From the Austin American Statesman (January 12, 2015): Comptroller predicts better-than-expected growth in Texas economy

It didn't work out this way though.

- Click here for the article.

Plummeting oil prices have incited much speculation in recent weeks about how much Texas’ coffers might suffer and how much less money might be available to a Republican-dominated Legislature that wants to cut taxes significantly and also spend on things like roads.

On Monday, freshman Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar settled the deliberation with his much-anticipated official estimate of how much the state will bring in and have to spend over the next two years. And it was higher than many expected it to be, although tempered because of low energy prices.

Hegar’s approximation – formulated, he has said, under much and diverse advisement – showed that state lawmakers, who convene at noon on Tuesday, will have $113 billion in general revenue to spend on the 2016-17 budget. That is a sizable $18 billion more than general revenue spending in the current two-year budget cycle, which ends Aug. 31.

The estimate assumes oil prices – currently at less than $50 a barrel – will be $64 per barrel on average for current fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31, and to nearly $70 per barrel by the end of 2017. The last revenue estimate, released in 2013, assumed taxable oil prices of about $80 per barrel.

Hegar estimates the state will have $221 billion to spend from all funds, including federal money. The current budget spends about $200 billion.

As Hegar has previously asserted, his estimate shows that expansion of other sectors of the economy such as construction that will benefit from low fuel prices will somewhat buoy the declining tax revenue that will come with an inevitable slow-down in drilling. His estimate assumes that oil and gas taxes will decline 14.3 percent in 2016-17, bringing in $5.7 billion over the biennium, while sales tax — the state’s largest source of tax revenue — will increase by 8.9 percent, generating $61.2 billion.

“This revenue estimate anticipates a moderated yet expanding Texas economy and revenue collections through fiscal 2017, in part due to the uncertainty around oil prices and the possibility of slow global economic growth,” Hegar said in a statement.

Budget experts at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation and the liberal Center for Public Policy Priorities described Hegar’s estimate as healthy.

Eva DeLuna Castro of CPPP said it was a little higher than they expected, noting there hasn’t been any wiggle room in the overly conservative estimates of the recent past and that this one appears to more closely track actual past tax collections. Susan Combs, Hegar’s predecessor, came under fire for low-balling a revenue estimate in 2011 that helped inspire billions in cuts to schools and health care.

“It’s a good, strong number,” said Talmadge Heflin, the director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at TPPF, said of Hegar’s estimate. He said the sum would be plenty for tax cuts.

Area Texas Rep Ed Thompson authored 27 bills in the 84th session of the legislature

By my count, seven became laws.

- Click here to see the list.

From Recycling Today: Texas to study economic impacts of recycling

All due to a bill out area Texas House Rep Ed Thompson introduced to the 84th Session of the Texas Legislature.

- Click here for HB 2763.

- Click here for the article.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has retained the consulting and engineering firm Burns & McDonnell, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, to conduct a statewide survey that seeks to quantify the amount of recycling occurring throughout Texas and assess the economic state of the recycling industry in Texas.

The study is the result of House Bill 2763, sponsored by Rep. Ed Thompson (R-Pearland) and Sen. José Rodríguez (D-El Paso), which requires the development of the study. The bill’s authors say the results will build on the efforts of prior recycling studies, but will also include more robust economic information, such as current market conditions and associated job creation.

Burns & McDonnell will work in partnership with the State of Texas Alliance for Recycling (STAR) to complete and release the Texas Recycling Data Initiative (TRDI) in 2015. TRDI provided a benchmark recycling rate of 18.9 percent in Texas and established the methodology that the economic impact study will build on.

"As with TRDI, industry participation is paramount for this study to successfully provide updated information on recycling quantities, as well as important economic impact and market drivers," says Scott Pasternak, Burns & McDonnell senior project manager, and who is managing the study.

The survey, to launch Aug. 15, 2016, will focus on data from processors and end users of recyclables. Since the study will request recycling and economic data from private recycling companies, Burns & McDonnell say it will take every reasonable measure allowed by law to protect business-sensitive information and will have a confidentiality plan available for survey participants.

