State Rep. Kino Flores, D-Palmview, is not happy about one of his bills not making it to the floor yet. He took up the issue with state Rep. Brian McCall, R-Plano, on the House floor in a particularly testy back-and-forth. (In this first session post-Craddick, this is about as much action as we've seen all week.)
KF: [Referring to the process of getting his bill set] For us to be chasing a dog, go see him, go see her, go see him, go see her...
BM: I've told you twice in private, and in public here now, your bill will be set. You're assuming that the first bill we set is the most important,...
(I've noticed an effort to change the nomenclature of the virus in our grips from "swine" flu back to its scientific name, the "H1N1" virus. Haven't decided what to settle on so you'll see various monikers for it here.)
Governor Rick Perry is in San Antonio this afternoon with emergency management, health and education officials. Not sure what's going to come of it yet so I'll put up the updates as we go along...
- 26 confirmed cases as of Thursday morning
- Texas has practiced 28 times for a pandemic event
- "This state is as prepared and has the best professionals overseeing our r...
Texas Senators voted 22-9 to okay SB 1098 -- license plates with a "Choose Life" message on them. The message is intended to promote adoption as an alternative to abortion, and Governor Rick Perry said it was one of his "top" legislative priorities this session.
The White House issued a news release announcing Juan Garcia, Obama's former law school classmate and one-term Texas House member, will be nominated to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs).
Obama said of the slate of administration nominees announced along with Garcia:
I'm on swine flu duty today but plenty of reporters are dedicated to what's happening under the dome. A look at some news out of our favorite taxpayer-funded circus:
--Is state Rep. Allen Fletcher, R-Tomball, involved in a federal white-collar crime? To be clear, no criminal charges have been filed, but Fletcher's tied to an ongoing investigation. Texas Monthly's Nate Blakeslee takes a closer look.
11:35am: Presser concludes 35 minutes after it started, with Scott continuing to take a few questions regarding school closings in a smaller gaggle of the press corps.
11:34am: The additional concern about this virus is that it's a strain unseen in the US before (a hybrid strain of avian, swine and traditional influenza). Since our...
VP Joe Biden visited Austin this morning, first stopping at the National Domestic Violence Call Center off of Bee Caves Rd. (If you were around there, you encountered the traffic.) VP then went on to a lush neighborhood along the lake for a $5,000 per plate fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.
What we covered wasn't newsworthy, which was likely the goal of the White House. Biden didn't talk directly with press, and staff kept his chit-chat with call center staffers to a minimum. Some notes, in bulletpoints:
---Biden's motorcade and security detail is smaller than the president's, but st...
Vice President Joe Biden is in Austin this morning to tour the National Domestic Violence Hotline headquarters before proceeding to a fund-raising lunch. Austin Mayor Will Wynn will join him.
Biden wrote the 1994 National Violence Against Women Act, which created the hotline.
I'll tweet any updates during the event, which starts at 11 a.m. Blog post and photos to come in the afternoon.
The Speaker's office is set to announce the five budget negotiators who will meet with Senate conferees to hammer out a final state budget. They are:
State Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, House Appropriations Chairman
State Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Webb, House Appropriations Vice-Chair
State Rep. Ruth Jones-McClendon, D-San Antonio
State Rep. John Otto, R-Dayton
State Rep. John Zerwas, R-Houston
House Stimulus committee chairman Jim Dunnam announced that the House was ...
I've revised my Travis County Early Voting Locations map to include the early voting locations for the Austin Mayoral election. Early voting begins today, April 27 and runs through Tuesday, May 5th. During early voting, registered voters may cast a ballot at any early voting location.
Zoom in on the map and click on the plot point for the specific name (i.e. Fiesta Mart) and address for each location. If you take it to a full screen you'll have all the locations on the left side of the screen.
If you notice any issues with the map (last time I had a plot point in San Marcos for some reason) please ...
Only a handful of state lawmakers each session get a seat at the big kids table to hammer out the budget. As you can expect, the Senate and House passed different versions of the General Appropriations Act (aka budget), so negotiators are selected from each chamber to work out differences and settle on a final version.
The House Speaker will pick select members of his appropriations committee; the Lieutenant Governor selected his conferees this afternoon. They are:
--State Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, Chairman, Senate Finance Committee
--State Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, Vice Chair...
Disclaimer: This is not meant to be taken as a treatise on race. More of a tongue-in-cheek observation on a strange coincidence this session.
