From the Texas Tribune: Senate bill would let Houston voters weigh in on fix to pension crisis

The question is, should they?

- Click here for the article.

If the Texas Senate gets its way, Houston city officials could have to get voter approval for a plan to partially shore up massive, multi-billion-dollar shortfalls in some of the city’s public pension funds.

The Senate on Wednesday voted 21-10 to give preliminary approval of a bill that would require voters to sign off before cities issue pension obligation bonds, a kind of public debt that infuses retirement funds with lump-sum payments. Issuing $1 billion in those bonds is a linchpin of Houston officials’ proposal to decrease the city’s unfunded pension liabilities that are estimated to be at least $8 billion.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told The Texas Tribune earlier this month that if the bill becomes law and voters reject the $1 billion bond proposition, a delicate and hard-fought plan to curb a growing pension crisis would be shrouded in uncertainty. He also argued that the debt already exists because the city will have to pay it at some point to make good on promises to pension members.

But lawmakers said voters should get to weigh in when cities take on such large amounts of bond debt.

For 2306 today

- Abbott looks to conference committee to sort out pre-K dispute.

Gov. Greg Abbott is looking to the budget conference committee to sort out a dispute over his prekindergarten initiative as it becomes clear he cannot rely on the House and Senate to fully fund the program in their spending plans.

"The House has a plan. The Senate has a plan. The governor has a plan," Abbott said Tuesday in a speech to the Dallas Regional Chamber. "Anybody who knows anything about how the Legislature works realizes that the real plan that’s going to come out is the one that’s going to come out in conference committee, and that will be sometime in late May."

- After immigration and bathroom fights, House votes to keep Railroad Commission functioning.

The Texas House gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a bill that would keep the agency that oversees the state’s oil and gas industry functioning until 2029 — but only after members dragged controversial topics like immigration and bathroom restrictions for transgender people into what should have been a routine debate.

House Bill 1818 by state Rep. Larry Gonzales, R-Round Rock, would keep the Texas Railroad Commission's name — instead of the re-naming it the Oil and Gas Commission — while giving the agency more oversight of pipeline construction in Texas.

- House panel hears bills for open carry without permit.

Two measures that would make it easier for Texans to access guns were up for consideration by the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee on Tuesday.

House Bill 375 by state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, would allow Texans to openly carry a handgun with or without a license, making it optional for people in the state to obtain a permit or take a class. Stickland filed the same bill in 2015, but it was never heard in committee.

“I don’t think the government has the right to say, 'You have a Second Amendment right, but only if you take this class and pay this fee,'” Stickland said as he laid out his bill. “If someone can legally possess a firearm, they should be able to carry that firearm.”

- Texas Senate approves its budget, shifting school costs to local taxpayers.

The Senate proposal actually strips about $1.8 billion in state funds for education but uses local property taxes and other revenue to make up the difference. In total, Nelson said, her proposal would boost public school funding by $4.6 billion compared to the prior budget, including a $2.6 billion provision to cover student enrollment growth.

"Under our formula, the local share of education funding fills up the bucket first, as local property tax collections go up, the state share goes down," Nelson said. "But in the aggregate, funding for education is going up every year."

At the same time, the Senate is advancing controversial tax cut proposals that critics say would make it more difficult for the state and local governments to pay for schools. Last week, the upper chamber passed Senate Bill 2, which seeks to curb the growth in property taxes, and Senate Bill 17, which would cut the franchise tax paid by businesses in future years.

- Bills to plug public information "loopholes" breeze through Senate.

The Texas Senate cleared a pair of bills Tuesday aimed at plugging "loopholes" in public records law that have left taxpayers in the dark about key details of some government contracts.

Senate Bills 407 and 408 both breezed through the chamber and will head to the House. Filed by Sen. Kirk Watson, they push back against two 2015 Texas Supreme Court rulings that immediately made it easier for private companies involved with government contracts to keep parts of those contracts secret.

“What we’re trying to do is to make sure the public has information as to how its tax dollars are being spent,” Watson said.

Some businesses have lined up against the bills. The Texas Association of Business is among those who have voiced concerns over the bills.

From the Texas Tribune: Will Texas universities face perfect storm of cuts?