The study seeks to not only assess current recycling efforts but also identify methods to increase recycling, as well as funding methods to increase recycling and associated job creation and infrastructure needs that will result from a more robust materials recovery industry in Texas.

"This study will provide to policymakers the information they need to make educated decisions on recycling and materials management in Texas," says Sara Nichols, STAR executive director.

The survey will allow participants to report their recycling data for the 2015 calendar year in a confidential, online survey. The results will be included in the TCEQ report, Municipal Solid Waste in Texas: A Year in Review, 2016 Data Summary and Analysis.

Is the Texas economy #1 or #21?

It depends on whether you are measuring the overall state of the economy - including unemployment, state GDP, and state personal income per capita - or corporate profits. The later is doing much better than the former.

For more click here: Texas economy ranked 21st in nation - State also ranks near the bottom on education spending, correlation?

The Texas economy ranks 21st in the nation, according to Governing magazine, which used economic data from 2014 to 2016 to create an index.

That's a pretty middling performance for an economy once labelled the Texas Miracle because of how quickly it added jobs following the Great Recession of 2008. It turns out that all of that growth was tied to the oil and gas industry, which has taken a nosedive over the last two years.

The top five economies, according to the magazine, were Massachusetts, Oregon, Delaware, Colorado and California. Those are all blue states, which will surely infuriate Texas conservatives who will still angrily point out that Chief Executive magazine still ranks Texas, and four red states, as the best places to do business.

The radically different perspectives are not mutually exclusive, by the way, since one ranks economic performance as it impacts the population, and the other ranks the places where corporate profits grow the fastest.

From the Houston Chronicle: A view from inside a Harris County grand jury - The state's new selection process for grand juries did, indeed, yield a diverse, well-qualified group.

A positive evaluation of one of the criminal justice reforms made in the 84th session of the Texas Legislature.

- Click here for the article.

. . . Judges know that finding 12 grand jurors with diverse backgrounds who could devote two days a week, four to six hours a day for three months is no easy task. Given a larger pool of citizens and thorough questioning, judges are now better able to select a grand jury panel with the qualifications and the diversity that lawmakers and concerned citizens desired.

The grand jury I served on was quite diverse, consisting of more than 40 minorities: African American, Hispanic, and Asian American. 25 percent were under 30 years of age, 40 percent were female, and only 16 percent were retired. Every member of our grand jury showed no hesitation to speak up, to ask questions and to argue his or her side of an issue, no matter how controversial or emotional the cases were.

The new selection process and the outcome the Legislature aimed for worked well with our grand jury. I believe a big part of that success can be attributed to our judge, who spent quite a bit of time during our first meeting questioning prospective grand jurors to determine if there would be obstacles to their devoting the amount of time required to serve effectively. Out of the 12 jurors selected to serve on a grand jury, the law requires that nine must be present to hear cases and to vote to indict or not. Therefore, on any given day, three members of the panel can call in absent for personal or work-related reasons. Occasionally, our jury was delayed because a member arrived late due to business or personal reasons. During that time, no cases could be presented until the required number of jurors was present. Generally, we heard between 80 to 100 cases a day. Therefore, delays or too many absent jurors can contribute to a backlog of cases - a delay in justice.

More on the evaluation of open carry policies

This builds off the post from yesterday. Both from the Texas Tribune.

- Six Months In, Few Open Carry Complaints.

So far, officials say, the newly allowed open carry of handguns hasn't spawned any major incidents.

“I don’t know of any instances where there has been violence, arrests, disturbances that have taken place,” said Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association. “I think it’s been amazingly quiet up to this point.”

In February 2015, as the Legislature considered making Texas the 45th state to allow the open carry of handguns, 75 percent of surveyed state police chiefs said they opposed the new law.

James McLaughlin, the executive director of Texas Police Chiefs Association, said that at the time his organization’s members worried that open carry might turn carriers into easier targets.

“If the bad guy goes into a place, the first person they’re going to shoot is a uniformed officer,” he said. “The second person they’re going to shoot is the one they see has a gun.”

But McLaughlin, too, said he had heard of no incidents in which the new law played a major factor.

