Betting on the come, in gambling terms, means: You don’t have what you need but you’re betting that you will have it when you need it.

Betting on the come is exactly what House and Senate Republicans are doing with Governor Rick Perry as they press for a final budget deal before the legislative session ends on Memorial Day. They are betting that the state’s economy will improve enough by 2013 to raise enough additional tax revenues to cover what essentially is $6 billion to $10 billion in deficit spending. The Republican leadership is pushing some of our budget problems down to local governments while also engaging in accounting tricks and deferrals that will come home to roost in the next budget cycle, if not sooner. Their budget pushes about $4.8 billion in Medicaid spending off to the next budget (as a federal entitlement that is money that cannot be cut), and counts on unapproved federal waivers to reduce Medicaid spending. It also defers $1.8 billion in payments to school districts by a month, pushing that spending into the next budget cycle too. If a new school funding formula fails to pass, then current law will trigger a system of proration. That means the state will not pay school districts money they currently are owed but would have to pay those districts in the next budget cycle. That would add somewhere between $5 billion and $6 billion to the Legislature’s deficit tab. Proration is avoided by changing the funding formulas to short-change school districts.

One of the latest bright ideas from the Senate is to simply change the estimate on how much revenue property taxes will raise for local school districts. The more money property taxes raise for the districts, the less money the state owes them. House Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands told me that would be worth about $800 million for the budget balancers. It also would be a hidden cut to the state’s school districts.

The GOP leadership is jumping through all these budget hoops all in the name of preserving the rainy day fund because we may need the money in the future. With this budget, we are almost guaranteed to need the money in the future.
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Tagged: budget, david dewhurst, rick perry, Texas house

(Editor’s note: Every week, for the remainder of the legislative session, BurkaBlog will be publishing an original column by R.G. Ratcliffe, who was the state political reporter for the Houston Chronicle for twenty years. During those two decades, I’ve known R.G., who resigned from the Chronicle in February to work on a book, to be one of the most trusted voices in the Capitol press corps. I’m thrilled to have him posting here. His columns will offer a deeper take on one of the week’s top stories. –P.B.)

This session’s budget crunch has turned into a twisted episode of “The Biggest Loser,” the reality television show in which overweight contestants compete to see who can lose the most weight. At the Capitol, the question is, which parts of our state budget will lose the most money in the plans being floated to bridge the $27 billion shortfall. Who will be our biggest loser? Most of the attention has been on teachers, children, and the elderly in nursing homes. Rallies at the capitol and heavy coverage on the nightly news about the impending disaster these groups could face from state cuts have put them at the forefront of the debate. But as the House prepares to vote on a bare bones available-revenue-only proposal next week, there’s another, more often overlooked contestant on the show—Texas’ 154,000 state employees, many of whom could face effective wage cuts of up to 40 percent under current Texas budget plans.

Who are these folks? Well, they are child protection caseworkers, prison guards, tax auditors and rank and file bureaucrats. They work for the government. In a staunchly fiscal conservative, Tea Party world, these employees are often viewed skeptically. (more…)

Tagged: employee retirement system, health insurance, jim pitts, public sector, state budget, state workers, Texas house

How else to describe the pace of House debate? I can’t recall another session when the default option was for both parties to chub every bill. The debate over the unemployment insurance bill was particularly dilatory. Why is this bill even being debated? Rick Perry has drawn his line in the dirt. He is not going to have an epiphany and take the UI money. Either the bill will die in some legislative limbo, or he will veto it. The only purpose debate can serve at this point is to let the Democrats poke a stick in the governor’s ribs. Or, should I say, another stick? They seem to have an inexhaustible supply.

Phil King did come up with a clever sunset amendment. At the point in the future that the changes to worker eligibility result in a cost to employers that exceeds the amount of UI money received from the federal government, the law reverts to the law in effect immediately before the UI bill takes effect (which will never happen). This would undo the expansion of eligibility required by the feds and remove Perry’s objection to the bill. Alas, it was impaled on a point of order.

