By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX –
"Did not."
"Did, too."
"Did not."
"Did, too."
The finger-pointing regarding the demise of HB 2, relating to public school reform in Texas, escalated today when Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and some members of the Texas Senate blamed House Speaker Tom Craddick for the breakdown in negotiations over the bill.
Last night, Dewhurst and Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) said the House conferees on HB 2 offered a "take-it-or-leave-it" proposal to the Senate in the wee hours Saturday morning. The Senate left it.
The conferees met again last night and Dewhurst said he asked Craddick then if he had delegated authority to Rep. Kent Grusendorf (R-Arlington), the House chair of the conference committee, to reach an agreement and said Craddick "assured him he had." Dewhurst said at 11 p.m. last night the conferees "reached agreement on the principles and outstanding issues open on HB 2." He said there was "no doubt in my mind" of that. He said some five minutes later, Perry walked to the Speaker's office "and the process stopped." The agreement, said Dewhurst, was acceptable to the conferees, but "apparently not to Speaker Craddick."
Now comes Speaker Craddick, who at a press conference today disputed accusations by the lieutenant governor and some members of the Senate that HB 2's imminent death might have been a Craddick-orchestrated homicide.
Flanked by some of his major lieutenants in the House, Craddick again reminded that the House passed its version of the school reform bill and school revenue bills in early March. The bills stayed in the Senate for two months, he said, and only came back to the House some 10 days ago.
Craddick said the conference committee has worked diligently on both the reform and the finance bills over the last few days. The issue, he said, is not so much how close both sides are to an agreement on HB 2 as to how far apart they are on HB 3. "They are tied together," said the Speaker regarding the bills. "You can't pass one without the other." He said because of the proposed property tax reduction in HB 3, passage of HB 2 without passage of HB 3 would make the $1.50 cap on property taxes "actually go up because of the ways the bills are structured."
Craddick said HBs 2 and 3 are "hooked together," adding, "We are universes apart on 3. We're not close; we're not near."
That "take-it-or-leave-it" proposal the House sent over early Saturday, according to the Speaker, was a version of the bill on which House members had been polled to determine if it would pass. "We printed it and sent it over to the Senate. All five of our conferees signed it." Craddick said the House never got a response on it from the Senate.
"We didn't do just a one-pager with something Scotch-taped to the back," he said of the 300-plus page document. Rather, he said, the document showed "where every piece of our proposal was funded. It wasn't laid out in a mixed bag."
One of the sticking points for the House is "choice" relative to business revenue in the bill, said the speaker. He said some kind of choice is necessary in order to not negatively impact the state's economy and its workforce. He said that was not in any version the Senate sent back.
Craddick said the House versions of the bill broadened the franchise tax system to include everything but singe proprietorships and limited partnerships. He said the House felt taxes on those types of businesses would be an income tax. He said the House version also closed the franchise tax Jeffrey and Delaware loopholes. "No other version we've looked at closed it up," he said, noting that the Senate version actually widened the gap.
Craddick said he never met with the House conferees last night, as intimated by the lieutenant governor and some senators. "There was no agreement. There was no piece of paper until about 3 p.m. this afternoon. They sent over little proposal on what they thought they agreed to last night." Craddick said he asked the House conferees if they agreed to the "concepts," and they did not.
"No one has seen a printout," said Craddick regarding the Senate proposals, adding that no member of the House is going to vote on a plan "without seeing something" that shows the impact on their districts.
Rep. Kent Grusendorf (R-Arlington) said the conferees were "very close" last night on HB 2. "But HB 2 is tied to HB 3," he said, and HB 2 will not work without passage of HB 3 because the tax rate cannot be compressed without HB 3. "It becomes sort of academic to say we're close on 2 if we didn't have a deal on 3."
Grusendorf, who chairs the House Public Education Committee, said his goal was to have an education bill on the governor's desk as the first bill of the 79th Legislative Session. He said the House worked "aggressively" on the bill. He said he now regrets that the legislature is down to the last day, nearly to the last hour, without a school bill.
The counter-offer from the Senate, said Grusendorf, only arrived in the House a few hours ago. "We're talking about a 300 to 400 page bill, a 600-page side-by-side."
The Arlington Republican said the two sides "were really pretty close," but added that members have to see specific language to know whether or not they would agree with it. He said he had received a letter with signatures of 16 members of the House noting they will not vote for the Conference Committee Report on SB 2 if it did not contain one certain element and the Senate would not agree to that.
Craddick said he told Gov. Rick Perry last night that he hoped the two sides could come to an agreement on HB 2, but added that HB 3 must pass as well. "We've been pretty straightforward...that's why we've given them complete packages when we've met," said Craddick of negotiations with the Senate.
Questions now arise as to whether Perry might call a special session if the two sides do not come to an agreement on the two bills. "That's up to the governor," said Craddick, noting school finance is a difficult, a hard issue.
"I hate to get into these dueling press conferences," said Rep. Jim Keffer (R-Eastland). He said the House passed their bill March 15, and the Senate passed its version on May 6. "That's a long time," he said. "They have to explain why it languished in the Senate."
Asked what he thought the political implications might be if the Legislature doe not pass a school reform/finance package because of its emergency status at the start of the session and the importance of reform to the people of Texas, Craddick responded, "I don't know what the political implications are. We worked hard on it."