the fund that needs to be there for it to work. We need transparency in the Enterprise Fund, because we don’t really know how many jobs it’s bringing to the state. The Enterprise Fund sounds nice, but what we really need to do to attract businesses is to provide the kind of community services – a strong public education system, quality health care, etc. – that will benefit the employees of businesses.

If you were elected, would you support a bill that prevented former lawmakers from lobbying for a year after they leave office?

Absolutely. Common Cause - group I helped start back in my early years and whose board I served on - has been supporting that forever. This revolving door that we have going on right now is something we definitely need to change.

If you win this special election, other Democratic hopefuls have said they’d clear the way for you in the primary. If you lose, or you going to step back from running, or try again in the March primary?

The Democratic candidates have all said that if a Democrat is successful in the special election, then that’s our candidate. But, certainly, if a Democrat is not successful, then I’m moving forward aggressively with the primary.

We'll wrap up with some lighter questions. What’s your favorite food?

Bread. I’ve always loved it – the smell of it, the taste the texture. I just love bread.

Where’s your favorite place to go in Austin?

Probably the Hike and Bike trail. I go there several times a week to stay in shape and enjoy the wonderful outdoors of Austin. I’m having less time to do that right now because of the election, but I just love going out there and I’m so grateful to Lady Bird Johnson for investing in that.

What’s your favorite kind of music?

I love all kinds – folk, country, some of the older, more classic rock. I listen to KUT in my car all the time, because they just do a great job and I love listening to them.

What’s your favorite political blog?

The Burnt Orange Report.

For Kathy Rider's interview, and more coverage on the HD 48 race, stay tuned to the 40/40 project all week long.