Short agenda for Texas special session

July 1, 2009

Anonymous The San Marcos Record Wed Jul 01, 2009, 09:03 AM CDT

Austin — Get in, get out and leave town in time for the July 4 holiday.

That's what Texas Gov. Rick Perry has in mind for state lawmakers who will be back in the Capitol on Wednesday for a special session Perry called to extend the shelf life of some critical state agencies and allow the Department of Transportation to issue $2 billion in bonds for building roads.

Perry says the unfinished business from the regular session that ended June 1 can be done in time for fireworks and barbecue on the weekend. He purposely kept the agenda short to help lawmakers get out of town.

"Get'em in, get'em out and get the work done. Badda bing, badda boom!" Perry told reporters Tuesday after delivering a speech at the Construction Expo and Trade Show in Austin.

Then again, this is the same bunch of legislators whose bickering caused the problem in the first place. Partisan fights over a voter identification bill and a tussle over how to pay for road projects left several key issues unfinished when lawmakers left a month ago.

Perry, a Republican, has called them back to pass a safety net measure that allows the transportation and insurance departments and a few others to keep operating. Those agencies are scheduled to close by Sept. 1, 2010 if they don't get the legal authority to continue.

Lawmakers also left without passing legislation authorizing the $2 billion in road-building bonds already approved by voters.

Lawmakers may have little trouble passing the agency and bond bills. A third agenda item could create some headaches. Perry wants lawmakers to extend transportation officials' authority to enter public-private contracts to build and operate some roads and toll roads.

Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, who sponsored a rewrite of the transportation agency that failed when the regular session expired, said lawmakers should wait on the contracts issue until 2011. That's when they'll take another look at the agency as a whole.

"I'm pretty optimistic this can be a quick session," Hegar said. "But I don't think we should be addressing the contracts or even have the discussion until we pass agency reforms first."

As governor, Perry has the power to call the special session and set the agenda. He has said he kept it short to keep lawmakers focused on the necessities and away from "mischief."

He ignored pleas from Democrats to add expanding subsidized children's health insurance and the Texas Farm Bureau's call to keep pressing an eminent domain bill that died in the regular session.

"Today, Texas is ground zero for America's health care crisis," Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso said, noting that children's health insurance bills passed the House and Senate during the regular session. Perry had suggested he would veto those bills, but they never made it to his desk.

"It is equally important as building highways, I would say more important," said Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston. "If you're standing at the bully pulpit, use it."

The special session is scheduled for 30 days but lawmakers can leave earlier if they finish their work.

When Perry called several special sessions to deal with congressional redistricting (in 2003) and public school finance (2004, 2005 and 2006), lawmakers stayed in Austin for weeks and months of overtime. But history shows some special sessions are quite short.

For example, a 1982 special session lasted all of three days in September. In June 1987, lawmakers were back in Austin only two days.

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