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Sep. 5 - Sep. 11
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Chances for a special session: Cloudy
By Ryan Poulos El Paso Inc. Austin Bureau |
AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry must have read last week’s El Paso Inc. article comparing the legislative session to bad television.
Speaking with reporters about whether he’d call a special session, he said the last day of the Legislature’s 140-day session was such a mess he thought he was watching an episode of the TV show “Lost.”
The last day is usually spent passing ceremonial bills and preparing for parties that evening.
But as the clock ticked towards the Monday deadline, bills to keep five state agencies open had not been passed. The agencies included the Texas Department of Transportation, the Texas Department of Insurance and the state’s acing commission.
Even the biggest critics of those agencies wouldn’t want to see them completely shut down.
Without TxDOT, 14,000 employees who maintain tens of thousands of highway miles across Texas would disappear. Without the Department of Insurance, there would be no watchdog over the state’s insurance companies.
And without the Racing Commission, horse and dog racing would be no more – and who wants that?
Each of the agencies has been up for sunset review the entire session, but as the Monday deadline approached none had had legislation passed to keep it open.
The Legislature in 1977 created the sunset review process to make every state agency justify its existence every 12 years. If an agency is not reauthorized, it goes out of business. There have been 47 agencies abolished and 11 consolidated through the process.
In a last second move to save the agencies, House members essentially pretended that saving the huge agencies wasn’t done by passing a law, which is forbidden on the session’s final day, but by making a technical correction to an already passed bill, which would be allowed.
The unusual measure made it through the House and most of the members left for their various end-of-session celebratory parties, assuming the Senate would also pass the measure. After all, who would want to come back over the summer for a special session?
Senators, without help from El Paso Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, objected to the way the measure was attached and said it could put other projects in jeopardy. They let time expire without approving the legislation.
That means, according to the Texas Sunset Act, four agencies are subject to closure by Sept. 1, 2010. The Texas Racing Commission, under a different law, could stay open a year longer.
Special session?
After the meltdown, Perry was asked if he’d call a special session to address the issue.
His reply: “If I could tell you that I understood what happened last night, I would be an absolute genius. I thought I was watching an episode of “Lost,” he said. “I have no idea what they were thinking or why they did not want to pass that resolution that would have given a safety net to those agencies.”
So now something will have to be done or the agencies will close. The Sunset Act gives Perry and his team of lawyers several months to study what happened and if there is any way around the issue without calling a special session.
“I think it’s way too early to be making any calls on special session,” Perry said. “We have 1,400 bills to analyze and make a decision on and lots of studying to do before any decision on a special session is made.”
If he does decide to call a special session, Perry must issue a proclamation stating the session’s exact agenda. Then legislators have 30 days to get back to Austin.
Harvey Kronberg, who runs a popular state political Web site called the Quorum Report, said special sessions can be a waste of time.
“Everyone essentially sits around doing nothing, which creates bad press – and of course, the whole thing costs more money, which is also bad press,” he said. “It also gives the governor the opportunity to work further on any pet projects or issues that he wants to inflame. Overall, there’s a lot of downside to a special session.”
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