The Dallas shootings, however, rekindled arguments about revisiting the open carry laws, which state Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, called "Republicans thumbing their nose at law enforcement."

Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, who helped push open carry through the Legislature, said he and his colleagues did weigh the opinion of law enforcement. Despite the opposition from chiefs, rank-and-file members Phillips spoke to were generally receptive to the bill, he said.

- Black Gun Owners in Texas Decry Racial Bias.

The tensions surrounding black gun ownership have a long historical record in the United States, according to research from the National African American Gun Association. Dating back to the 17th century, French and British colonies have openly prohibited gun ownership among black people and Native Americans. And during slavery and the post-Civil War period, states in the South imposed strict laws against black gun ownership that lasted through the Civil Rights Movement. When California’s legislature banned open carry in the 1960s, it was in response to the Black Panthers openly carrying guns.

Black gun owners also are frustrated with what they see as indifference from their allies. The National Rifle Association, the nation's most powerful gun rights organization, took two days to comment on Castile's death, only posting a statement on Twitter calling the shooting "troubling" and saying it "must be thoroughly investigated" after a swell of online outcry.

“The NRA is an organization that has a bunch of old white guys, and honestly, I don’t think they have the tools and minorities in the organization to address these types of issues,” said Cargill, who said he's a national member of the association. “They don’t have enough diversity in their staff and leadership. Probably, they were afraid to make the wrong statement.”

The NRA did not respond to The Texas Tribune’s requests for comment. A spokesman for the Texas State Rifle Association said in a statement that while the group does not speak for the NRA, "every law-abiding citizen, no matter their race, creed, or sexual preference, has a right to protect themselves."

Racial profiling and gun ownership had emerged as hot-button issues during last year's legislative session when state lawmakers were debating the open-carry law that went into effect in Texas this January.

Amid concerns that minority gun owners would be racially profiled by officers, Sen. Don Huffines, R-Dallas, introduced an amendment that would prohibit officers from stopping someone solely because they are visibly carrying a handgun. The measure, which eventually passed, attracted support from Democrats who said it would help prevent racial profiling. Conservatives said it also was necessary to protect the Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure of legal gun owners.

From the Dallas Morning News: Open carry creates confusion during Dallas police ambush, but supporters say law works

For our look at policy evaluation in the section on public policy: the consequences of open carry in crime scenes.

- Click here for the article.

When rifle shots rang out in downtown Dallas during Thursday night's protest, some of the demonstrators were also carrying rifles.

In the ensuing chaos, one of them was labeled a "person of interest" after police released a photo of him carrying an AR-15 rifle. Others were stopped and questioned by police.

It was not immediately clear Saturday whether any of those who were legally armed delayed or hampered the police response to the shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite. Dallas police did not respond to questions.

But Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said: "It's logical to say that in a shooting situation, open carry can be detrimental to the safety of individuals."

Johnson, a former Army soldier, was killed early Friday when police used a robot to detonate a bomb near him. That was after he killed five police officers in a rampage through downtown.

It is legal in Texas to openly carry rifles and has been for decades. People with rifles have been spotted at recent public protests across the state.

Rawlings said Dallas police Chief David Brown told him that people running through the shooting scene with rifles and body armor required officers to track them down and bring them to the police department. Whether that was time that could have been spent trying to find and stop the shooter is something police will have to comment on, Rawlings said.

. . . But C.J. Grisham, president of Open Carry Texas, said police should be able to separate the good guys from the bad guys in such a scenario because "the bad guys are the ones shooting."

"If you can't identify a threat, you shouldn't be wearing a uniform," he said.
Grisham said some in law enforcement look at law-abiding gun owners as a threat.
"It's not that difficult to tell the difference between a bad actor and a good actor," he said. "The good guys are going to obey commands, the bad guys are not."

Law enforcement organizations such as the Dallas Police Association have generally opposed the state's new open carry law regarding handguns, which went into effect this year.

 

From the Texas Tribune: Judge Blocks Texas Immigrant Harboring Law

To kick things off in 2305 today - a look at how the decisions of a federal judge can, and cannot, impact public policy in Texas and how they in turn impact the citizens of Texas (who are also citizens of the national government).

