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February 27, 2015 5:09 PM
Ethics Commission’s attorney cites the fact that Judge Steven Burgess has been a Twitter follower of Sullivan’s, did not disclose that, and deleted his account after it was made known
Attorneys
for the Texas Ethics Commission are asking for the recusal of the judge
in Denton County who recently threw out the lobby case against Michael Quinn Sullivan, the prominent
spokesman for Midland oilman Tim Dunn.
Eric Nichols, outside counsel for the commission,
argued in a filing this week that Judge Steven
Burgess should not be allowed to rule on the matter, in part, because he
had previously been a follower of Sullivan’s on Twitter and did not disclose
that.
Sullivan
was one of the few people the judge followed on the social media platform.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright February 27, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 27, 2015 5:07 PM
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Copyright February 27, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 27, 2015 5:01 PM
“It’s about local people making local decisions.”
Local
governments in Texas are fighting state government for control this legislative
session, and could suffer a serious defeat in the Senate as soon as next
week.
Sen.
Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, filed Senate
Bill 182 earlier this year, which reduces the rollback tax rate from 8
percent to 4 percent. Bettencourt will lay out SB 182 with other property tax
bills on Monday and public testimony will be taken Wednesday.
For
cities as well as counties, SB 182 limits the revenue they collect from their
citizens to fund different services like police and fire, said Lonnie Hunt, County Relations Officer with the Texas Association of Counties.
“By
law, the main source of revenue counties have is the property tax,” Hunt said.
“We don’t like that. Everybody hates the property tax. But, unfortunately,
counties don’t have the option of saying, ‘Well, okay, we’ll find our money
somewhere else.’ We don’t get all these other fees and taxes and other things
other levels of government have access to. But the county sales tax - most
counties don’t have that, but the ones that do, that was enacted as a property
tax reduction rate.”
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Jackie Wang
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Copyright February 27, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 27, 2015 4:48 PM
It appears the first education skirmish of the session is getting underway
Two sides are gearing up for what could very well be the
first education battle of the session, and it’s being waged over the education
of the state’s most vulnerable 4-year-old children.
The rollout of Gov.
Greg Abbott’s pre-kindergarten
bill was almost perfect. He spoke of his preferred version in his State
of the State speech. Former school board member-turned-Rep. Dan Huberty,
R-Houston, hinted at this week’s PTA Rally it would be unveiled and
indeed it was and has already been referred to House Public Education.
Abbott also planned a picture-perfect Rick Perry-inspired tour of the School
at St. George Place after addressing a luncheon of the highly
influential Greater Houston Partnership.
“To improve our schools, we must build a strong foundation.
Our goal should be to ensure all Texas students are performing at grade level
in reading and math by the time they finish the third grade,” Abbott said in
his prepared remarks. “To begin that process, my budget provides additional
funding for schools that adopt high-quality Pre-K programs. My plan also
provides Pre-K through third grade teachers with world-class literacy and math
teacher training. Our children and their future have no time for delay. That’s
why I declared early education as my first emergency legislative item as
governor.”
He followed it up with a strong statement of support for
last session’s House Bill 5, which diversified high school diploma plans. It
was a crowd pleaser. The Greater Houston Partnership, that
area’s largest business group, was a key player in the approval of last
session’s major education legislation, although Texas still lags behind a
number of states that have devoted significantly more resources to
career-and-technology education.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Kimberly Reeves
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Copyright February 27, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 27, 2015 4:34 PM
From the Left: Quorum Report’s liberal columnist Glenn W. Smith says Lt. Gov. Patrick could potentially cement an alliance between Gov. Abbott and Speaker Straus immediately with a fight over Abbott’s picks for the UT Board of Regents
Lt.
Gov. Dan Patrick’s Senate
may not burn Gov. Greg Abbott’s
three nominees to the University of Texas System board of
regents at the stake. But after yesterday’s Senate Nominations Committee hearing,
it is tempting to think that the nominees’ ankles sure must be feeling warm.
