From the Texas Tribune: Lt. Gov. Patrick Slams Universities for Tuition Increases

Another likely agenda item for the next legislative session. The precise reasons why tuition has increased so much is still up for debate.

- Click here for the article.

In his most aggressive terms yet, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick excoriated Texas universities for raising their tuition in recent years, suggesting that the Texas Senate will try to limit tuition growth when it reconvenes next year.

At a press conference Tuesday before a meeting of the Senate Higher Education Committee, Patrick pointed to graphs detailing how total academic charges at the state's universities have grown 147 percent since 2002. Median household income in the United States has grown just 32 percent during that time, he said.

"People did not send us here to Austin to allow universities to raise tuition five times their salaries," Patrick said.

Patrick said "everything is on the table" in terms of legislative remedies if such growth continues.

"What we are asking is for our universities to be as fiscally responsible as we ask ourselves to be and for our agencies to be," he said. "They are not an exception."

He later added, "They need to scrub their budgets like we scrub ours. Every dollar that they spend needs to be scrubbed."

The average total cost at Texas’ four-year universities for an undergraduate taking 15 hours is $4,179. That’s up from $1,693 in 2002.

For more in the subject:

- College tuition on the rise in Texas, far exceeding household income growth.
- Analysis: Raising College Tuition, Deflecting the Blame.
- The Rising Price of Higher Education.

In the news today ....

- Texas Speaker Joe Straus has two Tea Party affiliated challengers to his seat in the upcoming primary election. Straus represents the 121st district in the Texas House. Tea Party opponents , who think Straus is too liberal, have failed to defeat him in two previous primary challenges. They think he might be more vulnerable if he has to face two challengers since he might not win a majority and could defeated in a run-off with low turnout: See Straus faces two-candidate challenge from the far right in Republican primary.

- I still need to post items detailing the recent spending bill. It contains a variety of items (riders) related to non-spending issues including rules loosening campaign spending rules. Some allowing greater use of what is called dark money - dark because its source can;t be traced. This a road we've been heading down for decades: See: White House surrenders on 'dark money' regulation.

- Dark money is also becoming more influential in state races. States vary in their policies regarding transparency - Texas requires little. Most of the additional money spent on campaigns since the Citizens United decision removed many caps on expenditures has been through channels that do not require disclosure. Much of this spending on state races comes from groups located in other states, but the precise source is difficult to determine, and there are sufficient loopholes in place to continue to make them secret. See: 'Dark money' grows in politics even as states try to stop it.

- Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is continuing to shape the state panels by appointing people with more conservative bona-fides. This includes the Sunset Commission and the Legislative Budget Board. Among the recent appointees of the latter is area state senator Larry Taylor. See: Dan Patrick shows, through new panel picks, that he wants a more conservative Texas Senate.

- A common theme regarding the early race for the Republican nomination has been what impact Trump will have on the party and whether a division might emerge within it that leads to a third party run. Most previous analyses have looked at the possibility the Trump runs as a third party candidate is he looses the nomination. Here's a look at the possibility that a traditional Republican runs as a third party candidate if Trump wins the nomination. See: Will the GOP Mount a Third-Party Challenge to Trump?

- Is Trump's campaign organization playing with fire? Lot's of Trump's activities are being performed by people that work in many of his businesses, which creates problems since these are to be treated as campaign expenses, meaning that they are to be reported as such. Trump appears to be testing the limits of campaign funding law. See: Trump’s reliance on business questioned.

. . . and catching up with Joe Straus and Dan Patrick as well

- Grading Straus.

When tea party-aligned Republicans at the Texas Capitol talk about why they can't get any number of bills passed, they reflexively point to one man: House Speaker Joe Straus.

The anti-Straus forces – especially as they have amassed power in the Senate – have been careful about not laying blame at the feet of the whole House. Instead, the tea party crowd alleges a more us-versus-them framework that pits Joe Straus’ coalition of Democrats and so-called liberal Republicans against the tea party sympathizers who are vastly outnumbered in the lower chamber.

- Texas House Speaker Joe Straus to head national push to turn more legislatures red.

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus had to curb his enthusiasm Tuesday when, as expected, he was named the head of the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, a national GOP group that aims to turn more legislatures red.

Republicans have been annihilating the Democrats’ “bench” of state officeholders so rapidly in recent cycles that you could almost read a how-do-I-top-that lament in Straus’ reaction. “We have a lot of ground to defend,” Straus said in a statement. Boy, is that an understatement.

