By Jennifer Bendery, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX –
What is usually a brief and routine hearing turned into a minor scuffle this morning when Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) attempted to amend a proposed rule relating to consideration of HB 2 on the House floor.
In this morning's House Calendars meeting, members voted to set the contentious education reform bill on the Major State Calendar for Tuesday, June 28. Prior to that motion, chair Rep. Beverly Woolley (R-Houston) laid out a proposed rule stating that any floor amendment to HB 2 "is not in order unless any cost of an amendment added to HB 2 is offset by an equal dollar reduction in the cost of HB 2."
Turner offered an amendment to the rule's language that changed "reduction in the cost of HB 2" to "revenue source." After some confusion relating to how the new language was different from the original language, he explained that it simply gave more "flexibility" to legislators to put more money into the bill if they could offset it with a revenue source outside of HB 2. Turner mentioned teacher pay raises as an example of something that could benefit from allowing legislators to bring revenue into HB 2 from other sources.
After a few raised eyebrows at Turner's attempt to expand funding streams to HB 2, Woolley said she was "not comfortable" with altering the rule since it could open the door to multiple amendments resulting in bad votes. In addition, HB 2 is such a delicate issue that she was not comfortable with allowing that many more changes to its current language, she said.
Ultimately, committee members voted on Turner's proposed amendment and it failed by a vote of nine to two, with Turner and Rep. Vilma Luna (D-Corpus Christi) being the two ayes. The proposed rule passed in its original language, with support from all committee members.