Abbott’s
appointees –David Beck, Sara Martinez Tucker, and re-appointee Steve Hicks – are subject to Senate
confirmation. It’s unimaginable that 1) Abbott could be so inept that he would
lose such an early battle to Patrick; 2) Patrick could be so short-sighted that
he would try to win it. Patrick faces two other centers of power: The
governor’s office and Speaker Joe Straus’s
House.
Acting early to cement an Abbott-Straus alliance is not in Patrick’s interests,
to say the least.
Still,
if yesterday’s hearing is any evidence, Patrick does have a rather unicameral,
neutered governor vision of Texas government. He’s even called for the creation
of an Army of Christ to advance his personal Crusade against… well, I guess
against anyone in Texas who disagrees with him. It is possible that Patrick
truly believes himself anointed to lead an Army of Christ, although I think
he’s more cynical panderer than a Christian warrior. But I won’t question his faith. The route
from sports bar owner to the Texas Senate might have passed near Damascus after
all.
The complete column from Glenn W. Smith is in the R&D Department.
By Glenn W. Smith
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Copyright February 27, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 27, 2015 4:12 PM
Talented writer, now at UT, becomes the newest member of the Texas Capitol press corps
The
team here at Buzz Central is pleased to announce this Friday afternoon that
Jackie Wang, an up-and-coming journalist at the University of Texas at Austin,
will be joining the Quorum Report as a contributor during the 2015 legislative
session.
Jackie
has helped organize political forums involving candidates from both sides of
the aisle, including Democratic former Houston Mayor Bill White and Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Jackie
writes for The Daily Texan and has been a contributor to the El
Paso Times. She studies Journalism and Government at UT, where she also
works at the on-campus research library and museum, the Harry Ransom Center.
More
about Jackie is available on her website.
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright February 27, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 27, 2015 2:05 PM
Barfield could have received nearly 30 years behind bars; had said he was “ready to take the full punishment."
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Copyright February 27, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 26, 2015 4:50 PM
Janek says "I created this position to help increase our emphasis on ethical behavior"
The
head of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, Kyle Janek,
on Thursday announced he's tapped former Ethics Commission Director David Reisman
to be the internal ethical watchdog for HHSC.
"I
created this position to help increase our emphasis on ethical behavior," Janek said. "As public servants, we must hold
ourselves and our programs to high standards,” he said. Janek
said the agency’s leadership wants “strong policies” and a “good training
program to make sure our employees know the rules, and a culture where people
can elevate and discuss issues.”
The
agency, of course, has been rocked by questions about a huge no-bid contract
that went to an Austin tech company called 21CT. That company has ties to former
HHSC general counsel Jack Stick, who quit his post after revelations about the contract.
After
his stint as executive director of the Texas Ethics Commission, Reisman worked at the scandal-plagued Cancer Prevention and Research
Institute where he created a monitoring system for $1 billion in
grants.
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Copyright February 26, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 5:41 PM
Sen. Fraser is worried about tying the hands of future legislatures; tells newly elected Sen. Huffines to slow down a bit: "You've only been here about a month."
Two
conservative Republican senators on Wednesday voiced great concerns about the Texas
Senate leadership’s transportation plan before voting in committee to send
it to the full Senate for a vote as soon as next week.
Lt.
Gov. Dan Patrick has made it a
priority to constitutionally dedicate roughly half the state’s motor vehicle
sales tax collections to roads. He has promised Senate action on it as soon as
possible.
But,
both veteran Sen. Troy Fraser,
R-Horseshoe Bay, and newly elected Sen. Bob
Hall, R-Edgewood, said they are very worried about several aspects of the
plan put forward by Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville.
During
the committee’s morning hearing, Sen. Fraser said he had a "huge
reservation" about tying the hands of future legislatures by removing
their discretion over more than $2 billion to $2.5 billion in collections that
currently flow into general revenue. "I have a real concern about us doing
something that obligates a future legislature," Fraser said.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 5:40 PM
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 4:16 PM
Before crowd that is anti-voucher, Former state board member says parents have right to options
Rep. Marsha Farney, a former State Board of Education member, offered her qualified support of
vouchers in a speech at PTA Rally Day at the Capitol.
