Speaker Straus says he wants a 3 day special session. The plan as reported by Mike Ward at the Statesman.
On Wednesday, the Legislature will convene at 10 a.m. Those House bills will promptly be assigned to three House committees - Appropriations, State Affairs and Transportation- for the required public hearings.
On Thursday, the House is expected to have its first calendar for consideration. Committees are expected to have approved the bills the previous day, if everything goes on schedule.
On Friday, "if it is the will of the members to do so, we will conclude our business."
Some lawmakers are calling on Gov. Perry to add CHIP to the special session. Somehow, I doubt that's going to happen.
Republican Sen. Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio wants to change the rules of the Senate to give the legislature a better ability to override late session vetoes by the Governor.
Quorum Report saw that current Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams former Secretary of State Roger Williams raised more than $400,000 at a Saturday fundraiser in Weatherford in his bid for Kay Bailey Hutchison's potentially open at some point US Senate seat.
Gardner Selby reports that former Lubbock state senator and AT&T executive (and Democrat) John Montford is supporting Gov. Perry's primary campaign as a financial advisor. Guess that takes Montford out of the rumor-mill for running as a Democratic candidate for Governor.
In less than a week, state legislators will be back in their chambers as Gov. Perry has issues a July 1 start day for a special session. That begins the 30 day countdown during which legislators will be dealing with a limited call relating largely to state continuance and funding issues.
The session has only three allowed topics, the main one being allowing the continued existence of the five state agencies in danger of shutting down because of critical legislation that wasn't passed during the regular session. The other two topics relate to allowing TXDOT to continue using different types of financing to keep funding road projects.
While the session is valid for 30 days, if work finishes the session could last a week or even days, depending on how fast legislators want to get back to July 4th plans.
This is Perry's 8th called special session since being in office.
R.G. Ratcliffe has answer the question for us, "how much would a special session cost Texans?"
Answer: $30,000 per day.
When Perry calls the anticipated special session to extend the life of the five agencies, it will cost taxpayers another $30,408 a day for lawmakers to finish their incomplete business.
Ratcliffe writes a detailed story about the real costs of operations at the capitol. While the 140 day regular session only costs $9.1 million dollars, a special session could cost tax payers an additional $900,000 if the session runs 30 days.
Simply put, Lt Gov. David Dewhurst, Speaker Joe Straus, and Governor Rick Perry's failure to lead is literally costing tax payers.
Rick Perry has been the Governor of Texas since George W. Bush became President in 2000. He officially assumed the top spot December 21, 2000. Since becoming Governor, there have been 7 special sessions-- 3 in 2005 to deal with education financing, 3 in 2003 to deal with redistricting and 1 more in 2004 to finish off the job.
Now we are looking at an 8th special session in Perry's long tenure as Governor. That is nearly 2 specials called for every regular session. This time we are going to spend $30,000+ a day because of a failure to pass necessary language to keep the Texas Department of Transportation, Department of Insurance, Office of Public Insurance Counsel, the Texas Racing Commission or the State Affordable Housing Corporation alive.
Now taxpayers are required to pay for a lack of leadership from the Republican Party... again.
After Sine Die last night, many Capitol observers assumed a special session was all but guaranteed.
However, if you believe what Speaker Joe Straus told the Austin American-Statesman and Governor Perry's remarks at his recent press conference, a special session may not end up being called after all.
Straus said agencies will continue to operate and a special session may not be necessary. “It’s possible we could avoid one,” he said, deferring the topic to Gov. Rick Perry, who has the sole authority to call special sessions.
“I don’t consider this a crisis,” Straus said.
...
“Overblown,” he said of senators’ frets about the bonds.
In his 11am press conference this morning, Perry echoed Straus' uncertainty about a special session as he told the press that it was "way too early to make any calls on a special session."
Update (Matt): Here is the full text of Rick Perry's statement.
According to Quorum Report, Gov. Rick Perry is rumored to be considering calling a special session later this year.
With the dozens of important issues facing Texas families, you would think a potential special session would tackle a pressing need that can no longer be overlooked.
Well, you would be wrong.
As QR points out, Perry no longer cares about all 24.3 million Texans. He only cares about a select few of us, the 1 million or so likely voters in next year's Republican Primary.
But the word on the House floor today was that there are only a million Texans the governor cares about right now -- likely Republican primary voters. Both voter ID and rejecting stimulus dollars work for him with these voters. He would keep center stage as he battled Washington and "liberals", so the storyline goes.
Rick Perry is not interested in doing what's right for Texas. He is interested in beating Kay Bailey Hutchison next March, and is willing to use his office in any way possible to accomplish that goal.
Sly Turner has asked the Governor to call a special session because Senate Bill 482 died on a procedural point of order.
Turner felt strongly about SB 482 as well. So strongly he wants our legislators to come back after a tumultuous final week.
There is also a looming concern that the demand for electricity is growing at a faster rate than the growth in generation capacity. That possibility threatens not only residential consumers but also the vitality of Texas' economy. The nation watched in 2000 and 2001 as California suffered from blackouts and it is imperative that Texas does everything in its power to prevent such an occurrence here.
