Enlarge Johrling

[Editor's note: Gov. Rick Perry added transportation funding to the special session agenda in the hopes that lawmakers can do in the next few days what they were unable to do in the regular session: Find a way to finance transportation projects with no new taxes or fees.]

This year’s regular legislative session kicked off with Texas lawmakers focusing on three funding priorities: schools, water and transportation.

By Sine Die, public education and water advocates were pretty pleased. Schools got $4 billion more beyond enrollment growth, restoring much of the funding cut from their budgets in 2011. If voters approve the creation of a new fund in November, water infrastructure will get $2 billion.      

Transportation boosters, however, were left feeling pretty miserable. The Texas Department of Transportation got $400 million in additional money for the state highway fund, a paltry 5 percent of what the agency had said it needed just to maintain current road congestion.

Now lawmakers are in special session, where Gov. Rick Perry can add whatever he wants to the agenda. So far, he’s sticking with redistricting, but various officials and groups hope that will change. As of Wednesday, 60 bills had been filed, most unrelated to redistricting. Of those (so far) noneligible bills, more are related to transportation than any other topic.

Despite the renewed push for finding money for roads, Perry’s recent comments on his special session plans suggest it isn’t on his radar.

“We’re not going to be adding things to the call just for the sake of adding things to the call,” Perry said. “We want to be relatively assured that we’re going to be successful.”

The chances for any transportation funding proposal in a special session are mixed at best. As the regular session made clear, each option faces a key roadblock:

• 100-year bonds: Perry backed this idea in April, arguing that the state should take advantage of historically low interest rates. It has gained little traction as a large contingent of Republicans remains adamantly opposed to TxDOT assuming any more debt.
• Fee increases: A nonstarter in the House, even without the governor's threat to veto a budget that included any such measures.
• Dedicating future increases in vehicle sales tax revenue to roads: This proposal, from Senate Transportation Chairman Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, has backers in both parties and both chambers. Perry likes it too. Yet the Senate’s chief budget writer, Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, came out strongly against it, calling it a future budgeting nightmare and “the mother of all dedicated accounts.” That sapped much of its momentum.
• A one-time infusion from the Rainy Day Fund: Given that tapping the fund for $2 billion in water projects turned out to be tougher than budget leaders had expected, this idea has lost its luster.

Williams and Nichols have now floated a new idea: diverting half of the revenue stream currently dedicated to the Rainy Day Fund to roads. Williams said the plan could mean nearly $1 billion a year to the highway fund, and maybe more than that later on if the oil boom expands.

Williams, who said the proposal would ensure a robust Rainy Day Fund even with the diversion, has expressed hope that Perry will add it to the special session call.

Perry is holding his cards close to his chest, but he may find the plan conflicts with his support for keeping the Rainy Day Fund flush and growing to maintain the state’s strong credit ratings.

It’s hard to see how the Nichols/Williams proposal, or any other one to fund roads, would meet Perry’s interest in being “relatively assured” of success, but he is apparently hopeful enough: He added the issue to the special session agenda.

Enlarge Bob Daemmrich

State Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas,l, and State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, shake hands upon convening the Joint Committee on Higher Education Oversight on March 19, 2013.

For higher education followers, one of the great lingering mysteries of the 83rd session is the fate of a special committee that was formed to look into governance issues at the University of Texas System.

Shortly after midnight on February 19, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who earlier that day had given a teary defense of University of Texas at Austin President Bill Powers on the Senate floor, sent a scathing text to UT System Regent Alex Cranberg.

“You have disappointed me,” he wrote, under the impression, which he later walked back, that regents had been spreading anonymous rumors about Powers. “I tried to help you. Based on what I heard this evening, you and [fellow regent Wallace Hall] are about to have the wood applied to you.”

The following day, Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, renewed the Joint Oversight Committee on Higher Education Governance, Excellence and Transparency — the presumed venue for that spanking. 

Originally created in 2011 amid similar controversy, the latest iteration of the joint oversight committee is co-chaired by state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, and state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, and was designed specifically with a UT System focus.

In a statement issued a week later, Dewhurst said the committee was formed “so that all sides have a forum to calmly and respectfully lay out the facts.” But it never happened. Instead, the oversight committee became the Sasquatch of the session, with rumors of impending sightings that never materialized.

The committee held only a single meeting during the regular session, and it was solely for organizational purposes. For those in attendance, it hinted a high potential for drama to come.

