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Jimt - as promised, my response:

The Houstonians were there at 8:00 AM, having been informed this was the time for consideration of the bill, and when witnesses would speak.

The Houstonians arrived there at 8 AM because that is the time that the hearing notice was posted in compliance with state law. You may find this notice here: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/schedule/2003/C3852003031308001.HTM

In order to testify before a committee, you must register as a witness at the hearing's noted time. Committee hearings often take up several bills during a day, as was the case with this one. As a result, your bill isn't always the first one, nor is it always the last one. The only guarantee is that if you signed in as a witness, you will be called. That happened in this hearing to all who remained.

Based upon what the committee minutes indicate, they opened their hearing at 8:00 AM, as was on the notice, and continued to 9:55 AM, when they recessed for floor votes and, presumably, lunch. It is my understanding that the Houston group had in fact planned for a lunch event and used this time to hold it.

The committee returned at 12:00 and immediately took up Rep. Wong's bill - the property tax bill. Three of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Wong, Bohac, and Howard, spoke for an hour and 11 minutes in favor of it starting at noon.

Upon their completion, the chairman called in two officials from the Texas comptroller's office to outline the fiscal note to the committee, which is required by law to be attached to any bill with an fiscal impact. They spoke for another 18 minutes.

The chairman then called a representative of the Harris County Government who Rep. Wong had requested to address its impact - if you look at the transcript you can even see the point where Rep. Wong informed the Chairman that she had a list of people she wanted to testify. He spoke for another 38 minutes. When all that was concluded, it was 2:13 PM

The Chairman then allowed a few witnesses to speak, broken down between 3 against the bill and 3 neutral speakers. They occupied a combined total of 22 minutes time, only 15 minutes of which came from witnesses opposed to the bill.

Then, at 2:39 PM, Mr. Dan Patrick Goeb stood up and threw his fit, gathered the Houston group together, and marched out of the committee room. That is the indisputable fact of the committee record.

So yes, the group had been there since 8:00 AM. Of the period between 8AM and 2:39 PM, a breakdown of the Houston group's time spent is as follows:

1 hour, 55 minutes - waiting while the committee called the roll, opened the session, and addressed another bill.

2 hours, 5 minutes - attending a prearranged lunch program

1 hour, 11 minutes - listening to their own representatives who were sponsoring the bill advocate it before the committee.

18 minutes - listening to the Texas Comptroller's office present the statutorily required fiscal note of the bill to the committee

38 minutes - listening to a Harris County government official testify on the bill's fiscal impact on Harris County per the request of the bill's sponsor.

7 minutes - listening to neutral witnesses who had signed up to testify on the bill.

15 minutes - listening to opposition witnesses who had signed up to testify on the bill.

At that point, and after only 15 minutes of opposition testimony, Dan Patrick Goeb stood up in the middle of the committee hearing, began berating Chairman Hill and Rep. Hegar, then stormed out with his group.

By 3 PM, no one from the Houston group had been allowed to speak in favor of the bill.

Considering that the Houston group stormed out of there at 2:39 PM after only 15 minutes of testimony in opposition to it, it is no surprise that they had not spoken at 3PM. Heck, they LEFT THE MEETING on their own decision 20 minutes prior to that time!

The Chronicle article puts it this way: The Houstonians did not get a chance to speak on the bill because the committee took testimony from business representatives, lobbyists and governments officials first.

The Chronicle is being misleading in that statement. Of those "government officials," three were the BILL'S SPONSORS and those three took up almost 1/2 of the time between noon and Dan Patrick Goeb's outburst. Two more were from the comptroller's office to provide testimony on the bill's fiscal note. A fiscal note is REQUIRED BY LAW for all bills with a fiscal impact. The final government official, from Harris County, provided testimony AT THE SPONSOR'S REQUEST. That took them to 2:13 pm. 22 minutes later after only a small list of both neutral and opposition witnesses, Dan Patrick Goeb stormed out of the meeting. The only reason those people did not get to testify is the fact that they wouldn't wait through 22 minutes of testimony other than their own.

"There had not been one witness called in favor of the bill. To me that's not necessarily a balanced debate," Bettencourt said.

While Paul Bettencourt is certainly a strong leader on this bill, that is an inaccurate statement. In fact, prior to 2:39 PM there had been 3 WITNESSES in favor of the bill - the bill's three sponsors - who advocated it for one hour and eleven minutes straight

Mr. Bettencourt, who, unlike others from Houston, knows how committee hearings work, stayed around and got to testify himself for over an hour in favor later in the day.

Fred Hill's spin on this meeting is interesting, as is the nice letter from one "GOP" member who called the Houston group "rude, crude rednecks".

The quote, per the letter Dan Patrick Goeb has linked to from his website, refers to their behavior in the following:

"They acted like po-dunk uncouth rednecks with absolutely no decorum or respect"

Though this description involves name-calling of its own, I invite you to follow the link I posted above to the recording of the hearing and use the slide bar to forward to the 2:39 mark. Listen for yourself and, putting any political leanings aside, tell me if you honestly think what you hear is in any way civil, restrained, polite, proper, or within the committee's procedures. I venture to say, though I would not use the terms that the author of that letter did, that her description of the event was much more accurate than anything the Chronicle offered.

I heard a Hill defender on KSEV whining about maintaining decorum (although she called it "decor") as though nothing was more important than that. That a Republican representative rudely stiffed a large group of taxpayers didn't bother her at all.

Exactly how did he "stiff" them? By allowing 15 MINUTES of opposition witnesses to speak on the bill? By allowing the bill's sponsors to advocate it for an hour and ten minutes to the applause of the Houston group? By letting the Comptroller's office answer questions about their fiscal analysis of the bill that they are required to attach to the bill by law?

I've been to a few railroaded public "hearings" myself, and can understand why after waiting from 8 AM to 3 PM and not being allowed to speak, the Houston group got a little testy.

I too have testified extensively at hearings before. I have waited hours to do so, left for austin early in the morning to do so, and remained at those hearings till after 7 PM at night before they concluded. That is the way Austin works in any hearing. Yes, it is boring and frustrating, but it is also a fact of life. In fact, it is disingenuous to describe the entirity of that time as "waiting" when in fact 1 hour and ten minutes was spent listening to their own reps present and advocate their bill and another 2 hours and five minutes of it was spent at a pre-arranged lunch event that the Houston group's organizers held for the people on the buses!

This issue isn't going to go away. It's going to get louder.

Nor should it go away. It needs to be addressed and property taxes need to be fixed.

Mr. Hill's opponents are going to find an amazing level of support from Houstonians, if he doesn't have the common sense and common courtesy to let taxpayers speak.

Exactly how, in any way, did Hill "not let them speak?" When they were charging out of the room, he even told them to stay around and they would be called shortly! The record reflects this. Only a few minutes after they stormed out at 3:30 PM, Hill called a witness to speak against the bill. From 3:40 forward to almost 7 that night, the committee did nothing but hear from people opposed to the bill. Those who had left were called by name. The ONLY reason they did not get to speak is the fact that they stormed out of their at Dan Patrick Goeb's urging at 2:39 PM - they voluntarily excluded themselves from the process and therefore have only themselves to blame.