Tx Capitol Report | A view from the Texas state capitol

Move to grant non-resident driver permits fails

An attempt to create to create Texas drivers permits for undocumented residents died a second - and apparently final - death in the Texas House Friday.

The bill would have created permits for residents who had been in Texas for a year, but could not produce documents showing they were here legally. It also would have required them to carry liability insurance - a measure that some members of both parties cited as "common sense."

Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, couldn't get his bill to the House floor, so on Friday so on Friday, he offered it as an amendment to Senate Bill 1729. Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano, raised a point of order, saying the amendment was not germane to the bill. Even though SB 1729 would expand the issuance of drivers licenses, Taylor's point of order was sustained.

That means undocumented residents continue to have no way to get driver permits in Texas. Proponents of Cook's amendment said that makes it all but impossible for them to get insurance.

EPISD reform bill headed to governor

One of the reform bills resulting from the El Paso school district's cheating scandal is headed to the governor.

Senate Bill 123 would require  the Texas education commissioner to initiate accreditation investigations and give subpoena power in response to allegations that inaccurate information has been reported to the Texas Public Education Information Management System - which maintains student test scores and other data. It passed the House by a 123-19 margin.

It's one of several reform measues that so far have sailed to passage. They were filed in response to a scandal in which El Paso students were cheated out of a proper education while administrators tried to improve test scores and pump up their bonuses. As a result, former Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia went to federal prison last year and the El Paso school board was removed earlier this year.

House passes charter school bill

The Texas House on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a charter-school expansion that differs in significant ways from one passed earlier in the legislative session by the state Senate.

There has been pressure to expand the number of publicly funded, privately operated schools in Texas as some groups have cited a 100,000-student waiting list for their services.

The bill passed by the House would expand the maximum number of charters in Texas from 215 now by 10 a year until there is a maximum of 275. The Senate bill would raise the cap to 305 by 2019.

The House bill also prohibits nepotism in charter-school administration, although the provisions wouldn't affect the roughly 30 existing schools that would be in violation.

The grandfather provision didn't sit well with Rep. Scott Sanford, R-McKinney. He described a charter school in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in which one of the superintendent's sons is the chief financial officer, another son is a paid consultant and a third son heads a non-profit that leased a building to the district.

Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, tried unsuccessfully to apply anti-nepotism provisions to existing charter schools.

"I have a problem with grandfathering nepotism," he said. "Cronyism is not a conservative thing."

Differences between the House and Senate bills must now be reconciled.

 

House vote says colleges can't require clubs to take all comers

The Texas House voted Wednesday to bar the state's colleges from requiring campus clubs to accept all applicants.

The amendment passed as part of the preliminary approval the House gave to reauthorizing the state's Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Its author, Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, said the amendment is not intended to allow campus clubs to discriminate; it's intended to protect students' First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly by allowing them to deny membership to opponents who would thwart their clubs' missions.

Rep. Naomi Gonzalez, D-El Paso, and Rep. Chris Turner, D-Fort Worth, said there was no non-discrimination language in the Krause amendment. So, theoretically, a Traditional Family Values club could exclude openly gay students if they believed homosexuality undermines traditional family values.

Krause, an attorney, helped El Pasoans for Traditional Family Values in its epic fight against offering health benefits to gay and unmarried partners of city employees. He said that under his amendment, nobody would be excluded from attending club meetings and expressing their views - only from membership in the club.

Krause also said students couldn't be excluded because of their identity - only if they say they're dedicated upending a club's stated mission.

That didn't really address one of the main battle fronts in the culture wars: the argument between those who believe homosexuality is an aberrant choice that undermines families and those who believe it's an inherent aspect of identity the same way ethnicity is. In other words, what a gay student might see as advocating a right to openly express her identity, a member of a traditional family values club might see as an assault on the club's charter.

The amendment says clubs can deny membership to a student who "demonstrates opposition to an organization's stated beliefs and purposes."

Krause was asked if his amendment would allow a theoretical white students club from excluding students of color. He said such a group would never be sanctioned by colleges in the first place.

