August 15, 2017      7:32 PM
SB: House tells the Senate to take it or leave it
Final questions of the special center on whether Patrick wants to declare a substantive victory and whether Abbott has internalized the damage he’s done to his own ability to govern
Now
that the Texas House has adjourned sine die, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is on the spot as to
whether he will declare a substantive victory in his decades-long crusade
against local governments and accept the fact that he’s won on his signature
issue: He has now successfully forced an automatic rollback rate for cities and
counties through both legislative chambers.
Yes,
Patrick prefers 4 percent. But the law now includes no automatic rollback rate
and only the ability to petition for an election at 8 percent. That’s the same
as it was when Patrick first loaded people on buses in Houston and brought them
to the Capitol to voice their outrage about property taxes way back
when he was only a radio talk show host.
The
chatter in the lobby just before Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dennis
Bonnen took to the mic this evening was that “Senate
Bill 1 is dead.”
Bonnen, however, told his colleagues he was not asking for
House conferees to be appointed because he wanted to save the bill. "I'm
trying to keep the bill alive," Chair Bonnen
said. "If we appointed conferees now it would kill the bill because we are
out of time."
The
question of timing might be up for debate.
There
is no doubt, though, that the Senate could simply discharge its conferees –
which include no Democrats and only anti-local government crusaders – and Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, could move
to concur on House changes to the property tax bill.
By Scott Braddock
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