What passed, what didn't this legislative session

Just a sample of what's passing and what died. Much more at the link above.


Sonia

:grr:

dg

Unless 2/3 of the members vote to bring it back up. Can't see that happening. And I didn't see that it got amended to any House/Senate bill that passed.


Sonia

officially sunseted?

edit to add.

how about highway sale?

John Coby posted about that earlier

WFAA: Homebuilder watchdog agency could close next year John Coby's blog Bay Area Houston.

I don't know abut the transportation bills. Some were in trouble.


:shrug:


Sonia

Thanks!

Sonia

The press is extremely important and I'm glad that whistle blowers will be protected. Now if we can just get the press less corporatist! Wishful thinking... I know :)

Republicans will have two years to stew at home about how their support for such a stupid bill cost them so dearly at the Capitol - and hopefully at the ballot box next November.

This was amusing today: The 10 best legislators picked by a repub and a dem for each other's party... Check out this excerpt...
Harold Cook's Overview
A Democrat picking the five best Republicans is a tough assignment, with several directions from which to choose. I could have picked Republicans who make Democrats look good (Betty Brown, Leo Berman, et al). I also could have picked Republicans who sometimes vote with the Democrats.

Reluctantly, I ultimately played it pretty straight and picked Republicans who I believe are constructive, well-respected, and do more good than harm, if only by accident. This, for one simple reason: writing up Republicans for voting with Democrats, or because they make Democrats look extra good, might encourage ‘em to stop doing it. If Democrats lose votes, legislation gets worse. And if Republicans ever stop acting goofy, the legislature will be even more boring than it already is.

http://www.lettersfromtexas.com/

The blue font color is Harold Cook's picks. What did Molly say about Chisum? I had to do some research since I'll admit I certainly wasn't paying attention to the TX Lege about 15 years ago. And I'm no fan of Chisum either. I'm not sure this is what Harold was talking about but it was funny to remember it anyway:


:rofl: Oh Molly you are really missed.

Sonia

and Rolled on the Floor then, laughing my behind off! It's STILL funny as all get out all these many years later!:rofl:

:toast: To Molly!!! A Classic!

lots of reliable column inches... and some personal chuckles to boot!

More on Chisum from google...
http://thelocalcrank.blogspot.com/2007/02/warren-chisum-medieval-troglodyte.html

Paleo-Conservative Warren Chisum was recently voted Official State Laughingstock of Texas (replacing Rick Perry) for handing out flyers for an organization that believes the sun revolves around the Earth and that evolution is an evil Jewish plot. No, seriously.

I, for one, was impressed that Chisum could take time out of his busy schedule of shutting out any public debate or scrutiny as the Legislature abandons the state Constitution in order to remind us all that Copernicus is part of the "Kabbala-based" conspiracy "that has been at work over many centuries implanting the incredible evolution myth about the origin of the Universe, the Earth, and Mankind."

In the immortal words of the late, great Molly Ivins, you can't make this shit up, folks.

http://www.texscience.org/news/chisum-bridges.htm

The odious Texas Representative Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, Chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, distributed a disturbing anti-science and anti-Semitic memo to the other members of the Texas House of Representatives on Friday, February 9, 2007. Not content with repeated attempts to impose his radical religious right agenda on the citizens of Texas by trying to legislate religious school vouchers and requiring all public schools to offer a Bible course, promoting the teaching of creationism in science classes and abstinence-only sex education in health classes, sponsoring a Constitutional amendment to ban gay and lesbian marriage and civil unions in Texas, giving priority to heterosexuals over gay and lesbian families to provide care to foster children, and attempting to return the full powers to censor textbooks to the State Board of Education (see House Bills 220 and 2534 Will Return Texas to Its Dark Ages), Rep. Chisum sunk to a new low of bigotry by distributing a memo--reproduced below--of State Representative Ben Bridges, Republican of Georgia, that advocates young-Earth creationism, geocentricity, a non-rotating and non-revolving Earth, and attributes evolutionary biology to a conspiracy of Jewish "Kabbalists" documented in ancient "Rabbinic writings." The late journalist Molly Ivins referred to Chisum as "the Bible-thumping dwarf from Pampa," referring both literally to his physical and and figuratively to his moral stature, so this episode certainly confirms that characterization.