This might be of interest to all of you.

- Click here for the article.

Higher education leaders entered the 2017 session of the Texas Legislature expecting some dark days. Two-and-a-half months in, they're now focused on warding off a perfect storm.

In addition to potential state funding cuts, which are being discussed like they're a virtual certainty in the Capitol, schools are staring down efforts to freeze tuition and slash federal funding for higher education. If all three happen, the universities' three biggest sources of money would be reduced or frozen for 2018.

That's a scary thought to advocates of public higher education, who warn that Texas' need for strong state universities will only grow in the coming years. Tuition, state funding and federal cash make up a combined 75 percent of Texas public university revenue.

"All alumni and business leaders in our state should be up in arms and outraged about these proposals being considered," said Will O'Hara, co-interim director of the Texas Exes alumni group for the University of Texas at Austin.

Persuading elected officials to reverse course could be difficult, however. There's less money for the state to spend overall this year than in previous sessions. There are also other pressing needs to compete with, like reforming the child protective services and foster care systems. And many lawmakers are frustrated with what they view as a lack of fiscal discipline among the state's universities.

Average tuition has climbed 147 percent in Texas over the past 15 years. And most of the state's universities have increased tuition since 2015, when the Legislature added $2 billion to the budget for higher education.

The scrutiny is especially pronounced in the Senate, where presiding officer Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick named halting tuition growth one of his top 20 priorities for 2017. Patrick, a Republican, has thrown his support behind Senate Bill 19, which would impose a four-year freeze on tuition increases.

Meanwhile, senators are expected to vote Tuesday on their proposed budget. If they pass it as currently written, which is highly likely, they will send the House a bill that would impose hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of higher education cuts. Each school would face a loss of 6 percent to 10 percent of its state funding in the Senate plan.

For 2306 today

- Prayer Rooms Are Just One Way Public Schools Accommodate Students And Religious Freedom.

A classroom used as a prayer room at Liberty High School in Frisco got the attention of the Texas attorney general’s office last week. The office sent a letter raising constitutional concerns about the room. The Frisco superintendent called the letter a "publicity stunt" and said the prayer room has been in use for several years without complaints.

Prayer rooms are just one way public schools in Frisco and across Texas accommodate students and religion.

. . . “You may hear it said sometimes that prayer’s been kicked out of public schools,” said Joy Baskin, director of legal services with the Texas Association of School Boards.

“In fact, what has been determined by the courts is that schools can’t compel prayer.”
Baskin said prayer rooms in schools are acceptable and legal under the First Amendment. Schools can also give students time to pray, whether it’s during free time or a lunch period. They can give students passes to leave class to pray or leave campus for religious education.

“It’s a concept that courts have looked at for many years,” Baskin said. “It’s called 'release time,' and it’s the idea that in order to follow a tenet of faith, the student is briefly excused. It’s an opportunity to have an excused absence in order to follow a tenet of faith.”

- Straus condemns "bathroom bill," talks local control.

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus on Friday gave perhaps his harshest condemnation yet of the controversial “bathroom bill” championed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Straus said the bill, which has drawn the ire of Texas businesses and been criticized as discriminatory against transgender people, felt “manufactured and unnecessary.”

“If we’ve gotten to the point in our civilization, in our society, that our politicians have to pass bills about bathroom stuff ... I mean, we’ve gotten really out of control,” he said.

"For it to get this much attention in a legislative session is astounding to me," he added.

- State lawmakers concerned over TABC expenditures, antiquated alcohol laws.

Isaac has been working for two sessions to level the liquor playing field in Texas, but he said he's been blocked by the alcohol industry's grip on the Legislature. Isaac added that TABC officials who enforce Texas’s antiquated liquor laws benefit from keeping those laws in place. 

Isaac filed HB 4233 on March 10 in an attempt to eliminate provisions in the Alcoholic Beverage Code that prohibit publicly traded companies from selling liquor in Texas and limit liquor store owners to five stores. He said he’s not incredibly optimistic about the bill’s chances, though; he filed the same bill last session but did not even get a hearing.

