THEYVE GOT

ISSUES

FIVE THEMES TO KEEP YOUR EYE ON AS THE

SHOW UNFOLDS AT THE LEGISLATURE.
BY THE OBSERVER STAFF

Vouchers and School Choice

that may be beside the point. Gov. Bobby Jindals

voucher plan in Louisiana built a whole new industry rife with low-cost, low-quality schools to meet the
new demand.
With a more conservative Senate and Patrick in
charge, vouchers stand a better chance of passing
than ever. Now, as in 2013, the fight will come down
to whether the House, under Speaker Joe Straus and
Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R-Killeen), chair of the public
education committee, can still hold the door shut tight.

If school choice is the civil rights issue of our

time, then Dan Patrick is the next Frederick
Douglass.
Our new lite guv is, of course, too humble to say so
himself, but every time he compares school choice
to, say, ending slavery or segregation, the subtext
is clear. So count on hearing that old saw again and
again from Patrick this year, not only because it
makes such tidy work of Texas complex and abiding inequality, but because it lends a moral core to
schemes long championed by free-marketeers who
so often seem to lack one.
This session, expect plenty of heated rhetoric from
Patrick used the line repeatedly in his short-lived an influx of new tea party legislators who won eleccharge for school vouchers last session, when he tions by bashing immigrants and hollering about
introduced a taxpayer savings grant program to border security. Dan Patrick will likely lead the pack.
let companies fund private-school scholarships with In a campaign TV ad, he claimed ISIS fighters had
money they were otherwise obliged to pay the state. threatened to cross the border and kill Americans.
The plans supporters insisted the comparison to Hes also referred to undocumented crossers as an
vouchers was unfair.
invasion and warned that immigrants carry Third
Patrick has promised to fight for vouchers again World diseases.
this session, so expect to see another taxpayer
Despite the border bombast, there hasnt been an
savings grant or a school-voucher program for spe- early outpouring of anti-immigrant bills like there
cial-needs students that may slightly open a door the was in 2011. (Remember when Tomball Republican
Legislature has, for decades,
firmly held shut.
We dont know what type
Guns for everyone! Guns everywhere!
of voucher bills will be filed,
At press time, Texas lawmakers had pre-filed 20
but we hear theyre coming,
Raise Your Hand Texas CEO
expanding or defending handgun rights.
David Anthony told a crowd
at the Capitol in December.
He said proposals might include anything that is Rep. Debbie Riddle camped out at the door of the
humanly possible to pull on the heartstrings.
chief clerks office so she could be the first one to file
Expect hearings and press conferences stacked her immigration bills?) Among those earliest out of
with parents demanding a private-sector solution to the gate in December: a bill by freshman Sen. Don
their childrens lousy public schools. But a voucher Huffines (R-Dallas) that requires the Texas comptrolsystem would direct public money to schools with no ler to send a bill to the federal government for Texas
requirement to teach a state-approved curriculum border security expenses. No doubt, President Obama
or provide services for students with special needs will cut that check just as soon as he gets the invoice.
or limited English, and with the freedom to turn stuBut the slow start at the Lege doesnt mean the
dents away as they see fit. A long-running voucher anti-immigrant bills arent in the works.
program in Milwaukee has shown that public school
The general consensus among immigrant
students dont fare any better in private schools, but rights groups and advocates is that were going to

Border and Immigration

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bills

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15

see sanctuary city bills [allowing police to ask for

immigration status] and legislation doing away with
in-state tuition for undocumented students, among
other things, says Cristina Parker, a spokesperson
for the nonprofit Grassroots Leadership.
Parker also worries that legislators will try to make
statewide the approach taken by Farmers Branch,
which attempted to bar immigrants from renting
houses or paying for public utilities. The citys ordi-

or defending handgun rights. Not all those bills will

pass, but if they did, the result would be downright
Seussian. You could carry a gun when you turned
18; you could carry a gun where it could be seen. You
could arm yourself while attending court or watching your kid give a book report. To a bar, a church, or
the DMV, you could bear your arms both proudly and
freely, and because Texas parents are calm and sane,
you could pack heat at a high school football game.
And those are just the places that
rhyme easily. Try working in synagogue and correctional facility.
Expect hearings and press conferences stacked
The bills range in specificity.
with parents demanding a private-sector solution
One by state Rep. Drew Springer
(R-Muenster) would allow guns
to their childrens lousy public schools.
basically everywhere theyre now
banned, like hospitals, nursing
nances were found unconstitutional. Parker says homes, sporting events and amusement parks.
her organization and others are preparing for a Others are one-offs, such as the bills by state
fight, probably the toughest since 2011: I think both Reps. Dan Huberty (R-Houston) and Ken King
chambers are going to be rough.
(R-Canadian) permitting guns in school board
meetings and to be carried by small-town medical
responders, respectively. Some seem particularly
pandering, such as the bill by state Sen. Brandon
This winter, in preparation for their brief biennial Creighton (R-Conroe) proposing a tax-free weeklabors, at least a dozen Texas legislators surveyed our end for firearms and hunting accessories. And
great state, and its diverse citizens struggles, ambi- state Rep. Ryan Guillen (D-Rio Grande City) wins
tions, fears and dreams, and arrived at a unified conclu- Most Creative for a bill protecting the right of
sion about what Texans most urgently need: more guns. grade-school children to play with pretend guns,
Guns for everyone! Guns everywhere! At press time, specifically allowing brandishing a partially conPASCAL HASSENFORDER/FLICKR
Texas lawmakers had pre-filed 20 bills expanding sumed pastry to simulate a firearm. Thats

