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Libertarian Party nominates candidates for November elections
According to an announcement by the Travis County Libertarian Party:
The Travis County Libertarian Party held its county convention today and nominated 18 candidates for the November general election. The party nominated candidates for all nonjudicial county offices, all six State Representative districts, and State Senator in District 14.
In the three-way race for the District 14 state senate seat, Kent Phillips narrowly defeated Ron Bennett to get the Libertarian nomination.
Kris Bailey won the nomination for state representative, District 47, defeating Joe Edgar.
Nathan Kleffman won the nomination for state representative, District 49, defeating Norman Horn.
Mark Tippetts won the nomination for Travis County Judge, defeating Daniel Krawisz.
Other nominations:
George E. Emery was nominated for state representative, District 46.
Ben Easton was nominated for state representative, District 48.
Emily Cowan was nominated for state representative, District 50.
Arthur DiBianca was nominated for state representative, District 51.
Arlo J. Pignotti was nominated for district clerk.
Gillian Dreesen was nominated for county clerk.
Mike Burris was nominated for county treasurer.
Matthew Finkel was nominated for county commissioner, Precinct 2.
David Dreesen was nominated for county commissioner, Precinct 4.
Adam Sparks was nominated for justice of the peace, Precinct 1.
Jaclyn Finkel was nominated for justice of the peace, Precinct 2.
Matthew Rafacz was nominated for justice of the peace, Precinct 3.
John Burton was nominated for justice of the peace, Precinct 4.
Michael Holt was nominated for justice of the peace, Precinct 5.
The convention also elected party officers, and elected delegates to district and state conventions. Libertarians will consider nominations for six additional Travis-area offices at district conventions on March 20.
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UPDATE: Social studies standards win early board approval
The five Democrats cast protest votes as the State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to new social studies curriculum standards on Friday.
Board member Mavis Knight, D-Dallas, said she could not be party to “perpetuating a fraud on the students of this state.”
The sharply divided board has been focused on their ideological interests, Knight said.
“We have not focused on the needs of the students,” she added.
But the Republicans on the winning side said the ample public input taken in the process and the healthy debate are precisely why Texas should retain control over its standards.
“That is a right that needs to be preserved,” said Bradley, while criticizing an effort by most other states in the country to develop common curriculum standards for math and English.
UPDATE: Rene Nunez of El Paso initially voted with the majority but later changed his vote to nay, saying that that was his original intention. He joined the four other Democrats on the board to oppose the standards while the 10 Republicans cast “aye” votes.
Final approval of the standards is scheduled for May.
As we reported in a story that ran in today’s print editions:
The standards under consideration will serve as the framework for history, government and economics textbooks and lessons for the 4.7 million Texas public school students. And there are controversies on seemingly every page.
Board member Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, objected to a standard for a high school sociology course that addressed the difference between sex and gender. It was eliminated in a 9-to-6 vote.
She worried that a discussion of that issue would lead students into the world of “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else.”
The board also grappled with the right to bear arms, the gold standard, hip-hop and genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Members voted to polish up references to the American “free enterprise” economic system and removed most mentions of “capitalism,” a word that board member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, said has a negative connotation.
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Berlanga returns for SBOE vote
Board member Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, returned to the meeting Friday morning after walking out yesterday in protest.
And she started right were she left off. Berlanga wanted a mention of the Tejanos who died at the Alamo to be added to the seventh grade Texas history standards.
“I just think that they deserve their place in history,” Berlanga.
Yesterday, Berlanga left the meeting after saying the board was “whitewashing” history.
But board member Terri Leo, R-Spring, said more Hispanic names were added after Berlanga and two other Democrats left the meeting.
“I’m sorry that they were not here to see that. But that’s what happened,” Leo said.
In the end, the Tejanos will be part of the standards as part of the “189 heroes who gave their lives” at the Alamo.
With the heavy-lifting largely done for now, the board is expected to approve the standards on first reading today.