- Click here for the article.

A federal judge has blocked part of the state’s omnibus border security bill that makes harboring undocumented immigrants a state crime.

Under a provision of House Bill 11, which went into effect in September, a person commits a crime if they “encourage or induce a person to enter or remain in this country in violation of federal law by concealing, harboring, or shielding that person from detection.”

In January the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, filed a lawsuit in Bexar County against Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw and the Texas Public Safety Commission, which oversees the DPS. The lawsuit alleges the state violated the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two San Antonio landlords, David Cruz and Valentin Reyes; and Jonathon Ryan, the director of an immigrant services agency. The plaintiffs said that under the bill’s provisions, they could be accused of the crime for providing shelter space or renting homes to undocumented immigrants.

“What the plaintiffs said was, ‘We don’t want to be prosecuted under this law, we think it’s unconstitutional,’” said Nina Perales, MALDEF’s vice president of litigation.

In an order signed on Thursday, federal District Judge David Alan Ezra said the plaintiffs would likely succeed on the Supremacy Clause claim and ruled that state and local officials had no authority to enforce the harboring provision until a final decision on the case is made.

“In this case, Plaintiffs risk subjection to criminal penalties under laws that might be pre-empted by federal law and the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,” he wrote. “Thus, the Court finds that Plaintiffs are likely to suffer irreparable harm.”

A spokeswoman for state Attorney General Ken Paxton said "we are disappointed in the ruling and evaluating our options."

Although MALDEF was victorious on one front, the judge rejected the group’s claim that the bill violates the plaintiffs' right to due process and equal protection. Perales said the equal protection argument was made because the bill did not have a “rational purpose” and was arbitrary.

But in his order, Ezra said that although HB 11 might be pre-empted, the harboring provision fits in with the state’s intended goal of securing its borders.

“HB 11’s harboring provisions are rationally related to their stated purpose of ‘strengthen[ing] the state’s border security measures and help[ing to] stem the rising tide of human smuggling and human trafficking in Texas,’” he wrote.

From Legal Insurrection: Conservative support grows for criminal justice reform

An old story, but it fits with our discussion of public policy in Texas.

- Click here for the article.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has signed on to a groundbreaking criminal justice reform movement aimed at increasing transparency, lowering recidivism rates, and making sure that criminal laws on the books actually promote a safer society—and not bigger government.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s “Right on Crime” initiative has been making moves to combine small government, conservative principles with efforts to fix an overcrowded, underfunded, and mismanaged corrections system. Over the years they have secured the endorsements of high profile conservatives committed to bringing problems with the criminal justice system out of obscurity and into the spotlight.

Texas Judicial Branch - and the most recent state of the judiciary address.

Here's a nice resource that contains about tall the info about Texas Courts you would find in a typical textbook on the Texas judiciary, and much more. It's one of the reasons I like to avoid textbooks.

- Click here for it.

I'm highlighting the State of the Judiciary address presented by the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court to the Texas Legislature during the 84th Session.

- Click here for that.

He spent a good part of the address recommending legislative changes to juvenile justice, legal service for the poor, and for veterans. He also requested more funding so the courts can do their assigned work.

Here's a taste:

The Judiciary has assisted the Legislature in passing school ticketing reform. Disruptive conduct thwarts education, and teachers and administrators must have effective means to stop it. But for years, courthouse hallways were lined with youngsters who belonged in school, not in the criminal justice system. Working to balance the interests of children, schools, and the courts, the 83rd Legislature enacted reforms with sweeping results: fiscal year 2014 saw an 83% drop in criminal filings under the Education Code — that’s 90,000 fewer tickets written. Other states have followed Texas’ lead. As a result, more kids are in classrooms and out of courts. The reforms last Session did not extend to truancy and attendance laws, which, while intended to keep kids in school, often operate to keep them out.