- Important items on Straus’ list.

Among the items Texas House SpeakerJoe Strausis directing the 2017 Legislature to address are some that deserve particularly heightened attention. They go to adequate and effective state spending, transparent government and whether Texas students will be the workforce the state needs to be economically competitive.
They are “interim charges” from Straus. They offer a possible preview of priorities for the House in the next session. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issued his directives to Senate committees earlier.

- Patrick says state voters' approval of Proposition 1 a first step in tax relief.

In a news conference Thursday at the Texas Federation of Republican Women convention in Lubbock, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said state voters’ recent passage of Proposition 1 was just the first step in property tax relief. . . . Given the newly approved increase in homestead exceptions, Patrick said the next step should either be to reduce the maximum amount appraisal districts can increase property values or to lower the rollback rate on property taxes that requires cities and counties to hold elections if they exceed it.

 - Texas conservatives look to finally move on ‘sanctuary cities’.

Lawmakers and our law enforcement officials have the responsibility to keep our communities safe. Many security officials say illegal immigration puts us in danger. But will lawmakers try again for a controversial law to get rid of “sanctuary cities.” Lawmakers tackled this issue and waded into this passionate issue at a Senate Border Security Committee at the State Capitol. The debate centered around two issues. The first is who commits crime. The second is what can and should the state do to encourage action from our local police.

- 1-on-1 with Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.

Many call it the most powerful position in the State. Nothing passes the Senate without approval from the Lt. Governor. Today that position is held by Dan Patrick, a former sportscaster and state senator. He passed all but one of his priority items out of the Senate last session. But some of his ideas did not pass the House and, as a result, did not become law. But in the interim (time between sessions) he gave Texas’s 31 senators some homework.

“School choice is back,” said Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. Last session he said he’d put his shoulder behind it. While a bill giving tax credits to businesses who paid for kids to leave failing schools passed the Senate, it did not pass the House. He’s bringing it up again.

From The Texas Tribune: Patrick Sets Committees; Taylor Gets Education

Lieutenant Governor Patrick announced his committee picks, along with his decision about who will chair these committees, for this session. This is a key power granted to the lieutenant governor and provides a degree of control over the legislative process in that chamber.

ACC's state senator Larry Taylor will chair the Education Committee.

- Click here for the article.

I found this an interesting look at power in the chamber:

There had been speculation among Capitol observers that the higher education committee, chaired by Seliger, who has been an occasional critic of Patrick's, might be folded into the education committee. Not only did it survive, however, but Seliger, who sponsored a fundraiser for Patrick and contributed to his campaign, retained his chairmanship.

And there's this about Taylor:

Who Patrick would pick to chair Education, the committee he headed as a state senator, was a subject of much discussion heading into the session.

Taylor, a sophomore, served on the committee he will now lead during the 2013 legislative session. Before elected to the Senate in 2012, he spent 10 years in the House.

During his time in the lower chamber, he was perhaps best known for leading the charge, along with tort reform groups, to overhaul the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, a state-funded insurance pool that has paid out millions in damages for hurricane-related lawsuits. The fight became a proxy battle between Texans for Lawsuit Reform and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and later resulted in top trial lawyer and Democratic donor Steve Mostyn pouring money into an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Taylor's bid for Senate in 2012.

In his first year as a senator, Taylor carried two education bills, both co-sponsored with Patrick. One was a so-called "parent trigger" bill, which requires the state to convert failing campuses to charter schools if enough parents petition. The other was legislation similar to House Bill 5, which ultimately became law, making changes to curriculum requirements and reducing the number of state standardized tests for high school students.

From Texas Public Radio: A recap of the debate between the Republican candidates for Lieutenant Governor

Click here for the link.

Since we're looking at marijuana policy across the nation, this sticks out:

8:42 p.m.: Support legalization of marijuana?

Dewhurst: Would not legalize marijuana. Get people who have addictions well and not addicted.

Staples: Would not legalize recreational use. We need to be smart on enforcing laws. Need to make sure we have programs in place to deal with perpetual violators of our law. Do not need to lower our standards or allow what is happening elsewhere in the country to happen in Texas. We support local law enforcement and as lieutenant governor I would uphold the laws of the land.

Patrick: A nonstarter for me. I couldn’t believe the president of the U.S. would interject in the parenting of our children to say it’s OK to use marijuana.