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Berlanga storms out of SBOE meeting
State Board of Education member Mary Helen Berlanga stormed out of today’s debate over social studies curriculum standard shortly after 5 p.m.
“I’ve had it. This is it. I’m leaving for the evening,” Berlanga said. The board is pretending this is “white America, Hispanics don’t exist.”
Throughout this process, Berlanga has focused almost exclusively on adding the names of more minorities to the standards. Not all of her suggestions have been accepted by the board and her frustration boiled over Thursday evening.
“I’ve never seen a rewrite like this,” said Berlanga, a board member since 1982. “This is a step backwards.
She believes the Legislature should strip the board of its power.
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Texas’ food stamp application backlog now expected to be cleared by April
Texas’ food stamp application backlog is now expected to be cleared by the end of April, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs told lawmakers today.
The state has been failing to process applications within the 30 days required by the federal and state governments. In October, some 42,000 applications were stuck in the backlog.
The commission had projected it would clear the backlog by February. That didn’t happen. Though the backlog disappeared in the Tyler, Beaumont, Austin, El Paso and Edinburg areas, there were still 16,000 applications in February for which decisions were past due, Suehs said. About 90 percent of that backlog was in the Houston and Dallas areas.
Suehs now expects the Lubbock, Abilene and San Antonio regions to clear the backlog by the end of March, he told members of a joint Senate-House panel overseeing the state’s system for enrolling Texans in programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. And he expects the Dallas and Houston areas to be back on track by the end of April.
Texas recently got federal permission to allow food banks in Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston to interview food stamp applicants — something many had been doing already, but state workers had to repeat the interview.
Texas expects to issue food stamp benefits to 3.3 million people this month, an increase from 2.3 million in March 2008.
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Sowing the seeds for the fall gubernatorial campaign
Podcast
Join Jason Embry and Corrie MacLaggan with KUT’s Ian Crawford in the Texas Political Parlor. This week, they talk about the beginnings of the November election campaign.
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SBOE opposes teaching of gender
Worried that high school sociology students would be thrust into the world of “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the State Board of Education struck a reference to “sex and gender as social constructs” in the social studies curriculum standards.
Board Member Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, said a discussion of the difference between sex and gender would be “very, very inappropriate” in a high school course.
But Mavis Knight, D-Dallas, said it was naive to think that high school students would not know that some of the classmates are gay, bisexual or transgendered.
“It is no secret to them so you might as well bring it out into the open and discuss it,” Knight said.
The motion to eliminate the referencepassed on a vote of 9 to 6.
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SBOE crosses halfway point with social studies
The State Board of Education has dispatched with more than 80 amendments to the social studies curriculum standards today.
But the board members still have scores of amendments left to mull on the second day of this week’s debate. They need to finish up the debate today in order to take a preliminary vote on Friday.
Last night, the board stayed until 9 p.m. and tonight is likely be equally long.
Chairwoman Gail Lowe encouraged the board members to streamline their discussion, which has been marked by several tense exchanges over the role of religion in the founding of the U.S. government and other issues.
She was able to find one area of agreement that might move things along.
“Each member has an interest in dinner,” Lowe said.
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SBOE chairwoman tips balance for conservative votes
State Board of Education Chairwoman Gail Lowe is flexing a little muscle.
Since taking over the board leadership last summer, Lowe has gone to great lengths to be a neutral arbiter on the sharply divided 15-member board and has typically declined to break tie votes.
Not today.
The Lampasas Republican has repeatedly sided with the board’s conservative bloc to tip the votes in their favor as they are taking up amendments to the state’s social studies curriculum standards.
Lowe’s most fraught vote came when she supported the move by Board Member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, to remove references to “capitalism” in the standards, using instead the phrase “free enterprise.”
Last summer, a compromise had been struck with the group of teachers writing the economics standards about how to refer to the country’s economic system. The challenge was finding a term that conformed both with common academic language and the state law, which calls for the use of “free enterprise.” The result was the phrase “U.S. free enterprise (capitalist, free market) system.
