March 11, 2011

HB 628 Hearing Held in House Government Efficiency & Reform

The House Government Efficiency & Reform Committee held a hearing on HB 628 by Chairman Bill Callegari.  This bill is the alternative delivery consolidation legislation and it had some newcomers show up and voice concerns with some items in the bill.  A committee substitute is being worked on to take care of some issues that had been agreed to earlier and to attempt to work on solutions for those who arrived late at the table.  House bills are generally held in committee for a week or two, so it as we expected except for the issues raised by the newcomers.
 

Update on Other AGC Bills

HB 398 by Representative Jackson – School Background Checks – referred to House Public Education Committee

SB 1042 by Senator Hegar – School Background Checks – has not been referred to Senate Committee

HB 958 by Representative Workman – Statute of Repose – referred to House Business & Industry Committee

SB 561 by Senator Wentworth – Statute of Repose – referred to Senate State Affairs Committee

HB 1041 by Representative Workman – State Breach of Contract – referred to House State Affairs Committee

SB 562 by Senator Wentworth – State Breach of Contract – referred to Senate State Affairs Committee

On a side note, the House has reported 10 bills out of committee as of Thursday and it has passed one bill out and sent it to the Senate.  The Senate has had a little more activity with 83 bills reported out of committee and 5 bills passed and sent to the House.
 

As of yesterday, AGC has 765 bills that are in its bill tracking system for this legislative session.  We expect that our final total will be over 800 bills.  There are 10 AGC bills that have been filed.  There are another 58 bills that are currently in the Top Category for AGC, the next category is General Bills with 223 bills, followed by those in the Watch Category that number 260.  Finally, there are another 214 bills that are being tracked – these likely are not relevant at the current time, but have a caption that could end up with amendments that are of interest to AGC.
 

Don’t forget that the AGC TBB website – www.agctbb.org has information about bills that are being followed by AGC.  The state’s Texas Legislature Online website - http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/ is another good source to keep track of all the issues that the 82^nd Texas Legislature is dealing with this session.
 

Bill Filing Deadline Today – March 11th

For the past week and half, there has been a rush to file bills for the 82^nd Legislative Session as the bill filing deadline is today.  As of the time of this update (1 PM – March 11^th), there have been 3,612 bills and resolutions filed in the Texas House of Representatives and 1,856 bills and resolutions filed in the Texas Senate.  The number of bills that will be filed for the session appears to be significantly less than the number of bills that have been filed in the previous sessions.
 

Rainy Day Fund and Voter ID

The question is, "Should Texas spend $4.3 Billion out of the rainy day fund to cover the expected deficit for the current biennium which ends on August 31, 2011".  Many key legislators believe that the state should pull $$$ out of the rainy day fund to help it pay the bills that are going to come due late this summer.  HB 275 is the bill that is in the House Appropriations Committee that proposes to spend “rainy day” funds to cover the state’s expenses.  The hearings in the House Appropriations Committee got a little heated this week as the Governor’s representatives were trying to diplomatically answer questions about the Governor’s position on using the rainy day fund.  Those who are advocating using the fund to cover expenses for the current biennium have not proposed using it for the next biennium.

A number of groups have started to generate “robo calls” to ask voters to call their state representative and tell them to keep their hands off the rainy day fund. 

As you may recall, it was the Voter ID bill that shut the House down for five days last legislative session.  Well, that won’t be the case during the 82^nd Legislative Session as the Texas House is expected to pass the Voter ID bill out next week.

Today is the 60^th day of the legislative session, so the Legislature has another 80 days to pass a budget bill, redistricting bills, key sunset bills and other measures it deems worthy.  The legislative dance will stop on May 30^th. 

That’s all for this report.