Carona moving forward on SB 855
Sen. John Carona tells us he believes he’s resolved constitutional questions about his local option highway funding bill and will win final Senate passage on Tuesday — though he acknowledges he expects Gov. Rick Perry to “do everything he can to derail the bill” as it moves through the House.
Perry apparently had a change of heart about SB 855 yesterday, when he realized that not only was it about to win Senate approval — but that most of the state’s large population centers had opted in. Perry then solicited Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s help in killing the bill yesterday, prompting a confrontational meeting between Perry, Carona and Dewhurst Wednesday afternoon.
“The governor is in a bit of a quandary. He views this as a tax bill, though others of us would disagree,” Carona said. (The bill requires voters to approve fees or taxes for specific projects.) As for the rumored Perry veto, Carona says Perry “has indicated he will not make a final decision until the bill has gone through both chambers.”
Carona believes that while Perry “doesn’t want the bill on his desk,” the governor will find the measure has “enormous support among public officials across the state” who are “starved” for transportation funding. Citing testimony that the state will have no way to fund new capacity after 2012, Carona says he believes his bill is the only solution to deal with what he calls “a looming crisis” with Texas highways. The state is maxing out on its ability to borrow for highways, and public-private partnerships have been proven to be far more costly than incremental tax increases, he said.
The Transportation Committee chairman blames “raw politics” to the opposition to his bill. ”In order to get re-elected, too many legislators are willing to forgo the most practical solution in order to maintain a perfect record voting against taxes,” he said. “That’s not statesmanship.”
Sen. Steve Ogden convinced Carona to hold off on final passage because he questioned whether the bill violated the constitutional requirement that tax bills originate in the House, and that local bills must be advertised in advance of passage. Carona said he met with Ogden and a lawyer from Lege Council this morning to put those concerns to rest.
Tagged: david dewhurst, highway funding, John Carona, rick perry, sb 855, Steve Ogden.
Anonymous says:
Perry “has indicated he will not make a final decision until the bill has gone through both chambers.”
– How generous of him, since there’s no “final decision” to be made before then anyway.
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epibeemie says:
I love how these “conservative” politicians won’t do the conservative thing, the thing that four generations of Texans have consented to–taxing the citizens of the state in order to build a road system that benefits all. That’s a system that has gotten us this far down the road (pun intended).
What’s changed? Republican lawmakers find themselves hemmed in on three sides–by Libertarians (a not-inconsiderable threat to Republican survival in some districts, if Ron Paul stays as popular as he has), who would rather see government completely replaced by a system of user fees; by Democrats, against whom they believe their best weapons are low taxes, low taxes and, um, oh yeah, low taxes; and by lobbyists for toll companies, who see an opening in the traffic and are probably flooring it in an effort to gain legal access to Texans’ bank accounts.
Whats it’s going to look like if we go through with all this tollway building is you’re going to have to find back routes to drive to the corner convenience store without paying a toll, and urban commutes will cost more than some people make in a day. You think we’ve got problems with the insurance and electricity companies now, wait till some out-of-state tollway builder has a monopoly on getting people from A to B. We’ll be wishing for the days when the costs were spread evenly across all taxpayers, when somebody wasn’t buying an estate in Bermuda with money they should be spending on road maintenance, and when you had somebody semi-responsive to complain to if potholes are tearing your tires up. There will be a Tollways Commission tasked with reviewing cost increases, but it’ll be staffed by former tollway builder employees who somehow won’t figure out how to contain the problem.
At least this bill defers the decision by putting some of the power to decide in the hands of locals, although I don’t have a lot of faith in city hall to resist the sweeteners that Flibinite Tollways, Inc. offers either. It just strikes me as Legislators trying to insulate themselves from responsibility for something they know the next generation will bitterly regret.
Anybody remember why the Texas Railroad Commission was originally formed? It was to protect Texans from the predatory pricing of out-of-state railroad companies that were choking off farmer’s earnings with monopoly pricing. The lack of good roads put families and small businesses at the mercy of these folks, and seriously hurt the incomes of Texans.
I just think the Lege should take the same route that their predecessors gazing down from the walls of the House and Senate did, and raise the tax funds to have the state build the needed roads. There’s no “maxing out” that taxing won’t fix, they just don’t have the stones to do the right thing anymore. I much rather pay more taxes than let yet another corporate hog in to feed off our harvest. My grandparents and parents in East Texas didn’t collapse from the financial burden of funding Farm to Market roads across the vast empty reaches of West Texas, because they knew the whole state is better off for it. What’s different now?
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Tellnitlikeitis Reply:
April 9th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
epibeemie makes good sense.
But this issue does not hinge on good sense. It’s all about appealing to the 400,000 or so who make up the majority in the Texas GOP primary.
Public policy is not being framed for the 23 million other Texans.
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Conservative Texan says:
Yet another example of Perry’s preoccupation with the political winds — and total lack of leadership ability.
On Jan. 20, he told the Dallas News he would support a local option rail plan and accompanying gas tax increases as long as local voters had a “say” in the decision. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/012109dnmetperry.4008f0c.html
But now, there is anti-tax posturing to do. So Perry has done a 180.
He flips. He flops. Maybe this is his version of “change you can believe in.”
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linda says:
Re: conservative Texan: He flips. He flops. It all depends on who has given him money recently.
On every issue.
And Paul- what’s happening with eminent domain?
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Tim says:
Perry is for States rights. Not national. Not county. Not city. States. Because he’s a governor. He wants to make the rules. Screw what you want. We can’t get rid of him soon enough.
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Anonymous Reply:
April 10th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Every time I see him I am reminded of GWB.
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John Garza says:
These same members create and approve a budget every session that spends gas taxes on things other than roads. Now they are crying about a transportation funding shortfall that requires taxes to be raised?
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