Critics of the amendment said that by banning "all-comers" requirements, the legislature would embroil college administrators and the coordinating board in endless disputes between students over whether exclusions are unfair.

The IRS scandal, Texas politics and transparency

Details of the IRS scheme to target tea party and patriot groups are emerging, and the scandal is manifesting itself in the Texas Legislature.

An influential conservative activist claims that a bill passed this week is further persecution. But if the transparency legislation were adopted nationally, it might stem the rise of political non-profits the IRS is screening – both liberal and conservative.

The Texas House this week sent Senate Bill 346 to Gov. Rick Perry for his signature, prompting howls from activist Michael Quinn Sullivan that it was further persecution of movement conservatives.  

“With the national media finally catching on to the harassment of tea party organizations and conservative groups by the Obama administration's IRS, state reporters are busily looking the other way at an attempt by State Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) and State Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth) to do the same thing under the auspices of the Texas Ethics Commission,” Sullivan wrote Monday on the website of the organization he runs, Empower Texans.

Proponents of SB 346, however, say the bill is not intended to persecute anybody. In floor debate on Monday, Geren said the bill is intended to provide transparency – an oft-overlooked priority of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.

In its ruling, the high court said that caps on independent political expenditures are unconstitutional. But it also said that it’s essential for the public to know who’s paying for political speech so it can evaluate the validity of that speech.

SB 346 would require non-profit groups that contribute more than $25,000 to political campaigns in a six-month period to disclose the names of donors who gave $1,000 or more during the same period. It exempts labor unions – a provision Geren said he doesn’t like, but added that everybody knows where that money comes from, membership dues.

In the wake of the Citizen’s United ruling, money has flooded into 501(c)4’s, non-profit “social-welfare” organizations that are allowed to participate in politics on a limited basis.

The limits are vague, and workers in the IRS’s Cincinnati office were evaluating whether groups applying for 501(c)4 status were within them. They singled out groups with conservative-sounding names for special scrutiny in the form of follow-up questionnaires and other hurdles.

Who came up with that horrific idea, and how high its approval goes in the Obama administration will define the size of the coming political scandal.

But getting to the bottom of it might leave unaddressed a big reason for the onrush of 501(c)4 applications in the first place: they give people with lots of money a way to contribute and keep their identities secret.

Geren said that in Texas, $600,000 in such money was contributed in the last two years – a little more from liberal groups than conservative ones. There was broad agreement Monday that without SB 346, that amount will grow rapidly.

Sullivan calls the Texas Ethics Commission the “Unethical Commission” and says Geren, Seliger and their allies use it to “harass political opponents.” But Sullivan offers nothing to support the claim.

The commission website does allow the public to quickly determine which officials received money from political groups, including Sullivan’s Empower Texans.

Since Sullivan and his group have formed a political-action committee, they're required to disclose where their money comes from. SB 346 will make 501(c)4s that haven't formed PACs also disclose contributors' identities – if Perry signs it.

Texas has a relatively strong record in terms of government transparency. It might take the lead in this arena as well.

Forcing disclosure of details in public officials’ legal settlements

The Texas House on Friday passed a bill that would require the disclosure of the dirty details when public officials settle complaints against them at public expense.

The bill was filed in response to a scandal earlier this year when Tarrant County paid $375,000 to settle a sexual harassment complaint against District Attorney Joe Shannon Jr. A subordinate complained that Shannon groped her, but the county fought the release of those details.

An opponent of the bill forcing disclosure, Rep. William Zedler, R-Arlington, said it would serve as a disincentive to settle complaints against public officials.

But the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lon Burnan, D-Fort Worth, said it would encourage transparency and discourage bad behavior by public officials if they know their deeds will become public if they expect the public to pay for them.

He was joined by some of the most conservative Republicans, including Rep. Van Taylor of Plano, and the bill passed 86-50. It goes now to the Senate.

New funding for roads fails in House

Several senior state representatives - especially senior Republicans - stuck out their necks Thursday by proposing increased vehicle-registration fees to fund transportation projects. But they couldn't convince some of their more junior colleagues to follow them.

