Friday, May 08, 2009

"All the bad bills we’ve been watching have, in fact, been filed as amendments."

House tackles Texas Department of Transportation sunset bill

5/8/09

by Andy Hogue
The Lone Star Report
Copyright 2009

The sun may not set on the Texas Department of Transportation, based on how the agency’s Sunset Bill has been amended so far. But the sun had literally set on lawmakers arguing back and forth over the bill well into the evening.

Discussion on HB 300 did not start until late afternoon on May 7, due to a longer-than-expected debate on preschool funding bill HB 130 which lasted until around 4 p.m. (and, thus, canceled a members’ basketball game set for that night).

Amendments outnumbered the physical size of the bill two-to-one, as 400 pages of them — about 165, all told — were proposed to the 200-page HB 300. In addition, about 30 amendments to the amendments had to be considered.

The most surprising event of the evening was passage of an amendment turning the existing five-member, appointed Texas Transportation Commission into a 15-member board – consisting of 14 members elected per region and one statewide commissioner.

According to author Rep. Carl Isett (R-Lubbock), HB 300 takes much of its text from the Sunset Commission’s recommendations in late 2008 and from the remnants of a bill filed by House Transportation Committee Chairman Rep. Joe Pickett (R-El Paso). (See LAVERGNE, May 1, for an interview with Pickett, and a description of which elements were gleaned from his bill and put into HB 300.)

Amendments aplenty

"Very few amendments affect the core of what the bill intends to do," Isett said.

The following noteworthy amendments had been debated and/or approved by LAVERGNE’s deadline May 7.

*15-member commission amendment. After an hour and a half’s worth of discussion, House members voted by a large margin to approve Amendment 1 by Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio), which provided for the election of the Transportation Commissioner. Though McClendon’s original amendment called for the election of a single commissioner, the amendment was amended by Rep. David Leibowitz (D-San Antonio) to create 14 regional, elected commissioners (in addition to a chairman elected on an at-large basis).

Leibowitz said the number 14 is based on the number of appellate court districts in Texas.

"What do you think the chances of Dayton, Texas, getting a regional commissioner, are?" said Rep. John Otto (R-Dayton).

"I think if John Otto would run, he would win," Leibowitz said, arguing that the geographical boundaries could be re-set by the Legislature every decade under his amendment to the amendment.

Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) voiced concerns that transportation commission districts would have to be pre-cleared by the Justice Department under the federal Voting Rights Act. King noted the districts would represent about 1.4 million people each — twice as many as a Texas Senate district.

Earlier in debate, McClendon said the election of a central figure would increase accountability and "put the agency on a new and solid footing with the public." She noted an elected commissioner would eliminate the TxDOT executive director position.

"With the Land Commissioner, you know who to go to. You know the buck stops with him," McClendon said, also noting the Comptroller’s office, Agriculture department, etc., as examples of state offices with a central, elected authority.

Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) said she "struggles with the elected part … Everything would be politicized, where the money would be directed. (Representation) would never be rural — it would always be Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, etc."

Rep. Larry Phillips (R-Sherman) said if a single-commissioner plan becomes law, a meeting of the Transportation Commission would not fall under Texas Open Meetings Act provisions, and could be held behind closed doors. "With five people, the meeting has to be open," Phillips said.

Isett said he "disagrees fundamentally" with the principle of electing a commissioner (or 14, for that matter).

The Legislature would be able to fill a vacancy on the 14-member commission under an amendment to the amendment by Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Fort Worth).

*Provisions to defund TxDOT lobbyists. The amendment by Rep. Carol Alvarado (D-Houston) passed without much discussion.

*Preventing MPOs from hiring registered lobbyists. The amendment filed by Rep. Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) passed with minimal discussion, prohibiting Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) from hiring professionals to lobby the state of Texas.

*Trans-Texas Corridor stricken from statute. Approved 144-0, the amendment authored in stereo by Kolkhorst and Leibowitz strikes language pertaining to the Trans-Texas Corridor toll road network from law. Pickett offered an amendment to exempt I-69, part of the Corridor which is already under development.