http://www.buzzflash.net/index.php?page=9&search=tag:texas+secession

LA Times Misses: TX Bible Class Bill Would Encourage Fake US History
snip
An LA Times article covers a controversial bill, by Texas State legislator Warren Chisum, soon to be voted on by the Texas state house; but the LA Times missed the real story. The bill would force all TX high schools to offer elective Bible classes, but the bill ALSO favors a national Bible class curriculum that has been proven to contain falsified US history.
snip

Texas may require schools to carry elective on Bible

Separartion of church and state doesn't resonate in the brain of Texas state Rep. Warren Chisum, who has proposed a bill making Texas the first in the nation to require all public high schools to offer an elective course on the Bible. While they are claiming it won't be religious in nature, it will be. And who says teachers in high school are even qualified to teach the Bible.

snip

Today TX Mulls Bills For Schools To Teach Fake History Bible Classes, Promote Fake Medicine

A bill being considered today by the House Public Education Committee of the Texas State Legislature would mandate that all Texas high schools, over 1700, offer elective Bible Classes using a controversial course curriculum accused of being partisan, religiously sectarian, academically shoddy, and historically incorrect. The Texas legislature is also considering bills today that would attack women's reproductive rights and advance fake medical science.


and so much more...

Warren Chisum is to Texas what Rick Santorum was to PA. It would be a huge step for humanity if Texas could get rid of our Santorum too.

Is there really no one else from Pampa that wants to run against this


You know Santorum and Chisum could actually be related. Santorum and mini-me Santorum (Chisum). The visual of those two. My eyes... my eyes :puke:

Sonia

Just a sampling. More plus better descriptions at the AAS story link.

Sonia

YEAH BABY, FAILED!!! :bounce: Chubathon bounce! :bounce:

So I was trying not to duplicate things in the list.

But of course that was the huge gridlock bill. YEA DEMS! :woohoo:

And on a related note, Georgia that got away with implementing photo ID under the Bush DOJ regime - because they're all about supporting voter suppression ya know - got slammed yesterday on their proof of citizenship bill. Ha Ha Ha Ha. Way to go U.S. Attorney General Holder!
:patriot:



Thank you Eric Holder, thank you, thank you!!! :loveya:


Sonia

So if the crazy lege sneaks something nasty in, perhaps THIS DOJ will be able to help us out, whereas the other DOJ only wanted to help and got Squashed by the Shrubbies.

That damn Austin MUD case that was just heard could take Section 5 away from us temporarily. Ruling is expected this month.

Most people I know think the court is going to rule 5-4 with Kennedy voting with the conservatives against the VRA Section 5. If that happens in June, expect the Republicans to call a special session in quick order to ram through photo ID in Texas.

:scared:


Sonia

(I relate this to the summer of re redistricting because of how re redistricting was unwanted in the first place and thanks to outside influences it kept coming back again all summer) I'm hoping Voter ID is not the sequel! :scared:
http://www.concernedinsa.com/?p=438

Supreme Court sets date for NW Austin MUD vs. Holder
February 24th, 2009
snip

Today the Supreme Court released their dates for arguments in April including the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder (08-322) case scheduled for April 29th. This case is local to Texas and could have impact on an interesting facet of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Within the Voting Rights Act is a provision that forbids nine states and nearly six dozen counties with histories of racial voting discrimination from making changes to their election laws without receiving approval from the DOJ or a panel of three federal judges in Washington. I wrote about this case last year at the Burnt Orange Report so I’m going to provide a summary of writings and the latest information in this entry.