Farney, R-Georgetown, a former
teacher and counselor, walks a fine line in politics. She considers herself a
public school supporter, signed on to a bipartisan bill on pre-kindergarten with
Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas, and is
serving her second term on the House Public Education Committee. But Farney also has clearly identified herself as a
conservative, especially when it comes to schools considered to be failing.
For instance, Farney told the
audience she proudly maintained her PTA membership, even as a grandmother.
“It’s so easy to criticize the public schools, but if you
want to make a difference, the first place you go is to the PTA,” said Farney, drawing applause. “PTA absolutely is the life blood
of what goes on in our schools.”
The rest of the story, subscribers only
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 3:54 PM
From the Right: Quorum Report’s conservative columnist Eric Bearse says President Obama is dangerously downplaying the threat from ISIS.
This is what happens when you elect an elitist college
professor as the leader of the free world. Here we have a terrorist
organization with a vision to return the world to the 7th Century,
beheading reporters, filling mass graves with infidels, and vowing to rid the
earth of Christians, Jews, and Muslims who don’t conform to their fanaticism,
and our president denies both their religious roots and the severity of their
threat.
They have declared a caliphate over land larger in size
than the United Kingdom. The severity and religious nature of their threat is
recognized by the leaders across the Muslim world, and yet the president
lectures America about passing judgment when so much evil was done in the name
of Christ some 800 years ago.
Worse than the president’s refusal to call the enemy by
its name is his inability to articulate a plan to defeat them. But thank God
for Undersecretary
of State, Richard Engel, who is
committed to winning the war against ISIS over twitter. He declared a few
days ago, “these guys are not BuzzFeed; they’re
not invincible on social media.”
The complete column
from Eric Bearse
can be found in the R&D Department.
By Eric Bearse
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 3:28 PM
Leadership in both chambers now seem to be in full agreement about retired teachers’ health coverage
Finance Committee Chair Sen. Jane
Nelson said:
“It
is important to several members, myself included, that we devote resources to TRS-Care and our teachers. The Senate
Finance Committee is working very hard on these and other budget issues."
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 11:27 AM
"This is going to give us two years...to help our teachers permanently."
Texas House leadership on Wednesday committed to fully funding health care for
retired teachers across the state for the next two years. “The House
appreciates retired educators,” Speaker Joe
Straus tweeted
shortly after Quorum Report broke the news.
House Appropriations Chairman Rep. John
Otto, R-Dayton, initially made the promise toward the end of the morning
meeting of his powerful committee.
Later
in the day, on the House floor, Otto talked with Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, about the fact that doing this is a
commitment to teachers but is in no way a final solution to TRS Care’s
financial situation. "This is going to give us two years...to sit down and
work with you to come up with what we can look forward to to
help our teachers permanently,” Keffer said.
On
Tuesday, Sen. Kevin Eltife,
R-Tyler, included TRS Care’s needs as one of the reasons
he cannot yet support a $4.6 billion tax cut proposal laid out by Senate
leadership. He estimated about $800 million was needed to shore up the system.
The
Texas
Retired Teachers Association pegs the price tag at $762 million.
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 10:52 AM
Current tax cut bidding war means nothing to most Texans
While
the Senate and House are in a bidding war for the biggest headline number of
tax cuts that most Texans will not feel, the online financial publication “Marketwatch” named Texas the third worst state for
taxes inflicted on average Americans.
The
analysis reports that the Lone Star State has the fifth highest effective tax
rate on the state’s bottom 20% at 12.5% and the 8th lowest rate on
the top 1% at an effective tax rate of 2.9%.
