This week Speaker Joe Straus created four select committees. All of these committees will to varying degrees be dealing with fiscal policy but two of the committees are chiefly focused on taxing, spending, and accountability.
Straus tasked the House Select Committee on Government Efficiency and Accountability with reviewing operations, driving down costs, and recommending ways the state government can improve transparency. The House Select Committee on Fiscal Stability will be assessing Texas’ ability to meet its current and future budget obligations.
Since the stated purposes of these committees are strikingly similar to what Empower Texans and its membership have been working towards, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Representatives on each committee scored on our Fiscal Responsibility index. The results are a little bizarre.
Both the Government Efficiency and Fiscal Stability committee memberships scored on average a 57%, the exact same average of the House as a whole during the session according to our index. Not only is the overall average strikingly close to our index but so are the party break downs. Republicans on these committees have an average score of 81 and Democrats 27. On our index Republicans averaged an 82 and Democrats a 30.
While the formation of these committees is admirable the effectiveness each to reach stated goals is determined by membership. Stay tuned for the results.