House members worked right up to midnight Thursday - the deadline by which all House bills must receive preliminary approval or die.

Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, proposed a $30 increase in registration fees to generate $1.3 billion a year in new money for transportation projects.

The Texas Department of Transportation has said it wants an extra $4 billion a year to keep pace with the state's growing needs and to maintain infrastructure.

Some conservatives proposed to tap into the state's rainy-day fund and to use the money to float bonds. But Darby said it's clear the state needs a new, ongoing source of road revenue to fund projects and pay down the mountain of transportation debt Texas already has.

He acknowledged that increased registration fees would not be popular.

"No is not a solution," he said.

Darby also noted that leaving roads in disrepair cost the average Texas family an extra $1,500 in vehicle damage. He called that a "hidden tax" that some of his colleagues refused to acknwledge.

But even with an amendment that would have halved the registration-fee inrease to $15, it was apparent that Darby didn't have the votes to pass his bill, so he pulled it down.

Rep. Joe Pickett, a former chairman of the House Transportation Committee said more toll roads are likely as a result of the vote. The tolls collected can be used to repay bonds floated to build the roads.

However, Pickett said, tolls are an extremely inefficient way to finance transportation. Administration costs on the projects average 50 percent, he said.

Former rep not pleased with local legislation

Former state Rep. Chente Quintanilla is not pleased with many of the local bills promoted this legislative session by the El Paso delegation.

Quintanilla, a Democrat, is having to watch the session from his home in Tornillo after deciding not to defend his House from a primary challenge by former county Commissoner Willie Gandara Jr., D-federal prison. Quintanilla then ran for Ganadara's old Lower Valley commissioner's seat, but lost to Vince Perez in the Democratic primary.

Quintanilla had been rumored to be calling non-El Paso legislators and telling them to vote against local bills such as one that would give the county zoning authority around the Tornillo port of entry and another that would allow county oversight of a scandal-plagued emergency-services district. Contacted this week, Quintanilla said he hasn't been making such calls, but he might in the coming weeks.

"Maybe it's time to do that," Quintanilla said.

The bill requiring more oversight of emergency services districts appears all but certain to become law. It was filed in response to a scandal in Emergency Services District 2. The El Paso County Sheriff's Office is investigating allegations that funds were used to remodel a fire chief's home, purchase Xbox games and stereos, and buy fixtures for a fire chief's home.

The district oversees the Clint, Fabens, Montana Vista, San Elizario, Socorro and the West Valley volunteer fire departments.

"Those are things that happened in the past," Quintanilla said, adding that it and the Tornillo zoning bill "blindsided" residents who would be affected by them.

Quintanilla did not sound as if he had any substanstive objections to the zoning bill, which is intended to control development around a $130 million port expansion. He said there was a lack of consultation with Lower Valley farmers, who have testified against the bill, although farms are exempted under the bill.

Perhaps Quintanilla's biggest problem with the bills is that they have been strongly advocated by County Judge Veronica Escobar.

"All this is Judge Escobar trying to take more control," Quintanilla said.

Crazy cats

The days are running long in the Texas House and some legislators are resorting to catty behavior. One found an app that allowed him to subsitute feline heads for those of his peers as they appeared in the Times during a March hearing in the old El Paso City Council chamber.

Bill would cap hotel tax lower than El Paso rate

The Texas House on Tuesday passed a bill that would cap hotel taxes half a percentage point lower than the rate voters approved for El Paso in November.

The bill only applies to proposals for new tax rates, so it wouldn't affect the hike in El Paso, which is intended to help fund construction of a triple-A baseball stadium. The bill would cap hotel rates at 17 percent, while the El Paso rate is now 17.5 percent.

"According to interested parties, Texas hotel occupancy tax rates are among the highest in the country, which impacts the state's ability to compete for group and convention business," says a legislative analysis of the bill, which was written by Rep. Craig Eiland, a Democrat from Galveston, an island that is heavily dependent on tourism.

El Paso now has the state's highest hotel tax.

The bill goes now to the Senate.