Patterson: Federal government should not be involved in criminal justice. It is a state issue. I do agree with Gov. Perry – it is Texas’ decision to make. Do not support legalizing recreational use. Medicinal uses, we should consider that. We should not go back to the ’60s where if one kid had a joint it’s a felony. … FDA would administer it. We have medical barbiturates. We have medical codeine.

So if you're a stoner, vote Patterson, but don't get your hopes up.

Ross Ramsey: A Weak Governor System, With a Strong Governor

The Texas Tribune writer points out that longevity and the cultivation of loyalists that he has placed throughout state government has given Perry far more power than is typical in the office. Its unlikely his successor will enjoy the same clout he developed, but he transformed the office while he held it:

Before Perry, half the stories about the doings in the state Capitol were either about the inherent weakness of the governor’s office or the ancient lore about how the lieutenant governor holds the state’s most powerful office.

The governor has no cabinet. He or she can appoint the people who populate the various boards and commissions, but only a third of them come up for appointment every two years, and the governor doesn’t have direct control over them once they’ve been posted. They can’t be fired — they can be made pretty uncomfortable, but that takes a lot of work — and they often behave as if they have their own brains and their own goals and ways of doing things.

That means that most of the people who head the executive branch of Texas government have never had full control over it. Other elected officials head some of the major agencies, and a powerful legislative branch can, with strong personalities in charge, control the agencies to some extent by controlling their budgets.

. . . After six years of Perry being in the governor’s office, virtually every appointee had him to thank for their post. And over his first decade in office, the governor seeded the executive branch with his former aides and their like-minded peers. They’re all over the place, with titles like executive director, general counsel, communications director and so on.

. . . Perry’s transformation of the office might be permanent. The agencies might naturally turn their ears to a governor for guidance after all these years out of habit.

It will take six years to replace all the appointees who owe their jobs to Perry, a third of the jobs turning over every two years. The people at the tops of all of those agency organization charts will linger until retirement — Perry’s legacy —and while they may be helpful to a new governor, they will not be indebted like they are to the old boss.

. . . Perry, because of his tenure and the methodical placement of former staffers throughout the government, changed all that, turning a weak office into a powerful one. It’s hard to remember how it used to be.

Dewhurst announces committee chairs

Story in the AAS.

Democracy and Casinos in Texas

Here's a great example of the limits institutions place on democracy:

From the Chronicle:

While a new statewide poll shows that 86 percent of Texans believe the public should vote on whether to legalize casinos, an influential state Senate chairman with jurisdiction over gambling said Monday he has no intention of advancing the necessary legislation.

"There is no support in my committee," said state Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock. "I just don't think there are the votes in the Senate. I don't see any chance of passage."

Duncan's opposition signals almost insurmountable odds for the expansion of gambling in Texas, despite the industry's hopes that lawmakers would look favorably upon casinos this year as a solution to the state's fiscal crisis.
The story also illustrates the Lieutenant Governor's control over the committee system, and the impact that can have on legislation:

So far, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has referred all gambling resolutions and bills filed in the Texas Senate to the State Affairs Committee, which Duncan chairs.

His spokesman, Mike Walz, said Dewhurst also likely would refer all "stand-alone" gambling bills passed by the House to Duncan's committee. He noted that the issue could be attached to other significant legislation that traditionally is heard by other committees.

Duncan's opposition creates a huge hurdle for an industry that has geared up its lobbying effort to take advantage of a desperate search by state lawmakers for new revenue sources.

By sending gambling bill to Duncan's Committee, which is a hugely important one the the legislature, Dewhurst can kill the bills without putting his fingerprints on the weaponry.

More on Senator Duncan:
- Senate website.
- Texas Tribune.
- Duncan's quotes.

The Senate Committee on State Affairs

- Official website.
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Dewhurst Announces Senate Committee Assignments

This is one of the tools available to the president of the Texas Senate that grants him leverage over the rank and file.

- story in the Chron.
- story in the Texas Tribune.

Area Senator Mike Jackson is on the Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Business and Commerce, Natural Resources, and State Affairs committees. Both 2301 and 2302 students ought to consider what exactly the Senator is able to do to address constituency needs in each of these committees.

Regarding Committee Assignments in the Texas Legislature and the Possible Election to Replace David Dewhurst

Both from Paul Burka:

- Speculating on House Committees.
- A Speaker’s Race in the East Wing.