Cumbersome, indeed. But Mercer’s objection was not about the economy of language. It was ideological.
The word “capitalism” has a negative connotation and the standards should not apologize for the nation’s free enterprise system, he said.
And Board member Terri Leo, R-Spring, agreed.
“I do think that words means things,” Leo said. “I see no need, frankly, to compromise with liberal professors from academia,” who have written “distorted and liberal textbooks.”
Weatherford Republican Pat Hardy, a former social studies teacher who helped broker the compromise, pleaded for the board members to keep the language. They are charged with crafting standards that prepare students for college-level course and the chosen phrase would do so.
“I can’t figure out why everybody is so opposed to the word ‘capitalism,’” Hardy said.
The heated arguments did not sway anyone to a different break with their bloc. So Lowe took sides.
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Fox answers criticism of its SBOE coverage
The folks from Fox News are feeling unfairly maligned.
Yesterday, Texas Education Agency issued a news release yesterday citing several inaccuracies in the network’s coverage of the State Board of Education’s social studies curriculum debate. Here’s today’s Statesman story on the debate.
So Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends answered back this morning, saying any inaccuracies stemmed from the effort to simplify the issue.
A spokeswoman from the Fox News Channel passed along this transcipt:
“I just want to clarify some stuff, a couple of points. First off all, they were upset that what we said that what they are doing down in Texas is they are developing standards for new textbooks. Technically, what they are doing, is they are developing curriculum standards that will set what is taught in classes, and then those standards will become part of a framework that textbooks are based on. We were just trying to make it simpler.
…Also, we talked about a suggestion that was made that history is, American history starts in the year 1877. That was a suggestion, made first of all, in North Carolina, and we thought we were pretty clear that these were just suggestions, and there have been a lot of suggestions, regarding the founding fathers, and some different dates that may or may not be included in the text. We thought we were clear that they were simply suggestions, so we want to make sure you understand, they were just suggestions, and that is our clarification.”
Fox does have friends here, however. Board Member Terri Leo, R-Spring, brought a cookie over to Fox reporter and anchor Brian Wilson to make up for the “nasty” TEA statement.
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Cancer institute awards first prevention grants
Promoting vaccination against the cervical cancer-causing human papillomavirus at Dallas-area clinics and educating Houston-area Asian Americans about cancer prevention are among the first prevention projects funded by Texas’ new cancer institute.
Today, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas announced $6.8 million in awards for a dozen projects at clinics, community organizations and academic institutions.
None of today’s recipient organizations are in the Austin area. Most of the money is going to Dallas or Houston.
Of the 12 prevention projects — some of which involve multiple types of cancer — eight involve breast cancer, eight involve cervical cancer and five involve colorectal cancer.
The Institute selected the projects from 56 applications, officials said. That is far fewer than the number of applications the institute received for research projects — 880 (66 of which were selected in January, when the institute awarded its first $61 million in research grants).
The Institute was created through a constitutional amendment approved by Texas voters in 2007. The amendment authorizes $3 billion in bonds for cancer research and prevention over 10 years.
“It all starts with prevention and until we find the cure for all cancers, these efforts are critical, James Mansour, chairman of the Institute’s oversight committee, said in a statement. “This investment places Texas in the forefront of the nation in our commitment to cancer prevention.
Here are the recipients of the prevention grants (award amounts are maximums and could change in the final contracts, the Institute said):
$999,877 to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas for a breast screening program in Denton, Hood, Johnson, Parker and Wise counties.
$998,045 to The Rose, a non-profit breast cancer organization in Houston, for a Houston-area program called Empower Her to Care.
$961,021 to the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston for increasing breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening and HPV vaccination among underserved Texans (a collaboration with United Way’s 2-1-1 Program). Counties served: Austin, Brazoria, Cameron, Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Hidalgo, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, Starr, Walker, Waller, Wharton and Willacy.