“The ones that are in power have an incredible stranglehold on the Legislature, leading to protecting their business interests, rather than protecting consumers or the free markets,” Isaac said. “I would love to get a hearing in the licensing committee. It’s not been referred yet, but that’s where it went last year. I’d love to get a chance to talk about it.”

Right now, a publicly traded company cannot sell liquor in Texas, but privately-owned companies can — the only such law in the nation. Privately owned companies such as Spec’s are discouraged from going public by this provision, Isaac said.

“If they wanted to grow, and raise capital with an initial public offering, they would have to cease doing business in the state of Texas,” Isaac said.

HB 4233 also would eliminate the five-store limitation. Isaac said a loophole in the law allows large families to exceed that limit by letting each family member put five stores in their names — which he said isn't fair to smaller families.

- Liquor regulators acknowledge Rangers haven't cleared them.

After state liquor regulators got hit with a complaint last year that it violated its own rules when it served alcohol without a permit at a state convention, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said it conducted a thorough investigation, determined no permits were needed and then forwarded its findings to the Texas Rangers.

The Rangers, in turn, decided no further action was warranted, TABC officials claimed.

That story fell apart on Friday.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission now acknowledges the Rangers never got the investigative report, and the Ranger who interacted with the agency called the agency’s assertion a “mistake.” Meanwhile, a newly-obtained internal email discussing the liquor service at the convention raises new questions about whether rules were broken.

From the Texas Tribune: Republicans expected to revise Texas "bathroom bill"

The changes are presumably to make the bill more likely to pass.

- Click here for the article.

With the measure scheduled for a committee hearing Tuesday, Texas Republicans are expected to offer a new version of the controversial “bathroom bill” with two significant changes.

The modified bill removes a section that would have increased penalties for certain crimes committed in a bathroom or changing facility, according to a copy of a committee substitute obtained by The Texas Tribune. It also adds a new “legislative findings” section that would write into statute the reasoning that the bill's lead author, Republican state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, has provided in pushing for the bill.

Senate Bill 6 would require transgender people to use bathrooms in public schools, government buildings and public universities that match their “biological sex.” The measure would also pre-empt local nondiscrimination ordinances that allow transgender residents to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.

Those regulations are largely unchanged in the substitute language expected to be presented tomorrow, but the modified bill does not include a lesser-known section that would have increased penalties for certain crimes in bathrooms by one degree. That would have meant that the punishment for an individual who commits an assault, for example, would have been higher if the assault occurred in a bathroom versus a parking lot or on a sidewalk.

The new “legislative findings” section appears to be intended to lay out the purpose of the bill. That section states that the “federal government’s mandate to provide students access to bathrooms, showers and dressing rooms based on an individual student’s internal sense of gender is alarming and could potentially lead to boys and girls showering together and using the same restroom.”

That appears to be an apparent reference to since rescinded guidelines issued by the Obama administration that directed public schools to accommodate transgender students. The Trump administration pulled back those guidelines on Feb. 22.

From the Texas Tribune: To fight anti-"sanctuary" bill, Democrats may highlight "sanctuary industries"

For the many 2306 students looking at "sanctuary city" legislation. Some strategy to attempt to derail it.

- Click here for the article.

As Texas Democrats strategize how to continue pushing back against state-based immigration proposals, they’re considering a tactic often embraced by some far-right members of the Republican Party to assist their efforts.

“I would just say that all options are on the table to expose the hypocrisy of only focusing on immigrants and not on Texas businesses that rely heavily on them,” state Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, told the Tribune. “There may be a multi-tiered strategy to expose the hypocrisy and bring business to the table.”

Anchia, the chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, made his remarks last week, a day after he was in the middle of a bruising debate on the House floor. Anchia unleashed a six-minute tirade on the floor after state Rep. Mark Keough, R-The Woodlands, offered an immigration-enforcement amendment to legislation that would create a new system of monthly payments for relatives caring for children in their families who have been abused or neglected. The amendment would have prevented undocumented families in the same circumstances from receiving state aid.

“If this is how the session’s going to go, and you guys want to talk about ‘illegals’ and you guys want to talk about immigrants and you guys want to talk about sanctuary cities, well, we’re going to start talking about sanctuary industries,” Anchia said during the debate, coining a new term about businesses that don’t fully vet their employees’ legal status.