The theory is that the threat of punishment will incentivize attendance. But when almost 100,000 criminal truancy charges are brought each year against Texas schoolchildren, one has to think, this approach may not be working. Playing hooky is bad, but is it criminal? A better, more effective solution may be for schools and courts alike to provide prevention and intervention services for at-risk children to actually achieve the goal: getting them back in school. This has led the Texas Judicial Council, a policy-making body for the Judiciary, to call for decriminalizing the failure to attend school. The stakes are high. Our children are our most precious treasures and our future. Education is the key to their success.

Some 40,000 children are in state conservatorship, and courts play a critical role in determining their future. The Supreme Court’s Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth, and Families has recommended legislative changes to improve handling of cases involving Child Protective Services. Indigent parents are entitled to a court-appointed attorney, but when there is no conflict of interest between them and no history of family violence, the Commission recommends that judges be permitted to appoint one attorney for both parents, not an attorney for each, thereby reducing costs and improving efficiency. The Commission also recommends the creation of county or regional programs to help provide attorneys for indigent parents. And the Commission recommends improved procedures for transferring a case from one county to another so that placement of children in a stable environment is not delayed. The Texas Judicial Council has endorsed all these recommendations, and I urge you to consider them.

From the Houston Press: THE TEXAS RACING COMMISSION KILLS HISTORICAL RACING (WITH GLENN HEGAR'S "HELP")

And now for a state level issues - one that also illustrates how checks and balances work in Texas.

- Click here for the article.

After more than a year of defying the state legislature, the Texas Racing Commission finally, sort of, caved in on Thursday.

After being deadlocked on whether to allow historical racing to remain on the commission's books back in December, this time around, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar weighed in and helped end the long battle between the state legislature and the racing commission.

The commission voted 5 to 4 to repeal historical racing.

The vote comes after months of contentious back-and-forth between those in the horse-racing industry, some racing commissioners and the Legislative Budget Board.

State lawmakers have long insisted that historical racing, in which people bet on races that are shown on video with all the identifying information about the race removed, is actually an expansion of gambling, which many Legislative Budget Board members and other state legislators are firmly against for whatever reason. (Actually, the main reasons seem to be a mix of religion and highly effective casino lobbyists from neighboring states.)

It all started, of course, with a vote. In August 2014, the Texas Racing Commission voted 7-1 to approve historical racing for the state. The decision was met with rabid enthusiasm from the Texas horse-racing industry.

Texas thoroughbred horse racing returned to the state after the 50-year ban on parimutuel wagering ended in the 1990s. For a brief period, the Texas horse-racing industry boomed, but in recent years race attendance has declined. While some states, like Louisiana, prop up their thoroughbred horse-racing industry with fat purses drawn from racetrack casinos, Texas racetracks didn't (and still don't) have that option.
Dwindling crowds forced officials at Sam Houston Race Park and other Texas tracks to choose between offering more races with smaller purses or offering the larger purses that tend to draw the better jockeys and horses in the industry. Soon the top horses and trainers, even the trainers who started out in Texas, had stopped bringing the good horses to the Texas racing circuit and the quality of the races started a swift decline.

But there was a problem with that 2014 decision. Namely, some state legislators were rather displeased that the racing commission had voted to allow historic racing without getting the state legislature to sign off on the decision, as we've previously reported. In fact, a group of legislators quickly started to insist that the TRC didn't have the authority to make such a decision. Things rapidly deteriorated from there.

The Texas Tribune: UT-Austin Issues Campus Carry Rules Barring Guns From Dorms

Let's see if there is push back from this - a Second Amendment lawsuit perhaps?

- Click here for the article.

Save for some narrow exceptions, guns will be allowed in classrooms but not in dorms at the University of Texas at Austin next school year under guidelines reluctantly issued by university President Greg Fenves on Wednesday.

Fenves submitted the rules to comply with the state's new campus carry law, which goes into effect Aug. 1. The law, Senate Bill 11, allows the concealed carrying of weapons in public university buildings by license holders across the state. But it gave universities the power to create limited rules that designate some "gun-free zones" in areas where it would be too dangerous to have weapons. Those zones must be limited in scope, however, and can't have the effect of making it practically impossible to carry a gun anywhere on campus. 