$953,131 to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston for a Web-based program to disseminate individualized screening recommendations for pediatric cancer survivors throughout Texas.
$898,662 to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas for increasing colorectal cancer screening among the uninsured in Tarrant County.
$300,000 to the Asian American Health Coalition of Greater Houston, Inc. (Hope Clinic) for preventing multiple types of cancer multiple types in the Houston-area Asian American community.
$300,000 to University Health System (Bexar County) for a breast and cervical cancer prevention program.
$300,000 to Mercy Ministries of Laredo for a peer-to-peer cancer awareness program (breast, cervical and colorectal cancer) in Duval, Jim Hogg, Webb and Zapata counties.
$299,998 to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas for promoting HPV vaccination in safety-net clinics in Dallas County.
$299,930 to the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth for a breast cancer prevention education program in Dallas County.
$299,310 to the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for promoting breast, cervical and colorectal cancer education among Latinas in Bexar County.
$272,753 to the University of Houston for a project in Harris County called Framing Effective Cervical Cancer Messages for Vietnamese American Women.
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Doggett criticizes president’s Afghanistan policy
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett spoke critically today about the American presence in Afghanistan.
Doggett, an Austin Democrat, spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives after Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, offered a resolution calling for the president to remove all U.S. troops from the war-torn country by the end of the year.
The resolution failed by a wide margin, and Doggett opposed it.
But a press release from Doggett’s office said Kucinich’s resolution provided “an overdue opportunity to challenge the current course in Afghanistan.”
During his speech, Doggett called for fewer troops on the ground in Afghanistan. He said: “(U)nless we pursue a different approach, with a narrower military footprint and a pragmatic exit strategy, we will remain embroiled in a land that has entrapped so many foreign powers throughout the centuries.”
Doggett also took the opportunity to lash out against Afghan President Karzai “and his drug dealer and warlord cohorts” who have been “much less interested in undertaking the steps necessary to secure peace than in clinging to power.”
Below is the full text of the speech, as provided by his office.
“Today, so very late, represents the first real House debate on Afghanistan, since President Obama announced that the path to peace could only be found through wider war.
“I have continually challenged that policy. But because our security, I believe, will not be found in either the false choice of ‘more troops in’ or ‘all out now,’ I cannot support the resolution, as I do not support our current strategy in Afghanistan.
“The December escalation announcement was counterproductive and somewhat misleading. He tried to have it both ways. He pledged to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, but his plan continues sending troops through near the end of this year. Defense Secretary Gates was more candid; he says any withdrawal next year will be a ‘handful,’ that there is no real Afghanistan exit strategy, and that a larger military presence is planned there for a very long time.
“With our unceasing commitment of American blood and treasure poured into Afghanistan, there is no meaningful pressure on Afghan President Karzai and his drug dealer and warlord cohorts. They have been much less interested in undertaking the steps necessary to secure peace than in clinging to power and wealth such as by stealing one-third of the votes in the last election. I believe that the calls for reform have been greeted since that time by Mr. Karzai only by taking over the independent Election Commission that questioned that election, and by the appointment of multiple warlord types to the Cabinet, who are part of the problem. In Afghanistan, reform is a slogan, not a reality. We have minimum leverage over Mr. Karzai and his cronies, who view our continuing presence there as an invitation to steal all they can get when they can get it.
“The better exit strategy is having fewer troops who need to exit. I agree with General Eikenberry, our former commander and now our Ambassador who last November questioned an escalation that would only ‘bring vastly increased costs and an indefinite, large scale military role.’ He wisely concluded that further increases would ‘dig us in more deeply.’
“In 2001, I voted for the use of force against the enemies that attacked us, and I still support that effort. But unless we pursue a different approach, with a narrower military footprint and a pragmatic exit strategy, we will remain embroiled in a land that has entrapped so many foreign powers throughout the centuries. Afghanistan can consume as many lives and as many dollars as we expend there.
