Last Week

The Budget

The House sent SB 1 back to the Senate with numerous changes incorporated into the House version. On Friday afternoon, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst announced the budget conferees for the Senate to negotiate the differences with the House. Before announcing the names, the Lt. Gov. indicated that he had spoken with Senator Ogden and they had both agreed that workgroups, made-up of Senate Finance members, would be formed around budget articles to help the conferees with the differences between the two versions of the bill. TACC expects that the House will name its conferees soon and begin to meet with their Senate counterparts sometime late next week.

The House

The House began to hear extensive daily calendars each session last week. The House heard nearly 200 bills during week but is still approximately 100 bills behind the pace of the last session. However, now that both the budget and supplemental appropriation bills have been voted out the House will continue to pick up the pace at which other bills are being heard.

The Senate

The Senate is moving at somewhat of a faster pace. Even with early fight over Voter I.D. the Senate has managed to hear and pass bills at a more normal rate. There are several issues that are yet to come to the Senate floor that will demand a great deal of time. Included among these is SB 14, which is additional funding for the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) in the range of $1 billion new state dollars. The big concern is how that $1 billion charge gets apportioned. Many stakeholders will help cover this cost but coastal interests are afraid that they will be forced to bear the largest fiscal brunt. The Lt. Governor has been working with Senator Fraser to come to some compromise.

The Week Ahead

House

The House will have full calendars for each day this week - most expect that this will include meeting on Saturday. We also expect the House to name conferees for the budget early in the week. TACC also expects that HB 2083 by Solomons (the proportionality bill) will be set for the House to hear sometime late in the week.

House Higher Education Committee

The Committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday at 2:00 pm or upon the adjournment of the House. Clicking on the following link can access the Committee’s agenda:

House Higher Ed Agenda

Senate Finance

The Committee is scheduled to meet on Monday at noon or upon adjournment of the full Senate. Of interest on the agenda is SB 2084 by Ogden, which would change the requirements for receiving a Texas Grant. The bill as introduced would add merit components to the eligibility requirement and would transition the program to a four-year only grant program over the next five years. The bill has seen several rewrites and TACC expects that a new version is what the Committee will consider on Monday.

Senate Higher Education

The Committee is not scheduled to meet this week. This could change and if it does we will send out a notification.

Tracking Lists

To see the “Hot List” of bills that TACC is tracking go to the TACC Advocates Network - go to the Legislation Tab and click on the “Hot” tracking level. This list is updated on a regular basis.