. . . Fenves' rules will ban guns in dorms except for three specific exceptions: Concealed handguns will be allowed in dorms' common areas; people who work in the dorms will be able to carry and family members visiting the dorms will also be allowed to carry.

While no classroom ban will be imposed, faculty members who don't share an office with anyone else can ban guns in their specific areas, Fenves said.

He also issued strict rules for how those guns can be carried. In most cases, students and other people carrying guns must keep the weapons "on or about their person" at all times. If people aren't carrying their guns, they'll have to keep them in their locked cars. Gun safes will only be allowed in one place — university apartments, which are mostly reserved for families and graduate students.

All guns that are being carried will have to be kept in a holster that protects the trigger. The gun can't have a bullet in its chamber. And it can't be visible; the state's new open carry law doesn't apply to college campuses.

From Grits for Breakfast: Debating the biggest Texas criminal justice stories of 2015

For 2306.

- Click here for the story.

. . . any such list is subjective, there's always room for debate. But here's how Grits would have ranked Texas' top criminal justice stories of 2015:

- Sandra Bland's death

- Darren Goforth's murder

- Waco biker shootout, aftermath

- Raising property theft thresholds

- DNA mixture debacle

- Decriminalizing truancy

- Ending pick-a-pal grand juries

- Strengthening junk science writ

- Flawed forensics reviews 

Honorable mention:

- Exoneration Commission created

- DPS border surge made rest of state measurably less safe

- SCOTUS says Texas cops can shoot whomever they want

- Texas to gather data on police shootings

- Lege ends DPS gathering ten fingerprints for driver licenses

- Number of new death sentences plummets

From the Texas Tribune: Ethics Commission Approves Pay Increase for Lawmakers

I completely missed this story in the spring. My bad.

- Click here for it.

The Texas Ethics Commission gave approval on Friday to a $40 increase in what lawmakers are given to cover daily expenses while in Austin, which amounts to a $5,600 increase in their pay over the course of the 140-day regular session.

Lawmakers are paid an annual salary of $7,200. In addition, they receive the per diem, which will be $190 a day, up from $150. Over the course of a regular legislative session, they will receive $26,600 for daily expenses. They also receive per diems during special sessions.

The ethics commission had originally proposed increasing the per diem to $210. But it revised that to $190 at the insistence of legislative leadership.

Under state law, increasing the per diem triggers an increase in the amount of money lobbyists can spend on meals for lawmakers before they have to submit a detailed report on the expense. The threshold for detailed reports is 60 percent of the per diem.
The vote on Friday increased that threshold from $90 to $114. Lobbyists would still have the ability to split meal tickets multiple ways to spend more on a lawmaker without triggering the reporting requirement.

House Administration Chairman Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, has filed legislation that would de-link the detailed reporting requirements from legislative per diems. Under his bill, that threshold would be set at $50.

Two campuses rule on campus carry

- Texas State Issues Recommended Campus Carry Rules.

In recommending how Texas State University should comply with a new state campus carry law, a task force says it shouldn’t provide storage for handguns but should ban the guns from places where students are counseled or children come to campus.

The suggestions, which were issued this week, won't immediately go into effect. University President Denise Trauth is seeking input on the proposals, which need the Texas State University System Board of Regents’ approval. That probably won’t happen until the spring. The law doesn't go into effect until Aug. 1.

The university has called three public forums for next week to discuss the ideas.

- TCU Opts Out of Campus Carry.

Students at Texas Christian University still won't be able to carry their guns on campus next year, the university announced Friday.

The Fort Worth private school's board of trustees voted to opt out of the state's new campus carry law, which allows students with concealed handgun licenses to carry their guns on campus. The law applies to all public universities but allows private colleges to decide whether they want to follow it.

Universities across the state have been hosting forums and gathering public input on the issue. TCU's faculty senate passed a resolution in October opposing allowing guns at their school. But some students asked administrators to opt in. Gun rights advocates held a rally on campus expressing support for the law.

“It was quite clear that no matter which side of the issue each person felt was best, all cared deeply about the safety of the community," Kathy Cavins-Tull, TCU's vice chancellor for student affairs, said in a statement announcing the decision.