A couple items about criminal justice reform.

- Sandra Bland Act would change processes for law enforcement, jails.

State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, on Thursday filed House Bill 2702, dubbed the Sandra Bland Act.

The exhaustive piece of legislation would expand what qualifies as racial and ethnic profiling; mandate people experiencing a mental health crisis and substance abuse be diverted to treatment over jail; and create more training and reporting requirements for county jails and law enforcement.

The legislation is named in honor of Sandra Bland, a black, 28-year-old Illinois woman who was found dead in an apparent suicide in the Waller County Jail in 2015.

- Texas Senate to vote only on law enforcement-related bills Monday.

Next Monday is the first day that the House and Senate can consider non-emergency items, and it will be all about law enforcement in the Senate, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick announced Monday.

Bills on other subjects will not be considered Monday, Patrick said.

"All of our first responders, every day, when they go to work, commit to do something that none of the rest of us do in Texas," Patrick said. "So we need to do all we can to make sure we're always for them, 'cause they're always there for us."

From the Texas Tribune: Tensions mount between Dan Patrick and the Texas House

No one likes being checked.

- Click here for the article.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick celebrated a milestone Wednesday: His Senate had acted on all four of Gov. Greg Abbott's emergency items with many more days to go in the 85th legislative session.

"It's the earliest ever that anyone knows of that either body ... has already passed all the emergency items," Patrick said in a radio interview. Abbott's top priorities are "out and done" in the Senate, Patrick boasted — a not-so-subtle contrast with the Texas House, which tackled its first emergency item this week.

It's not the only bone Patrick has to pick with the House these days. As its resistance to some of his top priorities has come into focus in recent weeks, the lieutenant governor has become increasingly vocal about the tension between the two chambers.

"The brow-beating — I think the volume's up a lot higher than we've seen in the past," said state Rep. Lyle Larson, an ally of House Speaker Joe Straus, a fellow San Antonio Republican. "Using a brow-beating approach in governing never bodes well for anybody."

From the Texas Tribune: House proposal aims to limit increases in Texas property tax bills

Some 2306 students are focusing on property tax reform for their papers.

- Click here for the article.

Saying there needs to be more transparency in how property taxes are assessed in Texas, the head of the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled legislation Friday that would reduce the maximum increase allowed in taxes on individual properties.

House Bill 15, dubbed the “Property Taxpayer Empowerment Act” and authored by state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, would reduce the maximum increase in taxes for a property — from 8 percent to 4 percent. The legislation would also require local governments to annually publish a “No New Taxes Rate" — which is the rate that would raise the same amount of money as the previous year — and restrict debt service taxes to debt that has been approved by voters.

“Government only works when citizens can hold their leaders accountable, and accountability begins with transparency,” Bonnen said in a news release. “Our property tax system is needlessly confusing and discourages citizens from taking an active role in the local rate-setting process. The Property Taxpayer Empowerment Act will give Texans the information and clarity they need about their tax bill to hold local leaders accountable.”

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court Justice, House Corrections Chair Want to End ‘Unconstitutional’ Practice of Debtors’ Prison

We discussed whether the constitutional ban - in the Texas Constitution mind you - against debtors prisons is routinely violated when people are sent to jail for unpaid tickets. Apparently some in the legislature agree.

- Click here for the article.

Drive with an invalid license, drink one too many beers in public or let your dog run free where leash laws say you can’t, and you could get hit with a fine. If you don’t have the money to pay, you could end up serving time in jail instead.

Republicans, including the Texas Supreme Court chief justice and the chair of the House Corrections Committee, want to dismantle that practice, which they say violates the U.S. Constitution and traps thousands of indigent Texans in a cycle of debt.

Jailing a person for his or her inability to pay a fine is illegal under state and federal law, and multiple U.S. Supreme Court rulings have declared the practice unconstitutional. The Texas Constitution states, “No person shall ever be imprisoned for debt.” Yet de facto debtors’ prisons still operate across the state.

During his State of the Judiciary address earlier this month, Chief Justice Nathan L. Hecht said more than half a million minor offenses resulted in defendants sitting out fines in jail last year. Texas judges presided over 7 million such cases, which produced more than $1 billion in fine revenue in 2016, he said. The majority of defendants paid and moved on with their lives, but in 640,000 cases, defendants ended up behind bars.

