House approves government reorganization, adjourns session
04:46 PM CDT on Sunday, October 12, 2003
AUSTIN - The Texas House approved a sweeping government reorganization measure Sunday, acquiescing to Senate terms for giving final approval to a congressional redistricting map.
The House approved the measure by a 79-35 vote, then adjourned the third special session.
Final passage of the Republican-backed redistricting map now rests with the Senate.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst previously said the Senate would not approve the map until the House passed the unrelated bill intended to reorganize state government.
"I'm personally ready to call their bluff in the Senate," said Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin, arguing against the government reorganization bill.
The Senate was scheduled to convene at 6 p.m.
Dewhurst said senators can only vote on redistricting Sunday, not filibuster, because he has closed down debate.
Rep. John Mabry, D-Waco, tried to thwart the government reorganization bill, raising a legislative objection that the conference committee did not convene in public and no record was kept of the proceedings.
House Speaker Tom Craddick overruled the objection.
Other lawmakers argued that they were assured the bill adopted last month by the House would stay in tact. However, dozens of amendments were added by the Senate and adopted by the conference committee.
"I do not want to be held hostage by the Senate," Carter Casteel, R-New Braunfels, one of the original authors of the bill. "I am sad that I'm standing here today asking you to vote against a bill that I helped author."
Debate on the bill was cut off after about 20 minutes, angering lawmakers who still had questions about some of the measures in the bill.
"I haven't gotten the answers to my questions because there's been no testimony, but we're fixing to make it happen so we better be right," said Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston.
One of the provisions adopted by the conference committee would leave it up to individual school boards to decide whether they want to disclose their personal finances.
An ethics reform bill passed during the regular legislative session requires school board members in districts with 5,000 or more students to file annual personal financial statements with the Texas Ethics Commission.
The government reorganization bill has been at the center of a Republican feud between Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and some senators and Dewhurst.
The fellow party members have fought all year over state spending.
The conference committee adopted Senate changes that would strip Strayhorn of her performance review and school district audit programs, transferring the duties to the Legislative Budget Board.
Keel called the move a "political shot at the comptroller."
Strayhorn has been critical of provisions that remove from her office's oversight school performance reviews and the e-Texas report, a biennial list of cost saving proposals. She has said lawmakers were taking the action to punish her for speaking out.
"There are things in here that I support," Eiland said. "A lot of this is good government. But a lot of this is just about political fights and not necessarily about good government and reorganizing government."
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