“As in Iraq, we are on course for a trillion-dollar war waged on borrowed money. That must be changed to save American lives and America’s future.”
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SBOE circus comes to town
The actual debate over the social studies curriculum standards at the State Board of Education on Wednesday could not compete with the sideshow.
A gaggle of television cameras, including several from Fox News and its affiliates, jammed into the meeting room to chronicle the Texas Textbook War, as the news network had dubbed it.
The war pits defenders of traditional values who say American history is under attack by politically correct revisionism against board critics who are calling for a “smarter State Board of Education.”
The news network has helped to fan the fire over the social studies standards that will serve as the framework for the state’s future history, government and economics textbooks and lessons.
As a result, the much-hyped meeting had become “probably one of the top news stories in the nation,” state Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van, observed.
Several board members seemed enamored by the attention from Fox, but the Texas Education Agency wasn’t so pleased with the coverage.
The agency issued an unusual news release Wednesday stating that morning’s Fox & Friends show “repeatedly broadcast highly inaccurate information” about the debate.
And it aimed to set the record straight: Christmas, Veterans Day and Independence Day are all in the standards; U.S. history prior to 1877 will, indeed, be taught; and Abraham Lincoln and George Washington have not been removed.
Prior to Wednesday, the board had received some 14,000 e-mails about the standards and had heard 17 hours of public testimony.
But board caught some flack in January when it ended a public hearing before some speakers had their say, including several elderly military veterans. So board members spent several more hours on Wednesday gathering public input before the board debate, which did not get started until early evening.
The board is set to give preliminary approval to the standards this week and final approval in May.
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TYC ombudsman named
John Moore, a retired U.S. marshal and state trooper, was appointed this afternoon to be the new independent ombudsman at the Texas Youth Commission.
Moore replaced Catherine Evans, who resigned last fall after she was indicted on criminal charges for allegedly smuggling contraband into at least one Youth Commission facility to test security.
Evans months earlier had replaced Will Harrell, a former American Civil Liberties Union of Texas director whose appointment by Gov. Rick Perry the Texas Senate declined to confirm in 2009.
Moore, a Denison resident, is retired after a 25-year career as a federal marshal, and served before that as a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and an officer in the Amarillo Police Department.
He also served in the U.S. Army, the Texas National Guard and the Texas State Guard. Moore holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Wayland Baptist University, according to Perry’s office.
As ombudsman, Moore will review and report on conditions in Youth Commission lockups to ensure that a myriad of abuse and operational issues that exploded in scandal in 2007 do not reoccur.
In a related announcement, Perry said he has named San Antonio accountant Toni Sykora to the Youth Commission’s governing board.
Sykora is controller for Koontz McCombs Development LLC. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from the University of Texas at San Antonio.
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SBOE jabs back at Fox News
The State Board of Education has got a bone to pick with Fox News.
“Fox inaccurately reporting State Board of Education action,” reads a statement just released by the Texas Education Agency.
The national network has helped to fuel the fire over the state’s social studies curriculum standards being debated today. The repeated coverage has made the debate “probably one of the top news stories in the nation,” observed state Rep. Dan Flynn.
But the board members aren’t so pleased with the coverage and they want to set the record straight that today’s Fox & Friends show “repeatedly broadcast highly inaccurate information” about the debate.
So here is the truth: Christmas is still in the standards as are Veterans Day and Independence Day. U.S. history prior to 1877 will, indeed, be taught and so will Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
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Scott sees value in common core standards, still hesitant
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott has been one of the nation’s most vocal opponents to an effort by other states to develop common curriculum standards for the nation’s public schools.
He has said the Obama administration’s embrace of the effort is a harbinger of a federal takeover of public schools. And Texas’ standards are far superior, a recent news release said.
So as the latest draft of the standards were released Wednesday, his measured language to the State Board of Education is worth noting.
“I think there are some things of value in these standards,” said Scott, though he is still hesitant about them, particularly about the practical implementation of the standards.