“It’s very problematic when we’re confining people who cannot pay,” state Representative James White, R-Hillister, who heads the House Corrections Committee, told the Observer. “We’ve got constitutional issues, cost issues, common sense issues and compassion issues here.”

For 2306 today - and tomorrow

All from the Texas Tribune: 

- Texas proposal would keep cities from restricting short-term home rentals.

A legislative proposal that would limit local government control of short-term home rentals in Texas has reawakened a fight over regulations that has already played out in cities across the state. Senate Bill 451 by state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R- North Richland Hills, would prevent Texas cities from banning or restricting short-term rentals. Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth are among the cities that have enacted such restrictions. Critics of the bill said it would lower property values and allow Texans to rent houses to people who might host disruptive parties and increase traffic in their neighborhoods.

- Unlikely allies: some homeschoolers fighting to kill school choice bill.

Nicki Truesdell is a product of homeschooling and would never enroll her four younger children in a public or private school. Corrine French has spent the last five years serving on the board of a rural public school district in North Texas. Both are terrified a "private school choice" bill will pass this legislative session. The longtime friends say they were surprised to find themselves on the same side of an education policy fight as state senators consider a bill to give parents debit cards to pay for private school and homeschooling, using taxpayer money. The polarizing issue has brought together unlikely allies, with some homeschoolers, rural conservatives and public education advocates fighting what they see as an encroachment on their schools.

- Analysis: In bathroom bill, politics disguised as policy.

The proposed bathroom bill percolating in the Texas Legislature doesn’t do what its supporters say it is supposed to do. Here’s the caption — the legal description at the top of Senate Bill 6: “relating to regulations and policies for entering or using a bathroom or changing facility; authorizing a civil penalty; increasing criminal penalties.”

That’s pretty straightforward, because it has to be, but the rhetoric around the bill is more florid — and misleading. It purports to protect Texans answering nature’s calls from people of the opposite sex. It has a logical flaw, however, because it doesn’t protect them in most of the public restrooms in the state — only the public restrooms in public buildings.

- The Brief: Bill banning wrongful birth lawsuits heads to Senate committee.

From the Houston Chronicle: HOUSTON Lawmaker's bill reopens debate over $105M Astrodome parking plan - Lawmaker requires voter approval; local government calls it 'micromanaging'

We covered the initial proposal - which did not require additional revenue, meaning no need for voter approval - in the fall. Here's the latest.

- Click here for the article.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett voiced concern Tuesday that a bill filed by a veteran state senator jeopardizes the county's plan to revitalize the Astrodome, adding that county representatives would continue to try to persuade legislators to support the $105 million project.

Emmett said state Sen. John Whitmire's bill, the Harris County Taxpayer Protection Act, was misleading and that Whitmire's statements that some Astrodome renovation funds could be spent on Minute Maid Park or the Toyota Center were "demonstrably incorrect."

"This bill is an example of state government making it more difficult for local government to do its job," Emmett said.

Whitmire's bill would require voter approval for a county plan to spend $105 million to raise the floor of the iconic, domed stadium and create 1,400 parking spaces and space for events or festivals.

Emmett, a Republican, said the county would delay a "comprehensive analysis of future operation and maintenance needs at NRG Park" until the bill's fate were decided. NRG Park includes the 52-year-old Astrodome, NRG Stadium, home of the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and event venues NRG Arena and NRG Center.

At a press conference Tuesday in Austin, Whitmire and other state senators from the Houston area gathered to express their support of legislation that would effectively block - or at least delay - Emmett's plan.

For more: More on the Whitmire Astrodome bill.

From the Austin American-Statesman: Texas conservatives launch next fight on religious liberty

More evidence of Texas' traditionalistic political culture. This sets up a constitutional conflict: The First Amendment vs the Equal Protection Clause.

- Click here for the article.

Conservative Republican senators and representatives Wednesday unveiled a dozen bills designed to protect religious practice, including efforts to allow Christians to opt out of serving gay couples if same-sex marriage violates their beliefs.

