The Texas Senate passed, in a 27 to 4 vote, a term limits proposal that if passed by the House would go to a public Constitutional Amendment vote. Senator Kevin Eltife of Tyler defended criticism of his bill by saying “his bill doesn’t leave it to the Legislature to...
Pratt on Texas
Hilderbran goes soft on tax reform
TX Budget CompactI was saddened to see Rep. Harvey Hilderbran go soft on phasing out the state’s horrible business tax known as the margins-tax. Hilderbran, who is chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, appeared on Pratt on Texas at the start of the 83rd...
Water: Conservation should be separate from infrastructure finance policy
A state plan to help with local financing of water systems and resource development is something I support but, the water plan talk seems often to be purposely conflated with various forced conservation elements. Resource development and financing are endeavors very...
Dewhurst’s praise of less debate troubling
The Texas Leadership Award from the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life was recently given to Joe Straus, Speaker of the Texas House. At the award event on Tuesday, Gov. Rick Perry said: “I look forward to many years of your leadership, in the Legislature and...
Texas cities don’t need another tax channel
Robert Duncan, chairman of the Senate’s State Affairs committee, told the Lubbock newspaper: “I think the momentum in the Legislature is more to cut taxes and hold the line rather than have new taxes, even on the local level.” He was talking about a project of...
“No” to new school security taxing districts
“Three Houston-area lawmakers want to allow voters to set up special taxing districts to pay for enhanced security at Texas public schools,” AP reported earlier this week. “The plan broadly outlined Tuesday allows voters in each district to decide if they want to...
Rep. Villalba the Official 1st RINO of the 83rd Texas Legislature
We have the first raising of the white flag by a RINO in the 83rd session of the Texas Legislature. The dubious honor goes to: newly elected, Kay Bailey Hutchison-crowd-backed, state rep from Dallas, Jason Villalba. Villalba, when not raising the RINO flag of...
Broke? Texas school chiefs doing well.
The average salary for a superintendent in Texas for the 2012-13 school year is $127,358, a 3.5 percent jump from 2011-12.
Why does Senator Carona pretend to be a Republican?
I’ve told my audience, in legislative session after session, what disdain the wealthy Dallas state senator John Carona has for conservatives and his fellow Republicans who reject his big-government version of Republicanism. Now we can add traditional Judeo-Christian...
A real test for Straus & conservative backers in the House
Earlier this week, Gov. Rick Perry renewed his call for a stricter Constitutional spending limit for Texas' state budget ahead of the upcoming legislative session. Joined by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst , Governor Perry said: "Government growth, if any, should be kept to...