So far, most private schools have expressed a preference for opting out.

Grand Jury Reform in the 84th Session

This was one of the more significant criminal justice reforms passed in the 84th session and signed by the governor. The key man system - also known as pick a pal - was replaced.

- Texas Tribune: Is it Time to Ditch Texas' Key Man Grand Jury System?
- Texas Tribune: Abbott Signs Grand Jury Reform Legislation.
- Texas Tribune: Texas Grand Jury Selection to Become More Random.

For a look at the the bill from the TLO click here: HB 2150.

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: Republicans, Party of Two

For 2306's upcoming look at parties in Texas.

- Click here for the story.

Politics is about competition and deciding between different ideas, and when one party overwhelms the two-party system, it tends to develop into a two-faction party. It happened to Texas Democrats all those years ago, when the conservatives and liberals in that party warred in primaries and then crushed Republicans in general elections. And it’s a current fact of life in the Republican Party — a daily battle between traditional conservatives and those who believe those traditions are not conservative enough.

Straus exemplifies one side, Patrick the other.

And each, through his endorsement, is talking to his supporters. Straus’ folks want to see the chamber of commerce in the conversation, the establishment of the party, the sober and risk-averse kinds of moves that have always marked their part of the GOP. You know, people in suits.

The speaker, citing deep family and political relationships, was in the Bush camp as soon as this year's legislative session was over. “I have been a friend of his and his family for many, many years, and his record as governor of Florida proved that he could cut taxes, reduce government waste, and fix broken government programs there,” Straus told San Antonio’s WOAI Radio in June.

Patrick’s followers want to see some fire and brimstone in their politics, a willingness to throw out tired old ways of doing things and try new ideas. They’ve also displayed a bias for new names over old ones in politics, electing Patrick over three statewide officeholders in 2014’s election for lieutenant governor. He signaled his support for Cruz’s presidential run early on, and he gave the candidate his official blessing earlier this week. “He is the outsider in this race, but who understands the inside and how things work, and how to achieve victory in Washington,” Patrick said. “Other people can be outsiders, but we don't really know they'll follow up and do what they say.”

From the Texas Monthly: Showdown with a Strong Governor - The Legislative Budget Board is correct about the limits of the line-item veto—but Governor Abbott has plenty of power

Here's analysis of the legal conflict regarding the legality of Governor Abbott's line item vetoes. At root there seems to be an effort on the part of Abbott to increase the power of the office of the governor. His predecessor attempted to do the same. It seems to be yet another case that will require mediation by the courts - and it involves language we covered in class last week!

The question - as the author describes it - is whether budget riders qualify as items of appropriation.

- Click here for the story.

The disagreement concerns the scope of the governor’s line-item veto authority, which is established in the Texas Constitution, Article 4, Section 14, as follows: “If any bill presented to the Governor contains several items of appropriation he may object to one or more of such items, and approve the other portion of the bill.” A seemingly straightforward statement, but you’ll notice that the document doesn’t specify what it means by “items of appropriation.” As is often the case with the Texas Constitution, there’s no way to retroactively clarify what the people who drafted the document meant by the phrase, or whether they even considered the language carefully; this isn’t exactly the Magna Carta we’re talking about. But since the governor is only allowed to veto “items of appropriations”, the actual meaning of the phrase matters and has been continuously debated.

This round of debate was triggered by Abbott, who forced the question with his line-item vetoes to the 2016-17 budget bill, most of which struck out various budget riders. By doing so, the governor’s office said, he cut almost $300m from the budget as passed by the Lege; he also broke with precedent, by asserting that such riders qualify as “items of appropriation.” The governor’s reasoning is summarized in atwo-page memo that circulated in his office. His argument, basically, is that the budget riders in question are blatant ruses. The Lege’s appropriations for the Facilities Commission, for example, included almost $1bn for Section (e), “Construction of Buildings and Facilities.” About $200m of this $1bn was intended for three specific projects, the details of which were laid out later, in budget riders that Abbott vetoed. According to the Lege, Section (e) would be the “item of appropriation” in that context: the governor could have vetoed the whole billion, or none of it. According to Abbott’s office, this is ridiculous; the budget riders were the functional equivalent of “items of appropriation”, regardless of the Lege’s hijinks: “The Legislature cannot use magic words to make an item veto-proof.”