Unlike the 2015 session, when efforts to approve broad constitutional amendments to protect religious practice fell far short, the bills filed thus far focus on specific issues and were the result of a concerted effort to “make sure that religious liberty bills are at the forefront this session,” said state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth.

“Religious liberties are the bedrock of what our state and our country were built on, and we want to make sure we are protecting those, preserving those and advancing those liberties as much as possible,” Krause said during a Capitol news conference.

Many of the bills have already attracted spirited opposition from critics who say they would authorize state-sanctioned discrimination.

“Religious liberty protections allow us to worship freely and to be vocal about what our religious beliefs are,” said Chuck Smith with Equality Texas. “But religious liberty does not allow me to exempt myself from laws or allow me to use my religious beliefs against other people. That’s discrimination, that’s not religious liberty.”

“There’s no discrimination here,” Krause said. “We’re just trying to open it up to where people can continue to work and do what they love to do in the way that they want to do it.”

One of the farthest reaching proposals, known as the First Amendment Defense Act, would not permit state or local governments to penalize people for acting on religious beliefs opposing gay marriage.

From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: Texas makes do with broken but legal school finance system

Texas' complex system for funding education might be at a breaking point.

- Click here for the article.

As the Texas Legislature searches for a solution to the state’s persistent school finance problems, the Houston Independent School District is asking voters to reconsider its property tax policy, and Austin ISD is warning voters that a big chunk of their school tax dollars aren't going where taxpayers might think they’re going.

It’s a confusing time in school finance — a maelstrom of local and state governments trying to master a byzantine system that is broken in every way but the most important one: It remains, according to the Texas Supreme Court, constitutionally sound.

Many lawmakers and school districts had expected — some in hope, others in dread — that this would be a legislative session focused on building a new school finance system for Texas. They thought the court would force lawmakers to set things right.

Maybe the session will turn out that way without the court’s help. The Senate Finance Committee has dispatched a team led by Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, to try to rewrite the whole thing during the current legislative session.

Will it work? That’s a decent acid test to find out whether you are essentially optimistic or pessimistic. Whatever your disposition, a bona fide remedy designed by a committee with a short timeframe and no legal axe over its head would be unprecedented.

Until that or another effort changes the system, districts around Texas are wrestling with the current school finance system — a complicated and ramshackle machine that is supposed to get enough money to every school district in the state to adequately educate Texas children.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas lawmakers search for ways to avoid wasted college credits

This might hit home for many of you.

- Click here for the article.

As four-year college degrees grow more costly in Texas, state leaders have encouraged students to consider a cheaper solution — spending the first two years at a local community college.

But many students who have heeded that advice have hit a frustrating roadblock: When they transfer to a four-year school, their course credits don't always come along with them.

Classes taken to save cash end up being a waste of money.
The problem is vexing for state lawmakers, who say they receive calls year after year from angry students and parents. An estimated two-fifths of Texas students lose all of their credits when they transfer schools, according to Texas-based foundation. That helps add up to about $60 million in wasted tuition payments in the state each year.

This legislative session, lawmakers are in search of a true fix. “We’re going to try to do something that we haven’t been able to do in the last 20 years,” said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas.

Late last month, Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson asked West to lead a working group on the issue. Nelson, a Republican from Flower Mound, said she and other legislators were “growing impatient” with the schools’ inability to solve the problem.

There's no easy solution. Higher education experts and officials cast the blame up and down the community college-to-university pipeline. And in Texas, home to dozens of colleges and university systems with their own chains of command, there’s no single person with the power to make a statewide fix. No state agency has the authority to enforce rules on transferability, and degree plans can differ within university departments — let alone among different schools.

“We have a state in which we have a plethora of systems and colleges that are very used to operating independently,” Rex Peebles, an assistant commissioner at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, told lawmakers recently. “But they also have different missions and goals in mind, and their curriculum tends to reflect that.”

More for 2306 this week.

A mix of commentary, analysis and fact.


- Sabin, Harman: Texas can no longer rely on local property taxes to fund schools.
- Lawmakers push bipartisan effort for adoptees to get birth certificates.
- Davidson: Time to end partisan judicial selection.
- SAEN: Flawed study aside, bathroom bill still bad for our economy.
- Fitzsimmons: Act today to protect and preserve rural Texas lands.