Here is the Washington Post story on the latest draft of the common standards.
Texas and Alaska are the only states that are not participating in the common core effort, which was initiated by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.
The Obama administration has made the common standards a key element of its education agenda. Participating in the effort was worth serious points in the grant competition for a piece of the $4 billion Race to the Top grant and future federal education money for low-income children could be tied to using these standards or comparable ones.
Texas decided not to apply for as much as $700 million in Race to the Top money, in part, because of the advantage given states that are participating in the effort.
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White says Perry takes too much credit for economy
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White said this morning that Gov. Rick Perry has taken too much credit for the success of the Texas economy.
Speaking at a breakfast event sponsored by the Texas Tribune, White noted that high oil and gas prices in recent years allowed money to stockpile in state coffers, and that the Texas economy historically grows faster than the rest of the country.
White also said that he brought jobs to Houston when he was mayor without help from the state, “nor did I need or want help.” And he said he brought in businesses “without giving them tax dollars.”
Perry has championed the Texas Enterprise Fund, which gives tax dollars to lure businesses to Texas, saying it has helped bring more than 50,000 jobs to the state.
“Texas is leading the nation economically because of the policies that Governor Perry put in place,” Perry spokesman Mark Miner said.
Perry has made job growth in recent years a central theme of his re-election campaign. But White noted that unemployment in Texas is now hovering around 1 million people.
White has said he believes the state can find ways to save money as it closes a budget deficit of at least $11 billion. But Miner was quick to note that White didn’t rule out tax increases at this morning’s event.
However, White said he never rules out tax increases or decreases, noting that he avoided such promises when he campaigned for mayor, then the city cut the property-tax rate five times.
White said he supports some decisions made by President Barack Obama and opposes others. Overall, he said, he thinks the president is trying to spend too much money.
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Big 3 okay Capitol security upgrades
Security at the Texas Capitol will be increased under a seven-step plan approved by the state’s top three leaders and disclosed this morning in a letter delivered to lawmakers.
In a letter to Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus authorized the initial steps that include expanded bike patrols, the deployment of bomb-sniffing dogs, a mass notification system for Capitol workers in case of an emergency and new training programs for troopers who provide security at the statehouse.
Missing are the installation of metal detectors at Capitol entrances, an item that Perry has said he opposes. But the letter hints that additional, unspecified enhancements may be coming.
Ramped-up security at the Capitol has been an issue since a gunman in January fired several shots with a pistol outside the south entrance. No one was hurt, and the gunman — a 24-year-old man from Houston, — was quickly apprehended by troopers.
Legislative leaders immediately called for tighter security measures.
The letter, dated March 4, was the first announced move to increase security at the Capitol since the shooting.
In their one-page letter, the state officials said many items in a DPS plan to increase security “can be implemented solely” by the agency. Bike patrols were present starting several weeks ago.
“The remaining items which physically impact the Capitol building will require coordination with the State Preservation Board,” the letter states. “We will continue working with you and the State Preservation Board to implement additional enhancements to security at the Capitol.”
The DPS plan calls for metal detectors at Capitol entrances, and proposed that the west and east entrance doors to the historic building, as well as entrances to the Capitol Extension, be restricted to employees and those with card-key access.
In a separate development, a March 22 public meeting has been scheduled at the Capitol for a Senate-House committee to discuss additional security at the Capitol.
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Averitt to resign seat, Sibley could return
State Sen. Kip Averitt, a Waco Republican who won nomination to a new term last week even though he told voters he didn’t want to serve, announced Monday that he will resign his seat March 17.
The resignation won’t affect his spot on the November ballot, but he is expected to formally withdraw make himself ineligible for the race soon.
Lobbyist David Sibley, who held the seat before Averitt, said Monday evening he is “seriously considering” entering a May special election to fill out the rest of Averitt’s term. He’s also looking at trying to be the Republican nominee in November.
“I’ve started meeting with county chairmen and supporters around the district,” Sibley said.