In January the Austin American-Statesman reported on the conflict of positions the case highlights. The article reported that minority rights groups rallied around Section 5 after the court’s announcement. ”What you’ve got is this little MUD saying basically that racial discrimination in the polling place is history, but the evidence is completely to the contrary,” said Lisa Graybill, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. “Individual and systemic discrimination continues at the polls.”

The “preclearance requirement” may have had ample reason during the tumultous times of the ’60s and ’70s. The question is whether this requirement still holds validity in 2008. In May, 2008 the three judge panel disagreed that the requirement was unconstitutional. One example of the archaic aspects of the law is that the district had to seek preclearance to locate a polling place from a residential garage to a public school.

You can read details of the case here at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. A commentary of the case can be found in the annual review of the court by the Cato Institute. Further discussion can be found with SCOTUSBLOG written after the District Court decision.

more at link...http://www.concernedinsa.com/?p=438

:kick: for ACLU-TX

Sonia

That we killed the CDAs in proper form, but they might have been snuck back into something else. I don't know if those folks have updated their website yet, but here's the gist.

WE DID IT!
HB 300 IS DEAD!

It was messy, and full of drama, but the grassroots, with the help of infighting among lawmakers over the "local option" gas tax hike, managed to slay a beast of a bill that would have unleashed horrific provisions upon Texans for GENERATIONS to come.

. . .

An added wrinkle...
We found out about some chicanery with the safety net bill (after hearing we were trying to kill the sunset bill and push TxDOT's sunset to next session). HB 300 author Carl Isett magically changed TxDOT's sunset date in the safety net bill to 4 years instead of the 2 years as it was originally written. Apparently this was a move to force lawmakers to choke down his anti-taxpayer, anti-reform HB 300 under the guise that it was better than nothing. But rather it smacked of dirty politics to try and say, "you take our bill or get no change at TxDOT for 4 years."

. . .

The local government 391 commissions we've been forming all over the state will now be the only thing (aside from litigation) standing between East Texas and a possible 1,200 foot wide Trans Texas Corridor!

CDAs may have been snuck into another bill somewhere...
With the "chubbing" over Voter ID, many bills died in the House. So the Senate started attaching their bills to House bills and there were a flurry of conference committee rpeorts filed at midnight Saturday with no way to read them all to see if CDAs got snuck into a bill. Considering the House arrived at sine die before the senate today, and since both chambers routinely suspend their own rules, the Senate may have slipped CDAs into a bill today AFTER knwoing for certain that CDAs will sunset this summer absent the passage of HB 300.

What's also uncertain is what happens to the bills that gave RMAs the authority to enter into CDAs if CDAs are goign to sunset? Which law will atke precedence over the other? So there are many open questions and diasater may be lurking around the corner. But for today, we can enjoy a BIG VICTORY #2!

I'll provide the link to the TURF site which is worth a read.

texasturf.org/index.php

:kick:

Sonia

:spray: :rofl:

I had forgotten about the license plates. I thought for sure it had passed.


Sonia

I had to take one & let me tell you just what a freakin' joy it was to parallel park a 1970 Dodge Station wagon with a DPS trooper glaring at you. :scared:

dg

DPS - Parent Taught Driver Education

I think this was the loophole they closed. It's not good enough for your parents to say you know how to drive because they taught you.


Sonia

& we took a written test the first week, then practiced driving in a car & the simulator :evilgrin:, but in order to get our licenses, we had to take a test run with a trooper.

dg

But that was then dg. Don't ya know that kids these days are so much smarter than we were? They probably just use a simulator driver's test.

Heck I have no idea how you get a license these days. If I had to take that damn test again I couldn't parallel park either. I almost never even try. :)


Sonia

This is what we need:
Lexus LS 460L Self Parking Car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkEu-PdVlK0



Hey I'm still waiting for those hover cars we were supposed to have this century too. :7

Sonia

Very good read on all kinds of issues.

Sonia