As a Chinese-American, I tend to notice references to Chinese people in speech or debate at the legislature. Of course, this session, my "people" have come up a lot more than expected, notably in pejorative ways. It's actually sort of amusing (in-a-can-you-believe-he/she-said-that-kind-of-way). But it does indicate we may have more work to do in understanding the diverse cultures which make up the fabric of our state and society.
Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst's penchant for a particular wine may have made its way into its own piece of legislation, according to this piece in the AP.
A bill on its way to the state Senate would let Texans carry their own bottles of wine into liquor-carrying restaurants and then leave with whatever they don't drink. Industry representatives have taken to calling the legislation the "Dewhurst bill."
Glen Garey, a top official at the Texas Restaurant Association, said Dewhurst was frustrated because he couldn't order his p...
After taking a series of benign questions on various topics like teacher grading and laptops in the classroom, the less-conservative members of the Senate Nominations panel got a chance to question Don McLeroy, Chairman of the State Board of Education. Here's some of the exchange between state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, and McElroy.
Shapleigh: You've said the Earth is 6,000 years old.
McLeroy: That's my personal belief. There was a beginning, the clock started ticking. One view is a naturalistic view - billions of years. And that somehow molecules started in a...
State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy took the hot seat before the Senate Nominations Committee this afternoon, to defend the job he's done in the past year and half as chair of the panel. McLeroy is a social conservative with a powerful job; the board sets Texas curriculum standards and chooses textbooks for public school students. Last month, he backed teaching "weaknesses" of evolution.
A Texas House panel will hear a formal resolution on April 27th that calls for Judge Sharon Keller's impeachment. Keller is also currently fighting misconduct charges brought by the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Keller, the presiding judge of the state's highest criminal court, prompted widespread outrage after she closed the court office promptly at 5pm, denying a death row inmate an emergency appeal. The inmate, Michael Richard, was executed that night, even though the US Supreme Court instituted a temporary moratorium on all executions earlier that day. The Court of Criminal Appeals later granted...
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's in Austin for a lunchtime fundraiser at the historic Driskill Hotel. Governor Rick Perry is set to attend, but his office says the event is closed press.
State Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, doesn't want teenagers in tanning beds. He's totally okay with Mystic Tan, where you go into a booth and get sprayed with some fake color. But he doesn't want teens under the simulated UV rays. His HB 1310 originally bans all Texans under the age of 18 from tanning beds unless they had written doctor's consent.
On the heels of news that Texas lost 47,000 more jobs last month, the Texas Senate bucked the governor with final passage of a bill accepting the $555 million in federal unemployment money that Governor Rick Perry rejected.
Senator Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, successful shepherded SB 1569 to passage with a vote of 19-11 (Harris absent) on third reading.
To review, Perry rejected it on the grounds that the federal dollars come with new requirements for the way Texas calculates unemployment by changing the window of time used to calculate funding, plus including part-time workers and "trailing spouses", (...
Just got my weekly email from Time magazine with the "10 Most Popular Stories of the Week" on time.com. Opened it up to find a huge photo of Governor Rick Perry. The top story of the week was a piece called "What's all that secession ruckus in Texas?" (Full story...
It took seventeen hours, but Speaker Joe Straus got a unanimous vote approving the $178 billion, biennial budget early Saturday morning. The takeaway, according to most folks involved, was the general calm and smoothness of the process on the floor.
The Quorum Report (subscription req)
In preparation for the Friday marathon, House Republican Caucus Chair Larry Taylor met with his Democratic counterpart, Jim Dunnam Thursday evening. They each brought a handful of lieutenants and sat for hours going through the package of hundreds of SB1 amendments agreeing t...
Fatigue is starting to set in on the House floor, nearly twelve hours after members started the day with light hearts and dreams of the weekend in their eyes. Now, some eyes look more like roadmaps and the slow process has killed most members hopes for a budget-free Saturday.
"[We'll finish] by Sunday would be a fair guess," said state Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin. (We assume she was joking, but uh, we're only on about 150 of the 500 amendments.)
There are also a few stem cell research-related amendments and school voucher amendments coming up which are expected to make for "lengthy" floor debates, ...
Hardball host Chris Matthews called Perry's secession suggestions both "whacked out" and "a nincompoop idea" before introducing a segment featuring late night jokes about secession. Here's the segment. (I'll leave y'all to discuss amongst yourselves whether Matthews is also a little "whacked out", later.)