The shakeup began in January, when, shortly after filing for re-election, Averitt announced that he would not seek a new term due to unspecified health concerns. But his announcement came too late to get him off the ballot for the March 2 primary, which he won last week over Burleson insurance agent Darren Yancy.
No Democrat filed to run.
Averitt’s announcement that he will resign this month is likely to trigger a May special election so voters can choose someone to finish the term that ends at the end of 2010.
If Averitt successfully withdraws from the November ballot, the Democratic and Republican county chairmen would choose, separately, one Republican and one Democratic nominee for the November ballot. The winner of that election would serve a two-year term beginning in January 2011.
The district stretches from Coryell County up through the Waco area to the outskirts of Fort Worth.
Sibley was one of the most influential members of the Senate during his tenure. In 2000, after George W. Bush was elected president, Sibley came within a vote of becoming lieutenant governor. His Senate colleagues narrowly chose fellow Republican Bill Ratliff instead.
He has built a highly successful lobby practice since leaving the Senate after the 2001 legislative session.
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White opposes slots, casinos
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White said today he does not support the legalization of slot machines and does not think Texas should legalize casinos across the state.
“I don’t think the State of Texas should be promoting gambling and something for nothing,” White said.
White said he does not want to get distracted from issues such as education and workforce development and developing a long-term transportation plan for the state.
Republican Gov. Rick Perry also opposes slot machines and more casinos, although in 2004, he proposed allowing video lottery terminals at racetracks and on Indian reservations as part of a school-finance plan. Video lottery terminals are similar to slot machines.
The Kickapoo tribe has a small casino in Eagle Pass. But with a state budget shortfall projected at at least $11 billion, advocates for slot machines and casinos are likely to make a hard push in next year’s legislative session.
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Texas budget chief: Shortfall at least $11 billion
Texas’ economy seems to have turned a corner, but the improvement won’t be enough to avoid a significant shortfall next year, top budget officials said Monday.
John Heleman, the comptroller’s chief revenue estimator, said Texas is beginning to add jobs, and he expects sales tax collections to pick up later this year.
In February, the state’s sales tax collections were down 8.8 percent over the same month a year earlier. Though still a negative number, it is better than the 14 percent decrease seen the previous month.
“One month certainly doesn’t make a trend, but it is encouraging to see that we are beginning to move in the right direction,” Heleman said.
The state’s sales tax revenue collection is an important indicator of Texas’s fiscal health because that money fills more than half of the state’s general revenue fund.
Even so, the state’s budget shortfall is expected to be $11 billion at a minimum and could reach as high as $15 billion, John O’Brien, the executive director of the Legislative Budget Board, told the House Appropriations Committee.
The higher estimate includes more than $1 billion in additional needs for the current budget. Among those costs are higher than expected employee health care costs and Medicaid caseloads that are far exceeding projections.
Last month, agencies submitted budget reduction plans that total $1.7 billion in possible savings. A decision will be made within six weeks as to what reductions will be necessary, O’Brien said.
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Точно Хорошую информацию трудно добыть. (А сделать с ней что-нибудь - ещё труднее) :)
... read the full comment by Кирилл Александров | Comment on The TYC-TJPC merger vote Read The TYC-TJPC merger vote
все правильно, демпингует загнули
... read the full comment by tapourlNaro | Comment on Patients, doctors passionate but calm at health care forum Read Patients, doctors passionate but calm at health care forum
все правильно, такой не знаю
... read the full comment by Intaloula | Comment on Patients, doctors passionate but calm at health care forum Read Patients, doctors passionate but calm at health care forum
Well…Do you think after reading all these comments, God (Oops…I’m so sorry…I’m not supposed to mention him, as I’m not being “correct” or whatever)
Do you think God will expedite the solar flare
... read the full comment by Kapt. Blasto | Comment on UPDATE: Social studies standards win early board approval Read UPDATE: Social studies standards win early board approval
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