* Allowing cost to be a factor in selecting engineering and construction firms. Though the amendment was tabled, Isett called Rep. Jodie Laubenberg’s (R-Rockwall) plan to change the way firms are selected for construction jobs "worthy of discussion." The law currently allows TxDOT to ask only about the qualifications of an engineering firm. Inquiring about overhead cost is forbidden.

"The system is just plain wrong, and Texans deserve better," Isett said. "And if for no other reason than to shine some light into this arcane law, this [hour-long] conversation was worth it."

Other amendments not discussed on the floor before deadline ranged from crucial to relatively obscure. One amendment dealt with issuing a state license plate for Texas-based Notre Dame alumni. Other amendments proposed included restricting the number of red light cameras. One notable bill, filed by Pickett, pertains to a gas tax refund plan for miles driven on toll roads.

Terri Hall, director of Texas TURF (Texans United for Reform and Freedom) an anti-toll-road organization, said many floor amendments had had previous lives as bills heard in committee.

"All the bad bills we’ve been watching have, in fact, been filed as amendments," Hall said, in an e-mail statement. "… We support a Legislative Oversight Committee and Inspector General, and that MPOs have at least 75 percent elected officials and that only elected officials have voting powers."


© 2009 The Lone Star Report: www.lonestarreport.org

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“No longer will the public be in the dark about construction projects in their own towns.”

Elected TxDOT overseers get nod

5/8/09

By Peggy Fikac
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2009

AUSTIN — The state House, working into the night Thursday to overhaul the Texas Department of Transportation, voted to replace the five appointed members of its oversight board with 15 elected ones.

The proposal — which would elect the commission chairman statewide and the other 14 regionally — was part of a message of change from House members to an agency some view as unresponsive.

Among other proposed changes, the overhaul would tighten legislative oversight of the department; move motor vehicle registration and similar duties to a new, separate agency; push to make TxDOT and its plans more accessible; and give local communities more control over transportation dollars.

“No longer will TxDOT be a black box where projects are canceled without explanation, and money is moved without transparency,” said Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, sponsor of the revamp. “No longer will the public be in the dark about construction projects in their own towns.”

After House approval, the measure will go to the Senate for consideration.

Isett's original proposal would have kept five appointed commission members, who currently all are named by the governor. It would have made a change by giving the House speaker a voice on one of those appointments and allowed the lieutenant governor to name another.

But House lawmakers said bigger change was needed in leadership at TxDOT.

“We now have five people who run TxDOT, and we do not know where the buck stops,” said Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio. “It's very difficult to get a problem solved.”

McClendon pushed for just one elected commissioner. After concerns were raised about geographic representation, Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, substituted the 15-member idea with her assent.

“The bottom line is we will all have a place at the table,” Leibowitz said.

© 2009 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com

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"The fate of the House amendments remains uncertain."

House resumes TxDOT restructuring debate

5/8/09

By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER
Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2009

The Texas House today resumes debate on a bill to restructure the state Department of Transportation.

After debating more than 100 amendments to the bill last night, the House adjourned just before midnight.

Plans to vote for all the amendments at once, then let members read them afterwards, were scuttled after several lawmakers objected.

House leaders say the remaining amendments to the TxDOT bill are not controversial and should be approved.

With passage of the restructuring bill likely, it has become a sort of catch-all for transportation reform measures. Several bills that failed at the committee level, or got no committee hearing at all, have resurfaced as successful amendments to the present bill.

One example is a measure to freeze the number of red-light cameras in Texas cities at the current level. In addition, cities that use the cameras would be required to add one second to the duration of yellow lights.

The legislation would abolish the Texas Transportation Commission and create a legislative oversight committee to monitor TxDOT, which has 14,000 employees.

If the House approves the bill, it goes next to the Senate.

Unless the two chambers passed identical versions -- which is exceedingly unlikely -- the differences would be resolved in a conference committee later this month.

That means the fate of the House amendments remains uncertain.