Theres a battle ahead, many battles are lost
But youll never see the end of the road
While youre travelling with me... -Crowded House
Chairman of the House Calendars Committee, state Rep. Brian McCall, R-Plano, sought to calm some anxiety he didn't expect to create. McCall had to clear things up with an announcement on the House floor this afternoon, after his committee sent out bill preference cards. The committee asked each member to list, of the bills he/she authored, which three they'd most like to see set on the on the House agenda, aka calendar.
State Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, leader of the House Democratic Caucus, is shopping around HR 1383 on the floor right now. The full resolution is here, but here's an excerpt:
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the State of Texas reaffirms the pride of all Texans in both our one and indivisible National Union and in our one and indivisible State and the common heritage of both; and, be it further
So, this secession talk has picked up so much steam that someone told me a DPS trooper jokingly drew up a plan for how he'd police the sovereign state of Texas. I'm working on getting a copy of that. Meanwhile, the late night comedians couldn't resist working Perry into their monologues last night:
Governor Rick Perry, who's enjoying being a darling of the tea party movement, signed the first bill of the 2009 legislative session into law this afternoon. But all the reporters wanted to talk about is the flurry of attention he's getting for allegedly supporting secession. The governor cleared things up, saying he never said Texas should secede.
Tomorrow is a special day for you. After being battle-tested by the sometimes-ornary members of the state Senate and the beating the slowness of the Texas House, you made it to the governor's desk. Tomorrow, Governor Rick Perry will sign you. He has special pens all set for the event, and, he even invited the pesky press to come watch your "graduation". With 47 days remaining in the legislative session, you, 769,...
Texas Republican Party Chair Tina Benkiser sent out a copy of the speech she'll give today during Tax Day rallies across the nation, intended to protest the growth of government and government spending. (Natch, there's a lot of poking fun at teabagging going on, here's a clearing house for that stuff.)
The tea parties in Austin are set for 11:30 at Austin City Hall and again at 4pm this afternoon near Town Lake.
Failed 2006 independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman has taken the first step toward another bid for Texas governor, this time as a Democrat. He sent out a letter to Texans this morning, which is in full after the jump and excerpted below:
Here's the way I see it: Democrats + Independents = Victory
I was serious when I ran for governor in 2006 and I'm serious now. I am a humorist, but I know these are not humorous times for a lot of us. Part of the reason is the pathetic lack of leadership at the state level. The last governor, I believe, who was truly on the side of the people of Texa...
Austin City Council voted unanimously this morning to reject a bill (SB 1618) by state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, requiring that the city to adopt single-member council districts. Austin is the only large city in Texas in which councilmembers are elected citywide, instead of by individual districts.
Voters in the city have rejected single member districts six times in the past. While many members said they support -- in principle -- the idea of representative districts, they don't want Wentworth and the rest of the state lege to te...
Ko says Brown told him she meant no offense by her questions on Tuesday. According to Ko, Brown said she was just trying to be helpful and come up with a solution to the problems with the Voter ID bill, and she meant n...
State Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, was eyeing state Rep. Myra Crownover's ride this morning.
Crownover, a Denton Republican, was discussing her House Bill 4309 in front of the House Energy subcommittee on Energy Efficiency and Renewables, which includes Strama as a member. HB 4309 would require electric utilities deploying "advanced meter and meter information networks" (sounds fancy, whatever it means) to seek federal grants and loans that would lower project costs.
A light bulb (pun intended) went off in Strama's head, and he asked Crownover about tacking on language to her bill that would also req...
I missed this since I've been out most of the week. Here's the AP:
AUSTIN, Texas -- The Texas Democratic Party demanded an apology Wednesday from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell for suggesting Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are "easier for Americans to deal with."
State Rep. Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, the first practicing Jewish Texas House Speaker in memory, is making this Friday a holiday for House members in observance of Passover.
State Rep. Edmund Kuempel, R-Seguin, is not Jewish (as far as we know), but he's also being sensitive to Jewish observances. Kuempel is the chair of the House Committee on Licensing and Regulations, which is being overrun today by lobbyists and normal folks arguing for and against the legalization of gambling, in various forms.
Kuempel said observant Jewish witnesses who need to be home by sunset (it's a Passover thing) will hav...
While the House Elections Committee has been fielding public testimony today on voter ID legislation, bloggers -- left, right and other -- have been blogging all about it. Check it:
Texas Monthly's Burkablog says state Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, had a point when he asked committee chair state Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, what sort of changes House members can make to Senate Bill 362.