Lawmakers indicated a willingness to subpoena the UT regents if necessary. The co-chairmen announced a massive open records request they had filed with the system. And most famously, state Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, accused the board of being on a “witch hunt” targeting Powers.

“I hope we’ll be able to end these witch hunts,” he said.

And that was the last the committee was heard from.

“I’ve got a problem with beating dead horses,” Seliger said this week. “With no legislation directly related to the program of work for the oversight committee, I didn’t want to waste anybody’s time.”

He noted that “an awful lot” of the issues the joint committee was interested in were addressed “in one form or another” in the Senate Nominations Committee and the House Select Committee on Transparency in State Agency Operations, both of which held hearings in which at least one UT regent was publicly grilled, as well as in private meetings with regents.

But there’s a faint glimmer of a chance it could come back.

“Chairman Branch and I are going to discuss it,” Seliger said this week. “There are still some issues we could talk about, maybe. We’ll see where that goes.”

Seliger said those remaining topics mostly deal with reviewing what the committee has learned about proper higher education governance and examining “where there might have been deviations from those best practices.”

But even with the regular session over, it’s not likely to be easy to get the band back together. After all, Seliger’s schedule — for one — is quickly filling up with hearing dates around the state for his other job: chairing the Senate Redistricting Committee.

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 This week in the Texas Weekly Newsreel: Lawmakers said it would take seven to 10 days to deal with redistricting during the special session, and that turned out to be wildly optimistic.

You can view the video at: https://trib.it/11lUaat

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In spite of the obstacles and the glitches encountered by lawmakers so far, our insiders think the Legislature will finish the special session by endorsing the maps drawn for the 2012 elections by a panel of federal judges. But significant numbers think lawmakers will either draw new maps or end up doing nothing before the session comes to a close late this month.

If that last group is right, the insiders think Gov. Rick Perry will call lawmakers back for more work.

The timetable is starting to make some election officials nervous. The secretary of state’s office is telling lawmakers it needs maps by Sept. 1 to keep things on track, and in spite of the fact that the Legislature and the courts are still in the way and there are only three months left, most of the insiders are optimistic that deadline will be met. They’re a little less certain about the impact on next year’s primaries. The 2012 primary was pushed from March to May because of redistricting litigation, and a large number of insiders think delays are likely in 2014.

Who’ll get tagged if voters don’t like that? The Legislature, Attorney General Greg Abbott, and the federal courts overseeing it all.

As always, we collected comments along the way and the full set is attached; a sampling follows:

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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The special session’s redistricting work will end with lawmakers:

• "Once one district line gets moved, all bets are off (and the wheels with them)."

• "Why isn't 'Democrats take a summer trip to Louisiana' an option?"

• "Collapse. Melt down. The realization that Greg Abbott is not the smartest man in the room - and this from a Republican."

• "There will be some minor edits, but overall, the maps remain the same. However, this does not mean we have seen the last of redistricting. For some reason we tend to forget that redistricting in 1991 did not end until 1998 and redistricting in 2001 did not end until a few years later."

• "They are holding a 'road show' around the state over the next ten days to blunt the Democrats criticism of short-changing the normal process and citizen input."

• "But the answer seems much less important that the overall political fall out with the voters and among the Rs for even calling the Session and making the Members open up Pandora's litigation laden box"

• "Why travel all over the state if you are not going to do anything. They may not do anything meaningful, but they will do something."

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Do you think the governor will call another special session if lawmakers don't approve redistricting plans during the current session?

• "Do you think the Governor will accept defeat when he has the power to hold the Legislature hostage in perpetuity?"

• "Depends on why the maps might not be adopted--did they run out of time or were the votes not there? If it's a time issue, then yes, he'll call them back. If it's a numbers issue, then he'll have to reconsider. Who wants to risk association with two failed special sessions?"

• "Since they've only left themselves a week to get a bill through after their road show, it is likely they'll have to have more time."

• "Why not?"

• "No way!"

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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State election officials say they need final maps by September 1. Will maps be ready by then?

• "They're ready now."

• "Temporary maps might be available by Sept 1 (either the current temporary maps ones or updated ones) but final maps seems very unlikely. However if the Legislature adopts any new maps this summer there is no scenario under which those maps will be ready by September 1, 2013."

• "We'll be in court far past that. They have already had 2 years and are no closer than they were at the beginning of the process."

• "litigation litigation litigation . . ."

• "The maps will still be under court review."

• "They will have maps in time to print ballots for a primary in March!"

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Do you think the 2014 primaries will be delayed by legislative and judicial work on the state’s political maps?