But for now, the legislation has become what Transportation Commission chairwoman Deirdre Delisi predicted it would: a "Christmas tree" upon which legislators are hanging all sorts of transportation-related initiatives.

© 2009 The Dallas Morning News: www.dallasnews.com

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Thursday, May 07, 2009

"TxDOT can no longer be trusted."

Texas House moves to kill state transportation commission

5/7/09

By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2009

The House voted Thursday to forward to the Senate a bill that would abolish the Texas Transportation Commission and severely chastise the 14,000-employee Department of Transportation.

The House wants to replace the five commissioners who govern the agency with one who is elected statewide every four years. In addition, the state would be divided into as many as 12 regions, each of which would elect its own regional transportation commissioner.

Whether these steps – and many others, contained in scores of amendments considered late into Thursday night – will survive in the Senate is far from clear. Some successful amendments were staunchly opposed by senior leaders in the House, including transportation Chairman Joe Pickett, D-El Paso. Amendments can easily be stripped out of a bill once the legislation reaches the conference committee at the end of the session.

But for one night, anyway, the House was able to make good on threats, made over the past two years, to rein in an agency many lawmakers feel has been unresponsive to them and too enamored with private toll roads.

Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, one of the agency's most vocal critics, laid out her complaint simply: TxDOT, she said, can no longer be trusted. "It's a matter of transparency and trust."

Perhaps the biggest change, should it be included in the Senate version and passed into law, would be the creation of a legislative oversight committee that would for the next four years examine every level of decision-making at the agency. The committee would have the authority to hire a management consultant team to evaluate the department's efficiency and would monitor each of the department's many research projects.

One exception: The six-member committee would not make decisions as to which highway and bridge projects would be funded. That power, and with it control of much of the agency's $8 billion budget, would remain with the agency and its commissioner.

It wasn't immediately clear what the role of the regional commissioners would be. But Pickett, the transportation chairman, has said in the run-up to the vote Thursday that he wants local areas to have a bigger say in what projects are built and when.

Some members argued in favor of keeping the five-member commission, though Pickett and others want to give the House speaker and lieutenant governor more say in at least two of the appointments. Current law gives the governor exclusive power to appoint the commissioners.

"There is a geographic balance around the state," with the existing system, said Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, author of the bill being debated Thursday night and the chairman of the Sunset Advisory Commission that evaluated the department over much of the past year. "We looked at this carefully, and the problem appears to me to be with the culture inside the agency" – not with the governance of the department.

But even as the House rejected his view, the fight is far from over.

Chris Lippincott, spokesman for the transportation department, said the bill represents only the first step of a long legislative end-game.

"The House gets a first whack at this, and the House is where you are going to hear some of the more extreme proposals," he said. "The Senate will take a whack at it, too, and then send it back to the House. ... There is a lot left to be done."

© 2009 The Dallas Morning News: www.dallasnews.com

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Wednesday, May 06, 2009

"This legislative session will be another failure for anyone who owns a piece of property in Texas.”

Texas Senate Guts Property Rights Legislation

Key Provisions Stripped from Eminent Domain Bill Prior to Passage; Meanwhile, Strong Bills Languish in the House


5/5/09

Austin, TX-- Institute for Justice Texas Chapter issued a warning today to property owners across Texas: despite politicians’ claims to the contrary, Senate Bill 18, which passed through the Texas Senate yesterday, will not end eminent domain abuse in Texas. The Institute litigated the infamous Kelo eminent domain case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and its Austin-based Texas Chapter has led the way to eminent domain reform in the Lone Star State.

“As it stands, SB 18 represents a bait and switch on Texas property owners,” said Matt Miller, executive director of the Institute for Justice Texas Chapter (IJ-TX). “This bill helps protect rural property owners but leaves urban and suburban property owners exposed to private development schemes.” The definition of “public use”—which was the entire focus of the Kelo litigation—was stripped from the bill in committee. All that’s left is a collection of procedural safeguards. Although helpful, those provisions do not address the central problem of Kelo.

