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Texas House Turns Around Vote on School Finance Bill

By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com

Austin, TX – It took a couple of hours of arm-twisting, but "at the end of the day" (as so many legislators are prone to say), the Texas House watched a 69-77 defeat regarding the passage to third reading of HB 1 turn to a 73-70 victory after reconsideration of the vote.

Earlier this evening, opponents of the bill celebrated stopping the bill on second reading. House Speaker Tom Craddick called for the House to recess until 6 p.m. When the House was finally called back into session, a motion to reconsider the vote by which the passage to third reading failed was approved and a motion to move the previous question resulted in a 73-70 vote to pass the bill to third reading.

The vote was preceded by pleas from opponents to the bill for their colleagues to not allow reconsideration of the vote.

"In this process, we have learned that people with alternatives are taken out of the debate," said Rep. Jim Dunnam (D-Waco). "It's troubling when so many members of the Texas Legislature are not a part of the process."

Dunnam said the House had to recess for an hour and a half while visitors in the House gallery saw everyone leave the floor. "Why?" he asked. "If we're not going to debate the merits of an issue in public, what does it tell the public?"

The Waco Democrat said the House recessed "to meet in private - in secret - away from the eyes of the public." He also alleged that some members were asked to leave the floor so they would not be there when the vote on HB 1 was taken. He said doing so was to "walk out on the children of Texas."

"It doesn't give the people at home or in the gallery a lot of confidence in their government when we shut down the chamber and leave," he said.

Dunnam said HB 1 does nothing for the schoolchildren of Texas and does nothing for Texas taxpayers. He said the process that is moving forward leaves legislators "not entitled to a voice and not entitled to a vote.

"Is that a process we should be proud of? When things don't go the way certain people want, they take adults in the back room and get them back in line."

Rep. Craig Eiland (D-Galveston) said the process left him speechless. He said when he tries to describe what happened today on the House floor, he opens his mouth but no words come out. "We've said we shouldn't even be here," he said, "and that we can't solve the problem and we won't try."

Eiland noted that the House Speaker said Monday that the House would consider HB 1 and would not break for lunch or dinner. "And then we cut off debate after the second amendment."

Rep. Talmadge Heflin (R-Houston) said that recommitting the bill to committee is not the answer. "The fact is, to backtrack where we've come from is not the way to get it done."

Fellow Republican John Smithee of Amarillo, in a motion to move the previous question, admitted he is not happy with the bill. "If it passed and became law, it would be disastrous to the people of Texas," he said. But if the bill were recommitted to the committee, he said it would "for all purposes be dead," adding that going forward with the nearly 200 amendments proposed to the bill "would not serve any purpose."

He said the House is left with one alternative - trying to move the bill through the process and then going to conference

"It's a slim, faint hope," said Smithee, "but it's the only hope we've got."

Dunnam challenged Smithee, saying, "To say 200, or 100, or even 10 amendments are not worthy of debate...is saying you're giving up on democracy, and that democracy is not worth fighting for."

Dunnam read off a laundry list of increases and expansions of the sales tax that all Texans will pay. "If there was something in there for the children or the taxpayers of Texas, it would be worthwhile." But he noted that 97 percent of Texans will end up paying the $2.6 billion in costs. He called the proposal a "starve the schools" plan.

"A vote for this bill is not a vote to move the process forward. A vote for this bill is to tax every Texan - and the schoolchildren will get zip. This is not a good bill. We can fix this bill."

Rep. Rene Oliviera (D-Brownsville) said the bill is not the package the majority of the members want to see on the House floor for a vote. He said it does not include money for teacher pay raises or for school facilities, has no new money for school districts and nothing for the recruitment and retention of teachers.

Bill author Rep. Kent Grusendorf (R-Arlington) countered that still in the "shell bill" is money for a $1,000 teacher pass-through for health insurance, an EDA roll-forward, lower property taxes and a way to move the process forward "to improve education in this state and do what's right for the schoolchildren."

When the final vote was tallied the 69-77 vote from earlier in the day had been changed to 73-70 and the bill was passed to third reading.

It will be taken up on third reading in the House Wednesday. HJR 1, providing for a constitutional amendment relating to school finance and property tax reduction, is also on the calendar.