From the Houston Chroicle: Union dues bill faces contentious road ahead Senate hearing set for revived legislation following 2015 setback

For 2306 this week.

- Click here for the article.

After being blocked by moderate Republicans two years ago, controversial legislation that would prohibit voluntary payroll deductions of union dues from state employee paychecks is up again Monday for a new hearing.

This time, passage of the measure has been tagged as a priority by Gov. Greg Abbott and figures in a broader push by conservative Republicans intent on pushing ahead their agenda that include school choice and pension reform.

On Monday, the Senate State Affairs Committee will hold a public hearing on Senate Bill 13 -- authored by the panel's chair, Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston -- with passage expected to allow full debate soon by the full Senate.

From Politifact Texas: Business group says bathroom law could lose Texas $8.5 billion in GDP, up to 185,000 jobs

They rate the claim mostly false.

- Click here for the article.

A major business group predicts billions of dollars in economic losses should Texas lawmakers advance "discriminatory" legislation including so-called bathroom bills or measures limiting local control of non-discrimination ordinances.

We checked on whether the widely cited projections, linked to actions in other states, hold up.

Portions of the study commissioned by the Texas Association of Business proved solid. But other elements were shaky. One projection, for instance, rests in the Super Bowl set for Houston on Feb. 5, 2017 being moved to another state. Another extrapolates Texas losses from research rooted in Arizona’s immigration law--not that state’s failed proposal targeting LGBT residents. And the report’s biggest projected loss to Texas starts from an Indiana legislator’s comment that might lack documentary backup.
There could be heft to claims that a Texas Senate proposal poses economic risks.

Opponents of Senate Bill 6, requiring Texas residents to use bathrooms matching their assigned sex at birth, underscore North Carolina’s experience, which gets TAB attention elsewhere in its report presenting the possible economic losses. In 2016, Republicans in the Tarheel State curbed protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents, touching off economic losses mostly tied to boycotts adding up to as much as $201 million, PolitiFact North Carolina confirmed.

The TAB, which calls itself the state’s leading advocate for employers, initially highlighted the study that caught our attention in a Dec. 6, 2016, press release urging the 2017 Legislature to spurn "discriminatory legislation." That release said the study, undertaken at St. Edward’s University in Austin, found that a discriminatory law could result in $964 million to $8.5 billion in reduced state gross domestic product and up to 185,000 lost jobs, partly due to fallout in the tourism sector. State GDP refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a state in a particular period of time.

We broke down the figures in the study, exploring research assumptions and identifying instances of unstated or questionable sourcing. Separately, outside experts sounded a few cautionary notes.

This just in:

- Texas Tribune: After Super Bowl, NFL raises prospect of Texas "bathroom bill" impacting future games.

A few items for 2306

All of these are from the Texas Tribune:

- Analysis: A $100 million reinterpretation of Texas school finance law.

After reconsideration of an 18-year-old law, state education officials are adjusting their school finance calculations in a way that could save several dozen school districts roughly $100 million — while costing the state the same amount in revenue. One of the apparent beneficiaries is Houston ISD, where the change means taxpayers will be sending about $60 million less to the state for public education than they had expected. At issue is a calculation for recapture — the state’s term for the money that districts with higher property wealth send to the state for use in districts with lower property wealth.

- House Republican eyes alternative approach to "bathroom bill"

A Republican in the Texas House is pitching an alternative to the “bathroom bill,” saying he wants to focus more on local control than on bathrooms.

State Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, filed legislation Monday that would prohibit local governments from setting restroom policies for private businesses. The measure, House Bill 1362, also says public schools cannot adopt policies that allow "more than one sex or gender" to use use the same "multi-occupancy private spaces."

The bill is similar to Senate Bill 6, a measure deemed a priority by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, which would require people to use restrooms in Texas public schools and government buildings based on their biological sex. SB 6 also pre-empts local nondiscrimination ordinances that allow transgender Texans to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.

Shaheen said he supports SB 6 but wanted to focus on the issue from a local control standpoint. One catalyst for his legislation was a proposed Houston ordinance in 2015 that would have made it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Houston voters soundly rejected the measure.

