{"id":2170,"date":"2021-02-02T08:19:43","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T14:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitex.org\/?p=2170"},"modified":"2023-05-08T15:53:27","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T15:53:27","slug":"looking-forward-to-the-87th-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/digitex\/2021\/02\/02\/looking-forward-to-the-87th-legislature\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Forward to the 87th Legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Van L. Davis, Ph.D., Principal and Founder, <\/span>Foghlam Consulting, LLC<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In a 1975 <\/span>The Atlantic<\/span><\/i> column, the late Molly Ivins described the start of the 63<\/span>rd<\/span> Texas Legislative session thusly: \u201cThe Texas Legislature consists of 181 people who meet for 140 days once every two years. This catastrophe has now occurred sixty-three times. The Legislature is, among other things, the finest free entertainment in Texas. Better than the zoo. Better than the circus.\u201d<\/span>[i]<\/span> Last month, the Texas Legislature convened for the 87<\/span>th<\/span> time. And since this year\u2019s session is anything but normal, we can rest assured that the next 140 days will be unlike anything we\u2019ve ever seen.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Texas Government 101<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The Texas Legislature, unlike most other state legislatures, meets every other year for a mere 140 days. This infrequency is a by-product of Reconstruction and Texans\u2019 distrust of government after the Civil War. As a result, the new state constitutional framers opted to have the Legislature meet as infrequently as possible and still be able to conduct state business. And during sessions, that august body has only one piece of legislation that must be passed\u2014a balanced budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>As with the United States Congress, a bill must pass both chambers and be signed by the chief executive, in this case the governor, in order to become a law. If the House and Senate versions of a passed bill are different, then a conference committee is chosen to hammer out the differences. The governor, much like the president, has veto power. If the Legislature doesn\u2019t complete its business in those 140 days, the governor has the ability to call a 30 day special session that can only consider legislation related to the reasons for the special session to be called. Unlike the president, however, the governor\u2019s role in the legislative process is fairly weak\u2014another holdover from Reconstruction and Texans\u2019 distrust of most government officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The 87<\/b>th<\/b> Legislative Session<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Although Democrats did manage to flip a few seats during the 2020 November elections, both the House and Senate remain Republican with 83 of the 131 representatives and 18 of the 31 senators belonging to the Republican party. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick remains in control of the Texas Senate while Representative Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) was elected Speaker of the House in January.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under the best of circumstances, all eyes would be on the budget, but this year there is special scrutiny on the proposed Texas budget. Earlier this year, Comptroller Glenn Hegar released his general revenue projections for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years. Many feared that between the impact of the pandemic on sales tax revenue and the low price of crude oil, Texas would experience a significant drop in revenue. The good news is that the budget projection of $112.5 billion for the two fiscal years is considerably better than what was expected. The bad news is that both the House and the Senate proposed budgets are about $7 billion more than the Comptroller\u2019s estimate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why all the talk of budget and not higher education policy? Simple. This year the budget will trump almost everything else as lawmakers try to balance the state budget in the midst of the worst public health crisis the state and nation have ever faced. This means that state social services, which even under the best of circumstances are stretched thin, will be stretched even thinner this session. It also means that legislators will be looking for any place they can find to cut expenses and balance the budget. Adding another layer of complexity to the budgeting woes this year is public elementary and secondary education funding. Texas has long underfunded public education, relying largely on local property taxes to fund local school districts. However, during the last legislative session, lawmakers adopted legislation that increased the amount of the state\u2019s share of public education funding in an effort to slow the rise of local property taxes. As a result, we are entering a budget cycle where public K-12 funding will be higher, there will be a greater need for health and human services because of the pandemic, state revenue will be down, and there is no certainty that federal financial aid will come to the states any time soon. And we haven\u2019t even started to talk about higher education funding. There is one potential silver lining\u2014the state\u2019s $8.5 billion Economic Stabilization Fund, aka the state\u2019s rainy day fund. Legislators could draw from this fund to balance the state\u2019s budget, but any draw down from the rainy day fund will be controversial and face dissent from fiscal conservatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Higher Education and the 87<\/b>th<\/b> Legislature<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

So what might we expect regarding higher education and the 87<\/span>th<\/span> Legislative session? Even before the session started, the Legislature indicated that it would be interested in workforce development as well as educational efficiency measures. And certainly since the pandemic, it has signaled a renewed interest in distance education. For example, the House Higher Education Committee was given five interim charges to explore prior to this legislative session:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n