House: Adjourned until Wed, Mar 23, 2011 10:00 am
Senate: Adjourned until Wed, Mar 23, 2011 11:00 am
Senate March 22-24 Calendars: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/Calendars/CalendarsByLegislature.aspx?Chbr=S
House March 23- 24 Calendars: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/Calendars/CalendarsByLegislature.aspx?Chbr=H
May deadlines under House and Senate rules can be found at: http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/scanned/calendars/2011calendar.pdf
On House Floor:
SB 14, Fraser, relating to Voter ID is scheduled to be heard on March 23, on the House Floor.
Chairman Solomons announced that the SBOE redistricting bill (HB 600) committee substitute would be available later today.
On March 18, Republican Dan Neil conceded to Representative Donna Howard in the election contest for House District 48. Neil challenged the November election results and Rep. Will Hartnett was appointed to investigate the contestation. A subcommittee voted last week to uphold Hartnett’s conclusion that Howard won the House seat by 4 votes.
Today Howard thanked her colleagues for their support on the House floor and stated: “Contrary to what some may believe, we are, by and large, good people who are here because we care about our communities and want to help make Texas better—We share the same core values of strong communities, healthy families and economic prosperity for our state. I am grateful to work with each of you.”
Budget
It is expected the House Appropriations bill will be on the House floor next week and will take several days of discussion.
Senate Finance and its sub-committees continue to meet. The subcommittee on fiscal matters has been appointed to look for $5 billion in non-tax revenue. In light of the current revenue option discussions, HillCo has included two articles below on revenue options that have been published in the last few weeks; one covers the House Research Organization report on revenue options and the other is a list of water fees the legislature considered in the past circulated by H2O4 Texas.