And About Those Vetos...

Paul Burka has several posts on the Texas Monthly site analyzing the governors 49 vetoes. Here at ACC we are most affected by the veto of a good chunk of money for employee health insurance. More on the leg's impact on us here at community colleges later, but here are links to Burka's posts:

- Assessing the Vetoes.
- Assessing the Vetoes, Part 2.
- Assessing the Vetoes, Part 3.
- Assessing the Vetoes, The Line Items.

Thanks Mike

Thanks to Mike O'Day, the District 29 Texas Rep, and his staff for hosting an open house at their district office in Pearland. It's located near the intersection of FM 518 and I-35 and if you live in his district you should stop by to say hello. Terrie Morgan is there full time and spends her days handling constituents.

The rep walked us through a draft of a powerpoint presentation of the recently completed session and his involvement in it. He'll forward us a copy once its finished and I'll post a link to it.

For me his most surprising comment regarded the brevity of the session. Too short, not enough time to understand all the positions held by the different legislators. He didn't come out and say that they should meet longer, but he hinted that they should. Maybe the wheels are being set in motion.

He refrained from blasting the legislative process, and admitted to having a higher opinion of it now that he's seen it from the inside. He did suggest that the members who took on Craddick were out of line and that the parliamentary moves taken towards the end of the session would have created a precedent where future speakers could be removed for political reasons. As it stands, he or she can only be removed for criminal misbehavior.

He's willing to come to campus sometime soon. I'll let you know once we set it up.

The Best, Worst, and Honorable Mentions

Paul Burka engages in a post legislative ritual"

The Best and Worst Legislators.

The Honorable and Dishonorable.

Note the cryptic comment regarding our own Mike O'Day. No one's saying nuthin.

Bills selected so far

This is not a complete list, and I will add information to this as necessary, but so far this is the list of bills either passed or considered strongly by the Texas Legislature that students will analyze. Just bill numbers now. Descriptions to follow. I expect to have bills assigned to everyone by the end of the week.

HB 9
HB 12
HB 14
HB 109
HB 916
HB 1034
HB 1287
HB 1355
HB 1386
HB 1466
HB 1751
HB 2685
HJR 19
SB 8
SB 10
SB 11
SB 12
SB 47
SB 101
SB 530
SB 785
SB 792
SB 920

Wrapping up the Texas Leg

My summer classes will be outlining the various bills passed by the Texas Legislature. We will go over a list of bills in class tomorrow. This page links to various wrap up articles on the Texas Legislature in state newspapers but they aren't very useful since they don't give us the bill number.