From
the story, “…the state relies heavily on sales and
excise taxes. These consumption taxes accounted for nearly 32% of the state’s
revenue, the ninth highest nationwide in fiscal 2012. The state also doesn't
provide low-income residents with any tax credits, which help offset sales,
excise and property taxes in other states.”
The story can be found here.
Lest these numbers be dismissed as delirium from some left wing
think tank, it should be noted that Marketwatch is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp and is a sister
publication of the the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s
By Harvey Kronberg
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 10:41 AM
Floor vote on SB 5 and SJR 5 expected next week
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 9:18 AM
"Even under the most conservative leadership, i.e. Tom Craddick (as Speaker), we funded the public integrity unit.”
A
key Texas
House Democrat on Wednesday said it is “almost a conflict of interest”
for lawmakers to make funding of the state’s corruption watchdog contingent on
a potential restructuring of the Public Integrity Unit housed in the Travis
County District Attorney’s Office.
The
House base budget proposal funds the PIU to the level
requested by Travis County prosecutors: about $6.6 million. But, as proposed,
the money cannot flow to the agency unless changes are made through legislation
to address the concerns of critics who say the office engages in “partisan
witch hunts.”
House Appropriations Vice Chair Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said during
a committee hearing that in his quarter century as a lawmaker, he’s never seen
an agency funded in this manner. Huge problems with the Juvenile Justice Department
did not keep its funding from being made available in the budget while lawmakers
eyed reforms, Turner noted.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 25, 2015 8:38 AM
The amount requested is $800 million. Rep. John Otto, R-Dayton, said Wednesday "The House will fully fund TRS Care"
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Copyright February 25, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 24, 2015 5:18 PM
Lt. Gov. Patrick says Gov. Abbott fully supports tax cut plan: “We're so close shoulder-to-shoulder you couldn't put a piece of paper between us." Abbott hasn't seen the plan.
Note: As of 5:46pm, this story
has been updated throughout, including Gov. Abbott's reaction to the plan – SB
One
day after Texas House leaders promised to “do better than” the $4 billion
in tax cuts originally promised this session by the Senate, the Republican
leadership of the upper chamber on Tuesday unveiled a package of property and
business tax cuts totaling $4.6 billion. Calling it the "next step,"
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told reporters at
a Capitol
news conference that it’s possible even more tax relief could be in the offing
as the legislative process moves forward.
Finance Committee Chair Sen. Jane
Nelson, R-Flower Mound, filed SB 1 and SB 7, which together
provide for “approximately $4 billion in tax relief during the 2016-2017
biennium."
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright February 24, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 24, 2015 5:06 PM
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Copyright February 24, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 24, 2015 1:59 PM
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Copyright February 24, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 24, 2015 12:21 PM
"It's been an honor to serve with you, alongside you, for the people of this great state."
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Copyright February 24, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 24, 2015 12:11 PM
State’s needs “have to be addressed with permanent long term solutions before I can support tax cuts,” Eltife said.
Saying
that it is time to “stop putting band aids” on the state’s needs like transportation
and employee retirements, Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, on Tuesday said he could not support $4.6 billion in tax cuts laid out by Texas Senate leadership earlier in
the day.
Eltife does, however, support the bill by Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, to
increase the franchise tax exemption for businesses from $1 million to $4
million.
But
when it comes to SB 1 and SB 7: "I have said all along we
have got to meet the needs of the state before we cut taxes," Eltife told Quorum Report.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright February 24, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 23, 2015 5:42 PM
“We really believe that we ought to be able to do more than $4 billion in tax cuts here in the House,” Bonnen said. “We don’t have a number at this point. We just know that we can do better than that.”
Peggy Fikac at the Express-News gets
the interview with House Ways and Means Chairman Dennis Bonnen
in which he said “we can do better” than the Texas Senate’s proposed
tax cuts.
