Abbott: Bread and Butter Issues – except Health Care
Abbott: Bread and Butter Issues – except Health Care
By Dave McNeely
The principal issues when he came into office in 1973 were things like schools, highways, prisons, and health care, former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby used to say.
When he left state government 18 years later, in 1991, Hobby said, the major issues were health care, schools, highways and prisons.
Those issues didn’t go away. They continued to be important.
Add to that list of serious topics subjects like border control and security, and immigration; women’s access to health care, including abortions; retirement benefits and insurance for state employees and teachers; “open carry” of pistols, and guns on campus; tax policies; and from the Rick Perry no-new-taxes era, a significant increase in state debt.
And, as New Gov. Greg Abbott noted in his “State of the State” address Feb. 17, Texas has been in court over school finance for 30 years, on grounds of violating the Texas Constitution.
That document says it is “the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”
The problem, essentially, is not enough money. The Legislature has shirked its duty to provide adequate funding for schools, pushing that function down to local school districts.
Governor Abbott declared as emergency items — which allows them to be taken up now instead of waiting until 60 days of the session have elapsed –five subjects:
— Early Education – Expansion of Pre-Kindergarten – though not universal full-day Pre-K, as education groups had hoped;
— Higher Education Research Initiatives;
— Transportation;
— Border Security;
— Ethics Reform.
Items Abbott called for, but didn’t designate as emergencies, included:
— “Open Carry” – He’d sign a bill to allow people to pack pistols in plain sight, because it represents “liberty”;
— Tax Cuts — $2 billion in business franchise taxes, and $2.2 billion in local property tax cuts – with a promise to make whole school districts for any revenue loss. Abbott said he “will reject any budget that does not include genuine tax relief to Texas employers and job creators.”
While Abbott paid lip service to health care, he didn’t go so far as to advocate accepting federally-financed expansion of Medicaid – which Republican governors of at least 11 states have done, saying, essentially, it’s stupid to pass it up.
Doing so would insure an additional one million Texans, and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Some legislators, like Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, cautioned against promising tax cuts before assessing critical state needs – especially in light of the slump in oil prices, which is killing jobs in the oil fields across Texas.
“You’ve got pensions, you’ve got water, you’ve got transportation, we’re in the courthouse over public education,” said Eltife, a Senate Finance Committee member. “I want to see that we meet these needs before we talk about tax cuts.”
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Public Lobbyists, Get Thee Out . . . New state Sen. Konni Burton is the Tea Party Republican who replaced Democrat Wendy Davis representing part of the Mid-Cities area, after Davis left to make a losing race for governor.
Burton has let lobbyists for governmental entities like cities, universities, state agencies and others who show up at her capitol office know that they aren’t welcome, reports the Associated Press.
Her chief of staff, Art Martinez de Vara, told the Associated Press that Burton doesn’t approve of taxpayer-funded lobbyists.
“It works against the interests of the taxpayers, and we’d much rather talk to the elected officials themselves,” Martinez de Vara said.
Of course, a major function that such lobbyists serve is to help their institutions and agencies deal with the personalities and procedures of the lawmakers who can have a huge impact on their funding and rules.
If those leaders had to personally court every public official individually, they wouldn’t have time to do their jobs.
There is, nonetheless, a reason that several state university boards of regents and top administrators have chosen people with legislative experience to lead their institutions – or lobby for them.
Among them are:
n Texas A&M University Chancellor John Sharp, who served in the Texas House and Senate, before election as railroad commissioner and state comptroller;
n Texas Tech University Chancellor Robert Duncan, who spent two decades in the Texas House and Senate;
n Texas State University System Chancellor Brian McCall, a veteran of two decades in the House; and
n University of North Texas Chancellor Lee Jackson, who spent a decade in the House and was later Dallas County Judge.
If some of those representatives of public entities show up at her office door, maybe Sen. Burton and her staff will stoop to talk to them.
But, maybe not.