Guns, Guns, Guns

16 | T H E T E X A S O B S E R V E R 

W W W. T E X A S O B S E R V E R .O RG

Legislative Preview 2015

referencing an incident in Maryland where a
second-grader was suspended after chewing his
Pop-Tart into a gun shape.
But those are all side dishes and dessert. The main
course for gun-hungry legislators is open carry. Its
been proposed before, but theres a bigger push this
year; four state representatives have already filed
matching open-carry bills. Yet even they wont win
the big Second Amendment prize. So far, thats going
to state Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford), who
proposed whats called constitutional carry, eliminating the need for a license to carry a gun.
That may sound radical, but Alice Tripp, a lobbyist for the Texas State Rifle Association, suggests the
most dramatic proposals are still to come. We support all pro-gun legislation, she says. But theres
many, many bills that are not pre-filed. Those will be
aggressively supported.

Abortion

colorful freshman reps next session. At the top of

her agenda is overhauling judicial bypass.

The Budget

In bad times, the state budget is brutal; in good

times it is merely austere. That is the basic dynamic
weve come to expect from an increasingly stingy Legislature. These are good times, relatively speaking.
The Texas economy is growing at a steady clip; unemployment is just north of 5 percent; the oil boom continues (although a slide in oil prices has slowed things
a bit); and state revenues have exceeded projections.
Some budget analysts and lawmakers are eager to
point to a surplus of as much as $10 billion for the
biennium that ends on Aug. 31. (We wont know for
sure until January, when the comptroller provides an
official revenue estimate and sets limits on how much
the Legislature can appropriate for 2015-2016.)
Ten billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it will go
quickly. Let us count the ways: The state begins every
two-year fiscal cycle with an $8 billion structural
deficita fancy way of saying unpaid bills, the result
of a 2006 Rick Perry-engineered tax swap that never
penciled out. Then theres the hole from 2011s frenzy
of cuts. The Lege has only restored about $3.4 billion
of the $5.4 billion it sliced from public schools in
2011. Thats not even accounting for growing enroll-

After the drama of the summer of 2013, the idea

that the Legislature might have further to go in
restricting access to abortion could strike some as
absurd. House Bill 2, the legislation that emerged
from the special sessions that year, tested the limits of what was allowed under the U.S. Supreme
Courts past decisions, and it will be a while before
the legal status of the law is ultimately resolved.
But while that battle continThe economy is growing in a way that
ues in the background, there are
is not reached by our state tax system.
peripheral issues that some pro-lifers are eager to address. The most
Thats what this all boils down to.
significant point of contention may
be over rules governing a legal procedure known as a judicial bypass, in which minors ment and increasing costs. (Eva DeLuna Castro, the
whose parents wont give consent for an abortion budget guru for the liberal Center for Public Policy
can seek it through a judge. One prominent legal aid Priorities, estimates that another $20 billion per
group in the state, Janes Due Process, specializes in biennium is needed to have schools everyone can
helping young women secure this permission.
be really proud of.) Looking at the states core serMinors who seek a judicial bypass often come viceslargely education and health and human
from abusive homes or are at risk of abuse if they serviceslawmakers need to provide an additional
seek an abortion. But many pro-life activists con- $7 billion just to maintain the status quo. The Texas
sider judicial bypass a loophole that negates a Department of Transportation says it needs another
parents say in what they see as a moral issue, and $5 billion merely to keep pace with the states boomtheyd like to limit it. If that effort gains traction, ing population. If youre following along at home,
activists wouldnt have to look far for champions that big surplus evaporates pretty quickly.
this years new crop of legislators are set to make
The economy is growing in a way that is not
the Texas Capitol more stalwartly pro-life than ever reached by our state tax system, said DeLuna Castro.
before. State Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) com- Thats what this all boils down to.
pared legalized abortion to the Holocaust at great
Yet many Republicans campaigned on, and are
length in his swearing-in speech.
clamoring for, more tax cuts. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick,
And theres new state Rep. Molly White in particular, has promised some sort of property
(R-Belton), a crusading pro-life activist who keeps tax relief for all Texans. DeLuna Castro said for it
rubber fetuses in her SUV and pictures of young to be meaningful, i.e., for people to really notice it,
dead mothers in her wallet, both with the aim of would require $10 billion. Clearly, you cannot meet
explaining the human cost of abortion. She blames the basic needs of the statemuch less reverse more
her two abortions as a youth on her history of drug than a decade of disinvestmentand pass a big tax
and alcohol abuse, and shes set to be one of the most cut. Still, they may try.
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