Just
after 7pm, the House Republican Caucus issued the following statement:
“The
Texas House made it very clear from the start of this session that major tax
relief will be a cornerstone of the state budget. Today the statements by
Chairman Dennis Bonnen and Speaker Joe Straus echo
the commitment that Republicans have made to return a sizeable portion of our
unappropriated revenue to its rightful owners, the taxpayers of this
state. The Texas Model is built upon the
principle that tax relief and fiscally responsible spending plans will generate
economic prosperity, and Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives are
fully committed to this vision.”
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Copyright February 23, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 23, 2015 5:23 PM
Number cruncher extraordinaire Dr. Stuart Greenfield says Comptroller Hegar’s estimate might not be optimistic enough. Among other things, he notes oil production for the fiscal year will exceed one billion barrels. That hasn’t happened since 1978.
Newly
elected Comptroller Glenn Hegar’s Biennial
Revenue Estimate – the BRE – has been called quite
optimistic by many commentators, especially given the dramatic decline in the
price of crude oil. But the release of revenue collections for January indicates
his estimate might not be optimistic enough.
Chart
1 shows the year-to-date (YTD) growth rate in tax collections for
FY10 through FY15, and both the estimated growth rates from the Certified
Revenue Estimate (1.8 percent) released in December 2013, and the current BRE (1.6 percent). Check
out the fact that YTD growth in tax collections (6.8 percent) is 325 percent
greater than the estimated rate (1.6 percent).
The YTD growth rate in total state revenue (8.1 percent) is 80 percent
greater than the estimated growth rate (4.6 percent).
The
latest estimate of state tax collections are projected to grow by 1.6 percent
in FY15 and then increase by 2.4 percent in fiscal 2016 (FY16) and 5.6 percent in
FY17. Total net revenue is expected to increase by 4.6 percent in FY15,
increase by 1.7 percent in FY16 and then decrease by 1.9 percent in FY17.
The complete column from Dr. Stuart Greenfield, Ph.D., can be
found in the R&D Department.
By Stuart Greenfield, Ph.D.
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Copyright February 23, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 23, 2015 4:58 PM
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Copyright February 23, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 23, 2015 4:08 PM
ETS and Pearson go head to head this week on four-year contract
Two coalitions, headed by the nation’s biggest testing
giants, will go head to head this week in oral presentations to compete for one
of Texas’ largest contracts.
Texas passed its first bill for standardized tests at grade
level intervals in 1979. The requirement for the passage of an exit-level test
to graduate high school was added in 1984. Through it all, Pearson NCS
has carried the contract for every generation of standardized testing the
state: TABS, TEAMS, TAAS, TAKS
and now STAAR.
The Texas Education Agency declined to
comment on the oral presentations, but the agency’s own timeline indicates oral
presentations, before a team of evaluators, must be completed by Feb. 27.
Commissioner Michael
Williams is expected to pick one of two final teams by March 18. While the
last contract, which went to Pearson, was five years and valued at $462
million, this contract is four years and may be substantially less as lawmakers
have begun to cut and substitute tests.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Kimberly Reeves
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Copyright February 23, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 23, 2015 2:06 PM
There is a potential budget rider that may help Texas set its own definition of a secure border. “It might help for us to have one,” Sen. Watson said.
Democrats
and one Republican pressed GOP leaders on Monday about the vagueness of how the
Texas
Senate’s huge proposed increase in border security funding would be
spent. Finance Committee Chair Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, repeatedly answered their questions by
saying she wants to ensure there are adequate resources for the border while also
giving lawmakers a chance to decide on the specifics.
At
one point during the Finance Committee’s meeting, Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, allowed his frustration to boil over. Eltife
angrily said he didn’t care how popular border security is with voters, the
point that seems to be missing is there are no real metrics to determine
success.
“Christmas
polls well in my house,” Eltife said, but “every dollar needs to be accounted
for.” When he made that statement, Eltife had just listened to testimony indicating that the state has no way – across agencies – to assess
whether border security efforts are successful.
“My
goal in filing the base bill was to increase funding significantly," Sen. Nelson
said. "And to cover certain areas but to leave it up to the committee's
discretion how we want to do that.”
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright February 23, 2015, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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