Unnamed legislators, for obvious reasons, disagreed with Abbott’s interpretation. As a result, Joe Straus and Dan Patrick, on behalf of the House and Senate respectively, asked the Legislative Budget Board to assess Abbott’s vetoes, and send its analysis to Glenn Hegar, the comptroller. Or, if you take Patrick’s word for it, Straus asked the LBB to weigh in, and he stoically accepted their determination to do so. It’s not really important who called in the LBB. The point is that someone in the Lege asked Ursula Parks, the director of the Legislative Budget Board, to weigh in, and so she did. Her memo argues that Abbott’s vetoes exceeded his constitutional authority and represented a departure from precedent and tradition. An “item of appropriation”, she wrote, refers to an item that actually makes an appropriation of funds from the state treasury. The budget riders in dispute merely tell the state agencies what to do with those funds once appropriated; that being the case, per Parks, the governor can’t scribble them out.

From the Huffington Post: Texas: Neutering Democracy

This is provocative.

The author points to some recent Texas Supreme Court decisions and notes that they prioritize "liberty" over "democracy." Apparently the two concepts can contradict each other. He also suggests that the recently completed legislative session - partially by limiting local governments - undermined democracy in the state.

- Click here for the opinion piece.

In Texas liberty trumps democracy. The Texas Supreme Court itself says so.
In a recent decision, three of the five Justice majority bluntly declared, "(O)ur federal and state charters are not, contrary to popular belief, about 'democracy.'" They are about "liberty's primacy."

The Justices concluded the Texas Constitution gives primacy to liberty because of the sequence of wording "That the great, general and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized and established," is how the Constitution begins. The word "liberty" comes first.

Relying on the sequence of words to establish primacy could have gotten the Justices into trouble when it comes to the federal Constitution, a situation they adroitly finessed by quoting only part of the Preamble. "The federal Constitution, in the first sentence of the Preamble, declares its mission to 'secure the Blessings of Liberty,"" opined the Justices. But before securing liberty the Preamble lists several other objectives that would have primacy: "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, (and) promote the general Welfare."

Texas politicians love to sprinkle their orations with words like liberty and freedom but even they must concede that all societies establish formal and informal rules governing individual behavior and virtually all interfere to some degree with someone's freedom of action. No matter how extreme our libertarian bent, most of us accept the need for driving licenses and the restrictions one-way streets and stop signs impose. And however reluctantly we agree that the government can take our money even while profoundly disagreeing on how public money should be spent.

Most of us also accept that property rights are not absolute. Just because we own land doesn't mean we can build a 30-story building or a slaughterhouse in an otherwise residential neighborhood.

Who should make the rules? Again I believe most of us prefer that decisions be made closest to those who will feel the impact of those decisions that is, by local government. More remote levels of government should defer to governance closer to the people except in rare circumstances.

Keeping this framework in mind, how did the tension between democracy and liberty play out in this year's Texas legislative session?

Democracy came in a distant second.

Will the courts have to determine what the term "reasonable rules" means regarding campus carry?

The Houston Chronicle writes today that SB 11 - the campus carry bill - might be on its way to court. When the bill passed, it contained an allowance that university presidents had the power to determine where guns can be carried, meaning that they can be banned from certain places like classrooms. Proponents of campus carry argue that this was not the intent of the original law and that presidents have limits on the extent of their power to ban concealed weapons.

- Click here for the story.

So this seems headed for the courts. What exactly does the term "reasonable rules" mean and how might the court determine what it means? Keep in mind that we have an elected judiciary. What might the fate be of a judge who decides either way? Are they really free to make an impartial decision?

- Click here for the legislative history of SB 11.
- Campus-carry bill passes, but neither side seems thrilled.

And for more on the story: Texas Tribune: Did You Think Campus Carry Was Settled Law?