• "If they tweak the current maps at all, we can count on some court action that could result in delays."

• "Hell yes. The Ds want Texas badly. Obama and his people will use IRS tactics, AG spying on media tactics or whatever it takes to mess with Texas."

• "We will look at this question in the near future and realized you picked a bunch of dumb guys to participate in your Inside Intelligence. Maybe a few will get lucky and call it right."

• "Surely political party leaders learned from the primary date debacle of 2012. Please tell me they learned that it's hard enough to get rational people to vote in primaries. It's almost impossible to get rational people to vote in postponed primaries or special elections."

• "Depends on whether Abbott learned from the last time that delayed primaries are dangerous business for established office holders."

• "NO ONE wants a repeat of the delayed primary/runoff! Ask David Dewhurst how that turned out for HIM last time!"

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Who do you hold responsible for the unfinished condition of Texas redistricting? [Choose all that apply]

• "This is all about political posturing and partisan strength. Texas needs a redistricting commission, perhaps like Iowa, restriction on when and how many times redistricting can occur in a decade, and a clear statement about communities of interest attempting to prevent weirdly shaped districts which benefit only the politicians and not the citizens. It is time we again allow our citizens to pick their representatives instead of the politicians picking their constituents through gerrymandered districts."

• "Greg Abbott is responsible for the unfinished condition. Lots of other bit players in this fiasco, but the flawed legal strategy is his. And now he wants the legislature to hurry up and endorse court maps so he can devote himself full-time to running for governor."

• "The lengthy litigation is frustrating, but there are two pieces here. The 3-judge court in San Antonio is standard Voting Rights Act stuff - and is the same process from 1990's when minority party Republicans challenged the Richards/Bullock maps. On the other hand, the DC court has made legal rulings that could never have been predicted and that are not supported by statute or prior case law. Texas is right to appeal those unjustified rulings for as long as it takes to overturn that naked judicial activism by the DC judges."

• "I wish 'the process' was an option. This is ridiculous. Appoint an independent commission, ignore incumbency, make the districts 50/50."

• "House & Senate leadership."

• "Republican partisans not remembering that pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered."

• "The Redistricting Narrative is being driven by the Democrats. They believe that portraying Republicans as racist is a good message for them -- this is one of the few opportunities they have to get their name in the paper. TMF gets to sound off all the time and pretend he is relevant."

• "Abbott has fumbled this issue miserably. In an attempt to put this issue behind him and ramp up his political machine for 2014, he's put Republican legislators in a no-win situation and will likely try to place the blame on Speaker Straus and Lt. Gov. Dewhurst - all while costing tax payers millions of dollars to be subjected to another month of Kabuki Theater."

Our thanks to this week’s participants: Gene Acuna, Cathie Adams, Brandon Aghamalian, Jenny Aghamalian, Victor Alcorta, Clyde Alexander, George Allen, Doc Arnold, Jay Arnold, Louis Bacarisse, Charles Bailey, Dave Beckwith, Amy Beneski, Rebecca Bernhardt, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Tom Blanton, Hugh Brady, Chris Britton, David Cabrales, Kerry Cammack, Thure Cannon, Snapper Carr, Janis Carter, William Chapman, Elna Christopher, James Clark, Harold Cook, Addie Mae Crimmins, Beth Cubriel, Randy Cubriel, Curtis Culwell, Denise Davis, Hector De Leon, June Deadrick, Nora Del Bosque, Tom Duffy, David Dunn, Jeff Eller, Jack Erskine, Jon Fisher, Wil Galloway, Norman Garza, Dominic Giarratani, Bruce Gibson, Stephanie Gibson, Scott Gilmore, Eric Glenn, Kinnan Golemon, John Greytok, Jack Gullahorn, Clint Hackney, Wayne Hamilton, Bill Hammond, Adam Haynes, Susan Hays, John Heasley, Ken Hodges, Deborah Ingersoll, Richie Jackson, Cal Jillson, Mark Jones, Robert Jones, Lisa Kaufman, Robert Kepple, Richard Khouri, Tom Kleinworth, Dale Laine, Nick Lampson, Pete Laney, Luke Legate, Leslie Lemon, Ruben Longoria, Vilma Luna, Matt Mackowiak, Luke Marchant, Bryan Mayes, Dan McClung, Robert Miller, Mike Moses, Steve Murdock, Nelson Nease, Keats Norfleet, Pat Nugent, Nef Partida, Gardner Pate, Robert Peeler, Jerry Philips, Wayne Pierce, Allen Place, Kraege Polan, Jerry Polinard, Gary Polland, Jay Pritchard, Jay Propes, Ted Melina Raab, Bill Ratliff, Patrick Reinhart, Grant Ruckel, Jason Sabo, Andy Sansom, Jim Sartwelle, Stan Schlueter, Bruce Scott, Robert Scott, Bradford Shields, Christopher Shields, Jason Skaggs, Ed Small, Todd Smith, Larry Soward, Dennis Speight, Jason Stanford, Bob Strauser, Colin Strother, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Sherry Sylvester, Jay Thompson, Russ Tidwell, Trey Trainor, Vicki Truitt, Ware Wendell, Darren Whitehurst, Seth Winick, Lee Woods, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