- Human Rights Campaign to open Texas offices to fight “bathroom bill”

With Texas Republicans working to pass their own version of a “bathroom bill,” one of the nation’s most prominent LGBT civil rights organizations is opening offices in Texas to fight it.

The Human Rights Campaign is setting up three field offices in Austin, Houston and Dallas for the legislative session and have set their eyes on defeating Senate Bill 6 and other anti-LGBT legislation that’s been proposed by Texas lawmakers. This is the first time the organization will have full-time staff in the state, and they will be working with organizers on the ground in Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.

"This is a significant investment that we'll be making here in the state," the organization's president Chad Griffin told The Texas Tribune. "There's an estimated nearly 800,000 LGBTQ eligible voters in this state ... and they are ready to be organized and activated."

- Senate committee advances anti-sanctuary cities bill.

After a 16-hour hearing that included tears, heckling, bursts of anger and warnings from lawmakers to witnesses to respect the rules of the Capitol’s upper chamber, the Texas Senate’s State Affairs Committee voted 7-2 along party lines early Friday morning to advance a controversial state-based immigration bill to the full Senate.

Senate Bill 4, commonly known as the anti-sanctuary cities bill, would punish local government entities and college campuses that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials or enforce immigration laws.

The bill, if passed, would allow local police to enforce immigration laws if the officer is working with a federal immigration officer or under an agreement between the local and federal agency. It would also punish local governments if their law enforcement agencies — specifically county jails — fail to honor requests, known as detainers, from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to hand over immigrants in custody for possible deportation. The punishment would be a denial of state grant funds.

For 2306: Emergency Bills, the State of the Judiciary, and the State Board of Education on Evolution

All from the Texas Tribune:



- In State of State, Abbott imposes hiring freeze, declares 4 issues "emergencies"

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday laid out a largely expected agenda for the 85th legislative session while declaring four issues as emergencies for lawmakers to take up immediately: banning so-called "sanctuary cities," overhauling the state's broken child welfare system, implementing ethics reform and approving a resolution to support a convention of states to amend the U.S. Constitution.

In his State of the State address, Abbott said Texas remained "exceptional" and expressed optimism that the state's economy would bounce back from an oil downturn. At the top of his priority list for lawmakers was the child welfare system, which a federal judge declared broken in 2015 and lawmakers have since been scrambling to overhaul.

- Legislature should prioritize judicial security, Texas Supreme Court chief justice says.

The state of the Texas judiciary is strong — because of judges like Julie Kocurek, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht said Wednesday during a joint meeting of the Texas House and Senate.

Kocurek, a state district judge in Travis County, was shot outside her home in late 2015 by a man who once appeared in her courtroom. She was hospitalized for several weeks, had almost 30 surgeries and lost a finger, Hecht said during his State of the Judiciary address.

"I asked Julie about her plans," the chief justice said. "She could retire. She was eligible. But if she left the bench, people would think you can threaten a judge and scare her off, maybe scare off other judges, intimidate them, show that justice cannot stand up to violence. She would not do that."

The attack on Kocurek highlighted gaps in security for judges, courthouses and their staff, Hecht said. He said those gaps include "inadequate training, communication and security protocols; inadequate resources; no state-level direction; and the ready availability of judges' personal information in publicly searchable government databases." Hecht said he wants legislation named in Kocurek's honor.

- In preliminary vote, State Board of Education keeps controversial evolution standards.

The Texas State Board of Education on Wednesday voted preliminarily for science standards that would keep in language that some say opens the door to creationism.

The votes came a day after the board heard from scientists begging them to remove the language. Board members are set to hold a second public hearing and take final votes on the changes to the science standards in April.

The process began in July, when the board convened a teacher committee that recommended the deletion of several high school science standards, including four controversial biology standards they said would be too complex for students to understand. In their recommendation for deleting a clause requiring students examine explanations on the "sudden appearance" of organism groups in the fossil record, they included the note, "Not enough time for students to master concept. Cognitively inappropriate for 9th grade students."

Republican board member Barbara Cargill led the charge Wednesday to keep three of those four standards in some form — arguing that they would actually help students better understand the science and keep teachers away from creationist ideas.