The low point of this debate was the Legler amendment: “Each individual who files a claim for benefits or receives benefits under this subtitle must submit to drug testing….” This is just another indication of how far Republicans have strayed from their libertarian roots. There is no justification for this policy. It’s just an attempt to curry favor with the far right and maybe ensnare a conscience-stricken member or two into voting against drug testing. The amendment requires the workforce commission to oversee the tests. It does not say who will pay for the drug testing — the people who lost their jobs and have no money, or the state? If the latter, where does the money come from?

Meanwhile, the paint was drying. There was an amendment to the amendment. Then there was a motion to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was adopted. Then we verified. Then we verified some more. Then Strama moved to postpone the bill.

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Tagged: dan branch, Joe Straus, mark strama, phil king, rick perry, Texas house, unemployment insurance

The House budget debate had a lot in common with the Cold War. The two sides came to the battlefield fully armed, but they engaged in frequent diplomacy that avoided a nuclear conflagration. Jessica Farrar, for the Democratic caucus, and various Republicans, Phil King among them, held a summit on reproductive issues–strategies to prevent abortion, for the R’s, and family planning funds, for the D’s, both of which were under attack from the other side–and agreed to total disarmament. All proposed amendments were moved to Article 11, where dreams go to die. Nothing came to a vote.

All this peace and harmony slowed down the House’s already glacial pace. Motions to table amendments were rare. Instead, the chair would intone, “The amendment is withdrawn,” and the glacier would grind to a halt while members looked for a way to fix the problem. For example, Mark Strama had an early amendment to state the intent of the Legislature that not less than 70% of the research superiority grants from the Emerging Technology Fund should be for clean energy research and development. Otto didn’t agree with stating an exact percentage, and everything stopped while they worked out agreeable language.

Occasionally an amendment would spur the ideologues into action. Martinez-Fischer had an amendment to encourage the Employees Retirement System to hire more minority fund raisers. Christian, the chair of the Conservative Coalition, jumped into the fray: What is a minority? Do you know the performance of minority fund managers? Give me a fund where a minority fund manager has performed well. Phillips followed with an amendment to the amendment that would have required fund managers to be chosen on the basis of experience, skill, education, and demonstrated success. Point of order! Sustained.

The most dreaded words of the debate were: “Rule 8, Section 4″–the grounds for a point of order that an amendment was attempting to make law in an appropriations bill, in contradiction to the text of the rule: “General law may not be changed by the provision in an appropriations bill.” This was the graveyard of many an amendment, including Berman’s immigration amendments. Sometimes, as in the case of Christian’s proposal to remove all funding for the Public Integrity Unit and give the authority to the attorney general, the amendment was quietly withdrawn. This was clearly the worst public policy in the entire debate, and I wonder if Abbott planted the suggestion. I wouldn’t be surprised if more amendments weren’t killed on points of order this year than last, but nobody seemed to mind, except Phillips, who made a personal privilege speech after Martinez-Fischer killed his attempt to tack on a contingent teacher pay raise.

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Tagged: appropriations bill, budget, jessica farrar, phil king, sylvester turner, Texas house

You can see the train wreck coming: a special session over the budget and the stimulus package. Speculation is rampant that Perry will veto the appropriations bill, but he may not even have a bill to veto. The difficulties of melding the budget with the stimulus funds (and the rules that come with them) and the rainy day fund may not be doable in a regular session–especially in the House, where the lack of floor action means that the Straus team (whoever that is) has had no experience in working the floor. The machinery broke down on something as simple as Garnet Coleman’s resolution expressing no confidence in TxDOT a couple of weeks ago. The resolution didn’t lay out for the requisite hour, and nobody got the word out to Republicans that they were supposed to vote for it. The conservative Republicans have held their fire thus far, but you know they will come after the appropriations bill. The first test will be the Eiland hurricane bill when it comes to the floor. Eiland wants to use the rainy day fund, and that requires a supermajority vote. The absence of floor discipline means that spending bills will be subject to attack from the left and the right, the former because the spending isn’t enough and the latter because it is too much. This is an accident waiting to happen, and it will play right into Perry’s game plan.

Which is: dance with the ones that brung him, namely the Republican right. He has never given any indication of trying to broaden his support. His rejection of the unemployment stimulus package was straight from the same playbook he has always followed. The special session will be no different. Is this smart politics? The Republican party has lost a lot of ground during the Perry years, and the disenchantment with the hard right, nationally and in Texas, shows up in the polls. But Perry shows no indication that he seeks to reclaim the support of these disaffected Republicans. I suppose the question is, just how disaffected are they? If they no longer vote in Republican primaries, so much the better for Perry. The risk, for Perry, is that they will vote, and that they will vote for Hutchison.