Friday, June 7

• Senate Select Committee on Redistricting hearing; Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (5 p.m.)

Saturday, June 8

• Senate Select Committee on Redistricting hearing; University of Houston (11 a.m.)

Monday, June 10

• House Select Committee on Redistricting hearing; VIA Metro Center, San Antonio (2 p.m.)

Tuesday, June 11

• Texas Tea Party Republican Women Legislative Update/Victory Plan Unveiling; Cy-Fair Christian Church, Houston (7 p.m.)

Wednesday, June 12

• House Select Committee on Redistricting hearing; University of Houston (2 p.m.)
• Senate Select Committee on Redistricting hearing; state Capitol (9 a.m.)

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter called redistricting “a political thicket,” and it’s long been an accepted truism that it’s impossible to take politics out of the process.

But as Texas moves forward with the 2013 version of a redistricting redo, it’s important to remember how the fight differs this time.

One big way: This time around, it’s not about control.

That’s in stark contrast to 2011, when Republicans had achieved a two-thirds majority in the Texas House and were one seat shy of a supermajority in the Texas Senate. Back then, GOP map-drawers were desperate to find a way to lock in a Republican legislative supermajority for a decade — and to make a “go big” play for all four of the state’s new congressional seats.

But those efforts collided head-on with the hard demographic reality that more than 90 percent of the state’s population growth over the prior decade came from Hispanics, African-Americans and Asian-Americans.

The resulting impact — played out in courtrooms in San Antonio and Washington — wasn’t pretty.

But this time around, the starting point for Republicans is a set of interim maps that, from the outset, leaves them short of a supermajority in both the House and Senate and concedes a new minority impact congressional district in North Texas.

And while Hispanic and African-American groups are calling for more changes, none of their proposals would come close to threatening the Republican majority in the Texas Legislature or force the GOP to give up control of a sizable majority of the state’s congressional seats.

In other words, the Legislature has a rare opportunity to do the right thing by insuring that maps fairly accommodate historic growth in the state’s non-Anglo populations, including the nearly 1 million mostly non-Anglo new Texans added since the 2010 census.

If members seize the chance, they could give the state an even greater gift — an end to a “Texas tradition” of costly, nearly decade-long redistricting battles every cycle.

Already this cycle, Texas has spent several million dollars on litigation — and that doesn’t include legal fees it likely will be ordered to pay redistricting plaintiffs.

In the 1990s, redistricting took three regular sessions, three special sessions and several contentious trips up and down the court chain before the Supreme Court issued its final ruling in 1996. And in the 2000s, the state’s infamous mid-decade redistricting led to litigation that didn’t get fully resolved until 2006. Worse, each cycle resulted in multiple sets of maps and delayed or special elections.

To break the pernicious pattern, Republicans in the Legislature need to drop the convenient fiction that redistricting is only about partisan politics.

The reality is that even in nonpartisan elections in Texas today, voting polarizes along ethnic lines as often as not — even when the Anglos involved are Democrats.

That’s not to say Anglos or anyone else are hardcore racists. But it does suggest that groups have sharply divergent histories, priorities and visions of what they want in their elected officials.

Using fracturing, packing and using other devices to minimize the votes of minority voters doesn’t just hurt Democrats, it ensures that important voices are submerged or silenced.

At the end of the day, this fight is about more than partisan politics. The partisan preferences of non-Anglo voters in Texas may yet shift, as some Republicans like to predict. But it’s hard to see that happening so long as the game plan seems to be to marginalize rather than engage the state’s emerging new majority.

What was supposed to be a quick special session on redistricting slowed considerably when lawmakers — prompted by a hearing in federal court — decided to hold public hearings around the state on the interim political maps drawn by the courts for the 2012 elections. The governor asked lawmakers to ratify those maps — to adopt them as the state’s own — but many lawmakers want to tweak the lines. 