Blue Dot Blues hopes the committee just gets it over wi...
What with all the hullabaloo in House Elections today and tomorrow, it seemed like a good time to look up some facts on photo voter identification laws. That search led to the Pew Center on the States, an (allegedly) nonpartisan research effort aimed at improving (allegedly) elections in this country (allegedly).
Their resources page is a good clearinghouse for Pew-approved information. Just select the category you want--in this case, "Improving Elections"--click "Search," a...
Just received word that the public hearing in the Judge Sharon Keller ethics case, in which she is facing charges of misconduct, is set for August 17, 2009. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct has asked that the Texas Supreme Court appoint a special master to preside over the trial. An appointment hasn't yet been made.
Budget architect and state Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, sat down Sunday morning for some budget talk at our competing station. (Dallasites looking for similar chatter: Our sister station has a 30 minute gabfest available at 9:00am Sundays -- WFAA-TV's Inside Politics. It's a mix of Dallas and state political news/talk.)
Ogden, wearing a red tie and fashionable Lone star flag lapel pin, said the $182 billion budget translates to $8,500 per Texas resident. He attributed an increase in this budget over last session's due to the federal stim...
It's not often you'll find a student of the classical Austrian school of economics in agreement with a die-hard Keynesian. But both former GOP U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey and UT public affairs Prof. James Galbraith (whose dad, Ken, is famous by economist standards) said the national economy is in dreadful condition with little chance of recovering in the next year or so like most observers are predicting.
On how we got here and where we should go, however, the exchange between limited-government Armey and big-government Galbraith didn't disappoint.
A bunch of bigwigs are conducting panels all day on federal stimulus dollars at the AT&T Conference Center on the UT campus. The event is sponsored by the Texas Lyceum. Find out more on their website here.
While we're on break, here's a quick recap of the first panel featuring the heads of the four agencies receiving about 75 percent of the $16.1 billion in stimulus dollars that state agencies get to spend. The panel was moderated by Ross Ramsey of Texas Weekly newsletter.
Robert Scott of the Texas Education Agency:
- Federal restrictions on stimulus spend...
So this is what Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst feels like when Gov. Rick Perry's out of town. Or Rep. Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, when he got his hands on the Speaker's gavel. This is power, and, yeah, it's a rush.
In the same vein as the proud House tradition of ghost voting, I'll be taking care of the blog while Miss Hu is out of town. The details of my life are inconsequential. Please direct all criticisms to someone else.
Lawmakers could have charged admission to a couple of House subcommittees this morning, drawing standing-room-only crowds of folks wanting to talk about clean energy and billboa...
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Schieffer announced he's hired longtime Houston Chronicle Austin bureau chief Clay Robison as his new Communications Director. As we lamented last week, Robison was part of last week's Chronicle "reduction in force".
Schieffer is a former US ambassador to Australia and business partner of George W Bush (when they were both involved with the Texas Rangers).
"I am gratified that someone of Clay's reputation and integrity will be joining our team," ...
There comes a time in the second half of session where you start inserting Senate speak into regular conversation. For instance, I was telling a friend today that at the end of this week, I'm going on vacation... for three several days. (Badumdumching!)
OK, it's really more like a full week vacation, to be with mom and dad, who I see far too l little of. My goal was to have an Impact Player interview queued up to post while I'm away, but alas, I fall short of my goals. Don't stay away though, a non-partisa...
As CSSB1, the state budget, continues to get debated on the Senate floor, state Senator Kirk Watson, D-Austin, tells us he will vote no. Watson objects to the plan because it doesn't do enough for the middle class in various areas, and that it inappropriately uses federal stimulus dollars to supplant state programs.
"It's just kicking the can down the road without making the structural changes we need to in the budget," said Watson.
Political Junkie's gotten a KVUE-ized makeover, to better fit with the KVUE look. I'm still here doing the bloggin' and nothing changes except for style. (And now you get ads for Best Buy and the like!) Let me know what you think, and if there are any style issues with the template you're running into. Thanks, reader(s).
It's Hutto day at the state Capitol. (The town mascot is the hippo... leading to an unfortunate team name for their high school basketball team - Hutto Lady Hippos.)
Senator Steve Ogden recalled that when he first took office in 1997, Hutto was a town of just 800, and now it's grown to something like 17,000. To celebrate, state Rep. Diana Maldonado is hosting a hippo-riffic reception tonight. Check out the invite:
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