Speaking of whom: Where is she? Hutchison hasn’t been heard from much. I know from the story that I wrote on the governor’s race in February that their strategy is not to engage with Perry. That is the advice that Karl Rove gave them. (There is no love lost between Rove and Perry, going back to Perry’s 1998 race for lieutenant governor. Rove wanted Bush to demonstrate his strength among Hispanic voters by carrying El Paso, and the more Hispanics he turned out, the more votes he produced for Perry’s Democratic opponent, John Sharp–at least that’s the way Perry saw it.) Hutchison is going to have to start positioning herself in this race. Perry wants to make her the candidate of Washington (as opposed to himself, the candidate of Texas), and she is going to have to burnish her GOP credentials by taking on Obama and the Democrats. Perry is not going to let her run on her personality.

So, as the special session is meeting in early July, the governor’s race will be heating up too. In the good old summertime.

Tagged: budget, special session, Texas house, txdot

Things are about to get ugly in the speaker’s race. The Craddick forces, led by several longtime loyalists (I want to run another check on the names), are trying to stir up a coordinated campaign to put pressure on wavering colleagues to vote for Craddick. According to credible reports I have received from Republican operatives, they are asking members to call various GOP and conservative groups with which members may be connected. The purpose is to get activists in these organizations to call House members and urge them (a) to support Craddick and (b) to oppose a secret ballot for the selection of the speaker.

One of the first shots in this battle was fired by Republican County Chairmen’s Association president Linda Rogers. She sent a letter to all GOP county chairs warning that “Texas Liberals are attempting to take over our State House of Representative by nefarious means.” As the Quorum Report pointed out, among the people “attempting to take over” the House are conservative Republicans Burt Solomons and Jim Keffer, and the “nefarious means” are a vote of the members of the House of Representatives, as specified in the Texas Constitution.

So members can expect to spend their Christmas holidays being badgered by county chairs and members of Republican womens’ clubs, right-to-life organizations, and any other affiliated groups. No doubt the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) members will get their shots in too.

As the Republican apparatchiks gear up to support Craddick, the speaker’s race is likely to become an issue in state GOP politics. Tina Benkiser, the current chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, is a virtual certainty to become the vice-chairman of the Republican National Committee. Party rules require that if the RNC chairman is male, the vice-chairman must be female (and vice-versa). Since Benkiser appears to be the sole female candidate for vice-chair, and all of the candidates for chairman are male, she can hardly lose. Her successor at the RPT will be chosen by the 62 members of the SREC (a man and a woman from each of the 31 state Senate districts).

Among the leading candidates are Denise McNamara, one of the two RNC members from Texas, and Gina Parker, who lost her race for RPT chairman to Benkiser. Former RPT vice-chair David Barton and attorney Kelly Shackleford wield a lot of clout with the SREC. One can picture the various candidates sparing no threat to prove themselves most adept at delivering votes for Craddick.

The problem for Craddick is that things have gotten to the point where every time he acts like, well, Craddick, he reminds GOP members why they wish he would just go away. Many members are still fuming about Craddick’s iron-fisted control of members’ races. Candidates had to come to Austin and appear before Christi Craddick, the speaker’s daughter; operative John Colyandro; and consultant Dave Carney. They were told what they had to do in their campaigns in order to get money that the speaker controlled. They had to bring their campaign plans and subject them to Christi Craddick’s scrutiny. She could overrule the members and insist on their using speaker-approved campaign materials that had already been prepared by consultants. Many members were furious; they felt that they knew their districts better than Carney, who is from New Hampshire, or Ms. Craddick. These hard feelings have not subsided.

Another source of ill will for Craddick is the redistricting map that the Legislative Redistricting Board adopted in 2001. A lot of Republicans have been defeated because of that map, which was supposed to make the House safe for Republicans for a decade. It is apparent, in retrospect, that the map adopted by the Legislative Redistricting Board was drawn to elect not just a Republican speaker, but a Republican speaker named Craddick. It was drawn to maximize Republican districts, not to safeguard incumbents.