The Texas House and Senate are in special session, but have recessed until June 12 and June 17, respectively. But the 181 members of the two bodies are still eligible to collect $150 for every day of the session, whether they’re working or not. They are not required to collect it, but if each takes what is coming, it would total $27,150 per day or $814,500 for the special session.

The judge in the school finance case against the state agreed to hear more testimony. He’ll give lawyers a chance to say whether any of the Legislature’s actions during the session changed public education policy enough to affect his ruling in the case. Judge John Dietz issued a bench ruling in February, saying the state’s system of finance for public schools was inadequate, inequitable and forced local schools into a de facto state property tax rate. His written ruling is pending.

The Texas Department of Transportation has signed a deal to outsource most of its information technology operations to a private firm, a move that will impact hundreds of state employees. The agency announced this week that it would transfer most of its IT functions to NTT DATA, a Japanese firm which has its North American headquarters in Plano. 

With the regular legislative session over and the deadline for the governor’s vetoes approaching, speculation about Rick Perry’s political future is picking up. Aides say he hasn’t said one way or another what he’ll do, and some of the people who have worked for past campaigns say the team could come together quickly for a race. 

State employees got 3 percent raises in the state budget (some agency chiefs did much better), but state troopers will get 10 percent raises if the governor signs the budget that is awaiting his approval.

Former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, a top aide to George W. Bush throughout his tenure as Texas governor and U.S. president, will take over as head of the eponymous foundation and institute associated with the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas.

Two-term state Rep. Stefani Carter, R-Dallas, told The Dallas Morning News she is considering a run for an unspecified statewide office in 2014.

Will Hurd will make another run for Congress in the state’s CD-23, where U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, is the incumbent. Hurd, a Republican, lost to Francisco “Quico” Canseco in the 2010 Republican primary runoff. 

Debra Wanser is retiring as commissioner of the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services. She's been in that post since 2011 and was the agency's number two exec before that. Veronda Durden, currently an assistant commissioner at the Department of Aging and Disability Services, will take over the top job at DARS on July 1. She previously worked at the Department of Human Services, the Department of Health, and the Office of the Attorney General.

The Texas Department of Public Safety promoted Rhonda Fleming to inspector general, Amanda Arriaga to assistant director of administration, and James “Frank” Woodall Jr. to assistant director of the education, training and research division.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed:

• Pamela Jo “PJ” Ellison of Brenham, Robert Lewis of Elgin, Tom Martine of Cypress Mill, Franklin “Scott” Spears Jr. of Austin, and Tim Timmerman of Austin to the Lower Colorado River Authority board. Ellison is owner of Ellison’s Greenhouses. Lewis is president of Elgin Veterinary Hospital. Martine is president of Martine Properties. Spears is an attorney. Timmerman is a private real estate investor and developer.
• Glenn Martin of Edna, Scott Sachtleben of Ganado, Leonard Steffek of Edna, and Charlie Taylor of Palacios to the Lavaca-Navidad River Authority board. Martin is president of M.O.R. Sachtleben is a landman and rancher. Steffek works at Energy Transfer in San Antonio. Taylor is retired from Culp Aluminum Alloys.
• William Carbonara of Cuero, Darrell McLain of Gonzales, and Don Meador of San Marcos to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority board. Carbonara works at JHC Insurance Agency. McLain is founder and CFO of Kitchen Pride Mushroom Farms. Meador is a retired rancher and engineer.
• Henry Borbolla III of Fort Worth, Amanda Davis of Buffalo, Valerie Ertz of Dallas, Tom Fordyce of Huntsville, Jess Laird of Athens, David Leonard of Liberty, Jim Neale of Dallas, Amir Rupani of Dallas, Ana Laura Saucedo of Dallas, Dudley Skyrme of Palestine, and C. Dwayne Somerville of Mexia to the Trinity River Authority board. Borobolla is vice president of BB&T. Davis is a retired school administrator. Ertz is owner and president of VEE Services. Fordyce is retired director of the Texas Criminal Justice Agribusiness Department. Laird is president and CEO of First State Bank in Athens. Leonard is co-owner of Liberty Dayton Chrysler. Neale is president of Quorum Energy. Rupani is present and CEO of Texas Prince Properties. Saucedo is a retired real estate investor. Skyrme is retired from United Bilt Homes. Somerville owns several businesses.

• Brigadier General William “Len” Smith as assistant Adjutant General for Army.