Antics in Austin, are similar to those in families. We usually know what isn't going to work before we decide to go on an pull it anyway.
Republicans knew that the Democrats weren't going to swallow their Voter ID Bill.
They pushed it anyway and wouldn't budge.
Democrats held their ground.
Most of the bills that some Republicans didn't want which were popular with many constituents of members of both sides of the aisle were already dead in committee.
Yet political posturing of those on the right is a spin saying that these initiatives died because of the bad Democrats. Those on the left think the stubborness of the Republicans over Voter ID was the culprit.
Now they are scrambling to try to get the differences worked out between the two houses.
Yesterday's telecast of the Texas Senate shows them scrambling:
http://www.senate.state.tx.us/avarchive/?yr=2009
This afternoon's Senate Session starts live at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.
Click here to see it.
It requires Real Player which can be downloaded free on the Texas Legislature On Line Site.
The archives shows the clubbing that occurred in the House last week where legislators on both sides of the aisle stretched out the process by discussing mundane things in their debate. After Republicans understood that the Democrats would stretch up to the last minute before passing the bills on the calendar, they went along and played straight man to the Democrats and occasionally switching roles.
Texas House Video Archives can be seen here. Select links for dates late in May to witness the chubbing. It's the "let's stay home and not run over the border to Oklahoma" tactics which had the same result.
By Mike Ward , Ben Wear - AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF - Sunday, May 31, 2009
. Read more in the Austin American Statesman
TxDOT dispute flares anew
A push to let Austin and other metropolitan areas raise gasoline taxes and to phase out red-light enforcement cameras died Saturday as part of a legislative deal hammered out on Texas Department of Transportation operations.
In retaliation, two key senators who supported the local-option tax measure said they may push to kill the TxDOT bill when it comes up for Senate debate today — a move that could put $2 billion for road projects out of reach and that would end TxDOT's authority to build more build more private toll roads.
Meanwhile, House and Senate negotiators announced a deal on windstorm insurance coverage for coastal areas, an issue that Gov. Rick Perry has warned could cause a special session if left unresolved.
"We have an agreed-to deal," said Rep. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, one of the negotiators. "Special session very unlikely."
However, the negotiators were waiting for the final printing of the bill and held back details.
The developments were part of daylong drama that unfolded at the Capitol, as Perry vetoed his first bill of this session in a dispute over how state laws are written and interpreted and as other issues died and were revived in frantic horse-trading.
Passed and sent to the governor was a change in the state's college admission law to allow the University of Texas at Austin to fill three-quarters of its freshmen classes with the top 10 percent of Texas high school students and the remaining 25 percent with whomever UT administrators decide.
Dead or nearly dead: New openness mandates for electric cooperatives in Texas, including the troubled Pedernales Electric Cooperative.
Still uncertain: The fate of the Texas Racing Commission, which could be shuttered if an agreement is not reached.
Also endangered was a clean-air bill that, among other things, proposes incentives to cut emissions from manufacturing and power plant facilities, promotes energy-efficient appliances, and expands air-technology grants. Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, the bill's sponsor, said he and Senate leaders were seeking to attach the provisions to another bill to keep the initiative alive.
In other developments, the House approved the state's settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over the troubled institutions for Texans with mental disabilities. Under the agreement, Texas will have to improve health care and investigate reports of abuse and neglect more quickly at the 13 facilities known as state schools.
The Senate has already approved the settlement.
A record number of conference committees — more than 200 — scrambled Saturday to meet end-of-session deadlines. Lawmakers worked much of the day at their desks filling out and filing an avalanche of green-colored paperwork that harried aides whisked back and forth between wings of the statehouse.
Houston Democrat John Whitmire, the longest-serving senator, said the frantic activity was historic: "I've been here for 36 years and have not seen anything like this, not even a close second."
The reason for the last-minute scramble is the stalling of debate last week by House Democrats that killed a voter identification bill in a partisan fight. To save hundreds of bills before a procedural deadline that meant certain death, the Senate tacked on hundreds of amendments to almost as many House bills — a move that triggered the last-minute rush that began Friday.
On the TxDOT bill, one of the most high-profile and contentious of the legislative session, the so-called local-option tax was dropped after proponents of the change came up one vote short in the House-Senate conference committee negotiating a final version.
The provision would have allowed county commissioners in metro areas to call elections to impose a local gas tax of up to 10 cents a gallon or raise driver's license and registration fees. That money would be targeted to specific road or rail projects named on the ballot.
Conservative groups had argued that the provision was tantamount to legislators voting to raise taxes, a position that resonated in the House, which did not have local-option language in the version of the bill it passed.
The House version would have banned new or extended red-light camera contracts after June 1. The conference committee proposes using the Senate version, which would allow those caught by cameras to take a driver safety course rather than paying a $75 fine. Given the cost and effort to take such a class, however, many people might opt to simply pay the fine.
As legislators worked Saturday, Perry vetoed Senate Bill 2038, an attempt to clarify how the courts and executive branch agencies interpret changes to state law that are intended to be nonsubstantive.
Perry told lawmakers that if they intend a law to accomplish a specific purpose, they should write it clearly enough to do that, not use a re-codification bill
While both the Senate and House approved the measure by wide margins, Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, said he does not expect that the Legislature will try and override the veto
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