Craddick couldn’t settle for 85 Republicans, because, back in 2001, there were 15 to 20 ABC Republicans who would never vote for him for speaker. To get more GOP districts, safe seats had to be sacrificed for more marginal seats. These are the seats Republicans have been losing: a net of twelve seats lost to the Democrats since Craddick became speaker in 2003.

I think Republicans in the House are finally beginning to realize the damage that Craddick has done to the GOP majority. Does it mean that the GOP rank and file will turn against him? The discontent with Craddick is far greater than I thought it was. But at the moment, it appears that fear still outweighs outrage.

Tagged: burt solomons, christi craddick, dave carney, david barton, denise mcnamara, gina parker, jim keffer, john colyandro, kelly shackleford, linda rogers, republican party of texas, speaker's race, state republican executive committee, Texas house, tina benkiser, tom craddick

Putting on my best faux-reporter voice, I called Rep. Solomons to find out why he would be so crazy as to run for Speaker. I wanted to give him the opportunity that we gave to the other 140 candidates to send along an Official Declaration of Intent. Solomons noted that the statements we compiled pretty much sound the same, and he basically agrees with all of them.

Well he’s right about that. Each candidate thinks he or she would make the best Speaker. Not one of them said, you know, “I have no idea why I’m running, don’t look at me, I’m hideous,” which would have made for a much more interesting race.

Here’s what Solomons did have to say, according to my notes, which are scribbled on my hand. He says it’s all about management and governing style, and that he and Craddick have very different perspectives on that. He said that the House needs to change the process and the way they get results. He said he’s not trying to pull the rug out from anybody, but he thinks that it’s time for another Republican to govern.

Looks like some other members are thinking the very same thing.

Tagged: burt solomons, speaker's race, Texas house

With Election Day quickly approaching, it has become clear to many conservatives that a Democratic takeover of the Texas House of Representatives is a very real possibility. What was once a 26-seat Republican majority in 2003 has dwindled to an eight-seat majority today, and that number will almost certainly shrink again this year. The Republican Party simply cannot afford any more losses in the Legislature, let alone a return to Democratic control.

The only way to prevent further erosion of the Republican majority in the Texas House is for Tom Craddick to immediately announce that he will not seek another term as speaker.

These are the first two paragraphs of the letter written by Mark McCaig, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, that appeared in the Statesman on Thursday, the importance of which should not be underestimated. What matters is not that he called for Craddick to give up the gavel. The big deal here is that McCaig challenged the central rationale of the Craddick speakership, which he has sold to leadership of the Republican party: that the maintenance of the Republican majority in the House depends upon his continuing presence as speaker. That issue is now out in the open. If the Republicans do not lose ground on Election Day, Craddick will be reelected as speaker. But if they falter, McCaig’s pronouncement that the emperor has no clothes will stick in the minds of every Republican in the House. He has set the terms of the debate, and the debate has already started. If Craddick is unseated, the Sarajevo of the battle inside the Republican ranks will be the McCaig letter.

Tagged: mark mccaig, speaker's race, Texas house, tom craddick

I have asked Democratic insiders how their slate of candidates will fare in races for the House of Representatives. Their answer is that the D’s will pick up one to three seats, with a possibility of winning enough seats to capture control of the House.

I have asked Republican insiders how their slate of candidates will fare in races for the House of Representatives, and the answer is that the R’s will pick up at least two seats, with a possibility of extending the Republican majority into the low eighties.

Somebody is going to be very wrong on November 5.

The Democrats are in a more precarious position than the Republicans. No Republican incumbent occupies a seat that is in traditional Democratic territory. But a number of Democrats occupy seats that until recently have been held by Republicans: Dan Barrett, Juan Garcia, Allen Vaught, Kirk England (the Republican was himself, before he switched parties), Joe Heflin, Donna Howard, Valinda Bolton, Hubert Vo, Paula Hightower Pierson. The price of success is difficult reelection battles.

