Report on the 80th Texas Legislature (Part One)

The 80th Texas Legislature adjourned on May 28 and while the bill count won’t be final until after the time to veto bills has passed some statistics are in.

Legislators both senators and representatives filed a total of 6190 bills.  Of that number 1480 passed and two have already been vetoed by Governor Perry who has until June 17 to sign bills veto them or let them become law without his signature.

For those of you who like to keep track of such things in 2005 the numbers were: 5484 introduced 1389 passed and the Governor vetoed eight.

I believe that the increase in the number of bills filed and passed reflects Texas’ phenomenal population growth.   As more and more people move to Texas so does the demand for and cost of government services as this year’s budget indicates.

Because I am a fiscal conservative I am pleased that the $152.5 billion 2008-2009 biennium budget is a modest increase of 3.5 percent over the last two-year budget while the population has grown by almost 9 percent over the last five years.

Highlights of this biennium’s budget include a record funding increase of $1.5 billion for higher education $622 million for a teacher pay raise and incentives a $635 million appropriation for the Teacher Retirement System and a $196 million increase in state parks funding. 

We managed these increases while still providing $14 billion to pay for the local school property tax cuts we voted for during the 2006 special session.  In addition we set aside $2-3 billion to ensure that those local school property tax cuts are protected against future potential business downturns and to provide for  local school property tax relief to elderly and disabled Texans.

Taxpayers also will no longer see a Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) charge on phone and mobile phone bills.  The fund which was created by legislative action in 1993 has provided grants and loans for distance learning library information sharing and tele-health and telemedicine services.  Those services no longer need state help.  House Bill 735 will eliminate the TIF fee saving Texas consumers some $210 million.

A really good bill Senate Bill 270 which I authored and which passed the Senate but failed in the House of Representatives two years ago passed out of the Senate Intergovernmental Relations Committee by a vote of 3-2 this year in a watered-down version but failed to pass the full Senate.

That’s a real shame because it would have been the most productive and beneficial step the Legislature could have taken this year to make our state property tax system fairer -- especially for the vast majority of Texans who own their own homes.

More about that bill in a future column.

This week’s column is the first in a series that I will write focusing on the recent legislative session.  In subsequent columns I will talk about bills that passed good bills that failed to pass and how the actions of the 80th Legislature may impact your life.