The 80th Regular Session ended without any legislation to assist residential consumers. The bipartisan compromise bill, Senate Bill 482, passed the Senate and would have overwhelmingly passed in the House if not for a technical error. I believe that the Legislature has the will to codify consumer protections.
The last line is particularly concerning. SB 482 would have passed overwhelmingly if not for a procedural error? Well there was a procedural error. Many procedural errors. I believe there were close to 5 points of order. Would Turner have ignored them?
I agree that we need to fix our energy crunch, but maybe it is time to look at energy re-regulation and not just put a bandage over a bullet wound.
I wrote about this yesterday over at the New Mainstream Blog and I noticed that it had been written about in the journals, but I thought it was important enough to bring to the front page with a little bit more HTML style.
Guv Good Hair is at it again. He's telling Texans things that simply aren't true. Property tax cut? The average Texan will see $150 reduction in their property taxes next year! The Lone Star Project has put together a great analysis of what we got out of the Special Session.
The Senate Finance Committee just passed an amendment, 10-4, to House Bill 1 that says that in 2008 the tax rate will be lowered to $1. In order to get there, they will use the money generated by HB 3, 4, and 5 and then, on top of that, $2.5 billion each year ($5 billion in the next biennium) to lower the tax rate to a dollar.
There is absolutely no way to pay for that amendment except by cutting already depleted areas of state government. In order to get to $1, the Legislature will have to make even more drastic cuts in health care, public safety, criminal justice, and any other number of state services.
Using state revenue to replace school property taxes, cutting tax rates to $1.00 in 2008, would force a 16% cut in state spending subject to the constitutional cap on spending in the 2008-09 budget. Such a cut would needlessly force damaging cuts in vital state services.
This was interesting and funny. And that's enough for a blogger half of the time. From Glenn Smith at the Texas Progress Council.
Speaker Tom Craddick's office has tried to downplay the consequences of HB 2, backgrounding the press and others that the bill only makes it clear that the new business tax is intended to offset the cut in property taxes.
In fact, HB 2 would dedicate future growth in business tax revenue to further property tax reduction. It says: You can't use this money for our school children, our teachers, or any other urgent need faced by the state of Texas.
Grover Norquist, the ghost in the current legislative machine, says he wants to shrink spending -- on education, on health care, on everything -- to a size that can be drowned in a bathtub.
Let's remember a simple safety tip for parents: We should never abandon our children when they're in the bathtub.
Craddick and others argue that it's just a statute that could easily be repealed. Really? How many recent legislatures would have been able to overcome the business lobby, the Norquist abolish-all-taxes zealots, the right-wing leadership, and the pro-gambling lobby and vote TWICE to raise taxes: first to eliminate the dedication to property tax reduction, and then to broaden the base or raise the rate of the business tax?
But if Craddick and his team really mean it when they say it's just a statute that could be easily repealed, why do they want it so badly?
The Texas Progress Council is a public interest research organization committed to improving education and health care, and to restoring integrity and honesty to Texas government.
Matt gives us a heads up on a letter being circulated around the dome urging the Senate to, well, fix the House's mess. 13 groups signed on very quickly. Check it out.
Congressman John Carter-R went to Iraq. Guess who he met and didn't know it at the time? His Democratic challenger's son. Mary Beth Harrell is sure to have some fun with this so go check out the story at Kos or in the Washington Post.
Kuff has statements from Democratic Rep. Villarrealand Rep. Noriega on why he voted with the Republican leadership on HB 3. (Note: Our apologies for the quick post and getting Noriega's vote mixed up. Noriega voted against HB 3 with most Democrats and 16 Republicans. Our deepest apologies!) We hear that Vince over at Capitol Annex will have some words from Rep. Strama and Rep. Howard soon enough...
Here are the internals from the SUSA Governor's poll. I didn't expect those 18-24 to be Perry's strongest demographic and Bell's weakest (48%-Perry, 12%-Bell). Other points, check the gender gap in Freidman's support- women are not impressed. But the claim that Friedman sucks away from the liberal base of Bell's does seem to be true. Looking at Party support we see the following...
Republicans
Perry (65%)
Strayhorn (20%)
Friedman (10%)
Bell (2%)
Democrats
Bell (32%)
Strayhorn (30%)
Perry (16%)
Freidman (15%)
Independent
Friedman (32%)
Strayhorn (26%)
Perry (25%)
Bell (10%)
Also interesting trends, Friedman's support increases by about 10 points the more educated and higher income the voter gets. Perry's support falls by 14 points the more educated voters get.
Sign up for the Democratic Party National Canvass! There will be an event this Saturday over at the TDP HQ. Sign up if you are in Austin or search for other events across the state here.
Speaking of a 50 state strategy, when was the last time Wyoming was in play? I can't wait until we have a 254 County strategy in play in Texas, including the 100+ west of I-35.
So, I've recently like totally become a fan of Jack's Mannequin.