The most vulnerable Democratic incumbents are Barrett, Garcia, and Vo — the first two because the numbers are against them, and the latter because of highly publicized accusations that he is a slumlord. After that, the D’s are concerned about WD-40′s Mark Homer and Chuck Hopson, who are running in East Texas with Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, and the Robbie Cook open seat in Central Texas, where Republican Tim Kleinschmidt began the race with an advantage in name ID over Democrat Donnie Dippel because he ran a vigorous, but losing, race against Cook in 2006. The R’s would love to take down the uberliberal Bolton in the most conservative district in Travis County, but it’s a long shot. There has been a lot of talk that tort reformer Connie Scott could defeat Abel Herrero in Nueces County, but everything I have heard about that race indicates that Herrero will hold on.

The most vulnerable Republicans are harder to identify. A few are obvious: Both Tony Goolsby and Bill Zedler won close Metroplex races in 2006 and they live in districts that are trending Democrat. I’d put Mike Anderson, who defeated Thomas Latham in the Republican primary, in that same group. Republicans must defend the Mike Krusee open seat in Williamson County, the Robert Talton open seat in Harris County, and the El Paso seat occupied by Pat Haggerty, who lost in the Republican primary to Dee Margo. This seat ought to be the easiest one for the D’s to pick up, but challenger Joe Moody has run a dreadful race.

I said earlier that the most vulnerable Republicans are harder to identify than their Democratic counterparts. This is because the numbers may look great for them today, but on election day, they could be overwhelmed by a huge Democratic turnout. The electoral climate is terrible for Republicans. They are unenthusiastic about their presidential nominee. It is going to be a banner Democratic year nationally. Texas is not exempt from national trends. Republicans in metro areas are in jeopardy if they have a Democratic opponent. The woods are full of angry ex-Republicans turned independents. If the Democrats can turn their vote out, anything could happen. The Republicans have some lousy candidates out there, like Ralph Sheffield in Diane Delisi’s seat in Bell County. Sid Miller is no prize. Neither is John Davis in Harris County. Linda Harper-Brown. The Fred Hill open seat in Richardson could produce a surprise. Republicans ought to win all of these seats, but the party is not the juggernaut it used to be. I have talked to R’s who are concerned that the turnout models used for polling are out of date and don’t reflect demographic changes; if that’s true, then the polling is worthless.

This is a very dangerous election for both parties. Democrats have raised the expectations of their followers so high that it is going to be hard to meet them. If they lose ground in the Legislature, they are going to have a difficult time recruiting candidates and raising money in 2010. For Republicans, the situation is even more precarious. They lost five House seats in 2006, their governor is seeking to establish a fourteen-year monarchy, their lieutenant governor wants out, their speaker is embattled, and their party is split over issues like immigration and education. And they don’t seem to have a clue that Texas is changing. This is going to be one heck of an election.

Tagged: dan barrett, hubert vo, juan garcia, Texas house

I learned today about a method of analyzing House races that may be able to predict winners (no warranties, expressed or implied) in close races for the Texas House of Representatives. The idea is to determine whether Democrats have a chance to win certain races, based on primary turnout of the two parties and Obama’s percentage in the presidential primary.

Take Michael “Tuffy” Hamilton.
Republican primary turnout in the district: 4,714 = 6.2% of registered voters
Democratic primary turnout in the district: 25,465 = 33.4% of registered voters

Looks pretty good for the Democrats, right?
But: only 22.9% of Democrats voted for Obama in the presidential primary
Conclusion: mostly white conservative voters. Hamilton wins.
(Hamilton is an icon in his community. We didn’t need a formula to tell us he is going to win.)

Zedler-Turner
R primary turnout (rounded) 9,600
D primary turnout (rounded) 16,900
Obama %: 61.6
Big trouble for Zedler

Barrett-Shelton
R primary turnout (rounded) 13,000
D primary turnout (rounded) 14,000
Obama % 52.
Too close to call

Goolsby-Kent
R primary turnout (rounded) 4,800
D primary turnout (rounded) 7,300
Obama % 57
Could be trouble

It doesn’t work for all districts. In Dan Branch’s district, R’s cast 5,300 primary votes, D’s 8,400. Obama got 53.5%. But some of those votes were from moderate/disillusioned R’s. Branch isn’t going to lose.

Anderson-Miklos
R primary turnout (rounded) 7,500
D primary turnout (rounded) 8,800
Obama %: 55
Could be trouble

Tagged: bill zedler, dan branch, michael tuffy hamilton, Texas house, turner