| Keller, Texas June 7, 2017
Update – Special Session
Yesterday, Governor Abbott called for a special session on a variety of issues starting July 18, 2017. These issues range from property tax reform to mail ballot fraud legislation. The Governor called on the Legislature to work on up to 20 specific items – I’m glad to go back to Austin and serve you again. I’m also proud that the Governor included my House Bill 2962 in his priorities for the special. If you have any comments or questions on -any- of these special session items please let me know.
When special session begins on July 18th, the first item of business is the Sunset bill for the Texas Medical Board, including the Sunset review schedule. Once the Sunset bills have passed the Senate, Governor Abbott has said that he will add the following issues to the call:
- Teacher pay increase of $1,000
- Administrative flexibility in teacher hiring and retention practices
- School finance reform commission
- School choice for special needs students
- Property tax reform
- Caps on state and local spending
- Preventing cities from regulating what property owners do with trees on private land
- Preventing local governments from changing rules midway through construction projects
- Speeding up local government permitting process
- Municipal annexation reform
- Texting while driving preemption
- Privacy, aka, “the bathroom bill”
- Prohibition of taxpayer dollars to collect union dues
- Prohibition of taxpayer funding for abortion providers
- Pro-life insurance reform
- Strengthening abortion reporting requirements when health complications arise
- Strengthening patient protections relating to do-not-resuscitate orders
- Cracking down on mail-in ballot fraud
- Extending maternal mortality task force
Bill filing for these special session items does not begin until June 19th. While similar legislation may have been proposed in the regular session, some of these items still lack final details. The lengthy process of filing, analyzing, holding hearings, debating and passage would still have to occur. |
House Bill 501 Passed, Introduced by Representative Giovanni Caprigilone
Ethics Reform – House Bill 501 It always struck me as strange that public officials are not required to disclose contracts that they or their immediate family members may have with governmental entities. For example, while a member of the legislature may have a contract to provide professional services to a city, they are not required to disclose that contract as part of their personal financial statement. As another example, a state officer whose spouse contracts to provide certain goods to political subdivisions, is not required to disclose those contracts. While public officials may enter into contracts to provide goods or services to political subdivisions, those contracts should be publicly disclosed. This was the first bill I ever filed, just over 4 years ago. I hit numerous roadblocks, passed it part of the way several times and watched it die multiple times over the years. I’m so happy to say that at long last, the legislation finally passed and was signed into law yesterday. Texas will now do what no other state does – disclose the government contracts of public officials.