Property owners across Texas should be worried about SB 18’s momentum because more meaningful bills are now being stalled by legislative leaders. Property owners from Houston, El Paso and San Antonio, all of whom are today being threatened by eminent domain abuse, rallied at the Capitol in March. They were met with assurances that this session Texas would finally address Kelo once and for all.

“The Governor opened this session saying he wanted a constitutional amendment to address Kelo,” said IJ-TX Staff Attorney Wesley Hottot. “Now, with mere weeks left in the session, time is running out for the legislature and Governor Perry to make good on their promises.”

With SB 18 gutted, Texas property owners must pin their hopes on two bills in the House. The first is a strong constitutional amendment, House Joint Resolution 14, by Frank Corte (R-San Antonio), which offers Texans the strongest protection for their homes and businesses. The second is House Bill 417, by Bill Callegari (R-Katy), a bill that would address the problem of cities using bogus “blight” designations to justify eminent domain for private development. Both bills are out of committee, but have yet be scheduled for a vote.

“Texas property owners should have the opportunity to curb eminent domain abuse through their Bill of Rights, and Rep. Corte’s constitutional amendment does just that,” said Miller. “Combined with HB 417, HJR 14 would give Texans some of the strongest property rights in the nation. Chairman Dennis Bonnen did what he said he would and got those bills out of his House committee. Now it is up to the Calendars Committee, the Senate and Governor Perry to follow through.”

“If SB18 passes but HJR 14 and HB 417 do not pass, this legislative session will be a failure for anyone who owns a piece of property in Texas,” said Hottot. “People need to pay attention right now and demand passage of the real reform measures, otherwise we will once again be denied the protection we were promised. This legislative session is starting to look like a repeat of 2005 and 2007 when genuine property rights protection was promised by Texas political leaders, but never delivered.”

© 2009 Institute for Justice: www.ij.org

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To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click HERE

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Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Eminent Domain: "SB 18 represents a bait and switch on Texas property owners."

Rain Falls on Eminent Domain Parade

5/5/09

by Reeve Hamilton
The Texas Observer
Copyright 2009

Texas Republicans, who placed a high priority on passing eminent domain reform this session, celebrated yesterday’s passage of Senate Bill 18 by Sen. Craig Estes. The bill limits eminent domain takings for public use only, requires a bona fide offer before condemnation, and requires fair compensation for loss of direct access to any remaining property,as well as other provisions.

Gov. Rick Perry was moved to release a press release yesterday, saying, ““I am pleased the Senate today passed legislation that codifies much needed eminent domain protections for Texas property owners. By clearly defining these essential safeguards, we can shield landowners from abuses of eminent domain for generations to come.”

However, key experts remain unsatisfied and seem to think the essential safeguards haven’t been well defined at all.

Eminent domain has been a major issue since the famous Kelo v. City of New London case, which was decided by the US Supreme Court in 2005. The Institute for Justice litigated that case, and its Austin-based Texas Chapter has been a major force behind eminent domain reform this session.

Executive Director of the Texas chapter Matt Miller issued a statement striking a notably different tone from that of Estes and Perry. ““As it stands, SB 18 represents a bait and switch on Texas property owners,” he says. “This bill helps protect rural property owners but leaves urban and suburban property owners exposed to private development schemes.”

Chief among IJ’s complaints is that the definition of “public use”—the entire focus of the Kelo litigation—was stripped from the bill in committee, and however helpful the remaining collection of procedural safeguards are, the central problem of Kelo remains unaddressed.

Wesley Hottot, a staff attorney for IJ-TX, says, “People need to pay attention right now and demand passage of the real reform measures, otherwise we will once again have been denied the protection we were promised. This legislative session is starting to look like a repeat of 2005 and 2007 when genuine property rights protection was promised by Texas political leaders, but never delivered.”

And thus the eminent domain-inspired conservative love-fest came to an end…for now.

© 2009 Texas Observer: www.texasobserver.org

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To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click HERE

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