County Delegation Happy With Windstorm Result

By John Tompkins
The Facts

Published June 7, 2009

State Sen. Mike Jackson spent last weekend wrangling with other legislators to pass a bill that would replenish the Texas Windstorm Insurance funding pool.

Now back from Austin, the GOP senator plans to shuffle furniture in his Shoreacres home that was badly damaged by Hurricane Ike.

“I’m moving in this weekend,” he said.

Jackson and three other Brazoria County legislators are back home after the 81st session of the Texas Legislature ended Monday with some last-minute saves and grumbling about what didn’t get done.

One of those late saves was especially vital to Brazoria County residents.

After a last-minute conference committee made some compromises, a bill was passed to give the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association the right to file for post-event bonds to fund obligations, Jackson said.

Replenishing the fund is important because obligations from hurricanes Ike and Dolly have drained it. Once all the obligations related to the more than 90,000 claims from Ike and Dolly are paid out, the windstorm insurance association will have used the $2.1 billion it had set aside, officials have said.

Most importantly, legislators said, it will not mean any significant rate increases for those with a windstorm policy.

“We worked extraordinarily hard,” said state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton. “We succeeded in ensuring stability for homeowners. There’s no automatic surcharges. There will be no rate increase.”

Legislators said many things were accomplished by the time the Texas Legislature closed Monday, though there were a lot of issues left unresolved.

VOTER ID EFFECT

Important legislation passed in the Senate this session did not get passed in the House because of the contentious Voter ID bill, legislators said.

Democratic legislators vehemently opposed the bill, claiming it would diminish voting rights. and “chubbed” — a statehouse form of filibustering — during the last five days of the session to kill it, legislators said.

“There were certain members who did not want to address that bill,” said freshman state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Southside Place.

Senators passed the bill in January that would require a photo identification or two other forms of identification to enter the polls.

Freshman state Rep. Randy Weber, R-Pearland, said Voter ID was stalled by House Democrats despite popular support among Texas voters.

“In the process, they killed a lot of other things,” he said.

Among those were about $2 billion in voter-approved bonds for highway construction. Half of the bond money would be used as the state’s matching share toward federal funds, Jackson said.

“We need to have as many dollars as we can get,” he said.

Also among those that didn’t pass were sunset bills that would preserve the Texas Department of Transportation and the Texas Department of Insurance.

“If you don’t get them reviewed and get a bill passed, they’ll go away,” Weber said of the transportation and insurance departments.

The sunset bills provide for the agencies’ operating budgets, and after Sept. 1, they start cutting their staff and shutting down, legislators said. Sunset is a regular assessment of state agencies to determine whether they still are needed. About 130 state agencies are subject to sunset review.

Jackson said Gov. Rick Perry can sign an order to keep the agencies running after that date.

FEELING SPECIAL?

There is some speculation Perry will call a special session to allow legislators to finish the sunset or bond legislation, Jackson said.

Bonnen said he was glad to see the transportation department bill did not pass because it included a provision to establish local gas taxes.

An amendment Bonnen added to the bill that would have allowed businesses to collect penalties from delayed highway construction projects also had been removed, he said.

The Texas Department of Insurance sunset bill included a lot of changes, such as requiring the agency to approve or deny rate changes within 30 days and providing for penalties against insurers who dragged out lengthy appeals for rate increases.

Insurance companies now are allowed to raise their rates while the insurance department reviews them.

“There were good consumer reforms that were in it,” Huffman said.

STILL FIGHTING

While the session ended Monday, a battle now is brewing over House Bill 770, a bill passed to create tax exemptions for homestead properties destroyed by Hurricane Ike and for chambers of commerce.

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is asking Perry to veto the bill because a last-minute provision added during a conference committee by Rep. Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton, R-Mauriceville, would allow Bolivar Peninsula property owners to rebuild houses that ended up on the public beach after Ike.

The bill would exempt from state open beaches laws a house “located on a peninsula in a county with a population of more than 250,000 and less than 251,000 that borders the Gulf of Mexico.” The Bolivar Peninsula is the only area in the state that meets that description.

Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, had a $187,300 house in Crystal Beach destroyed by Ike. A bill Christian filed with similar provisions never had a public hearing, Patterson said.

“It’s never had public testimony,” he said. “It’s bad public policy.”

Patterson also has said if the bill is not vetoed, he would not enforce the measure.

Jackson sponsored the bill in the Senate and said the exemptions for chambers of commerce is more important than the battle over houses on the beach.

“I’m going to be really upset and so will chambers of commerce if it gets vetoed,” Jackson said.

Since it will take two years to determine where the new vegetation line is, the state should not worry about where the houses are being built for the time being, Jackson said.

“There has to be some way to compromise,” he said.

MONEY MATTERS

Legislators expecting to face a budget shortfall still were able to craft a balanced budget at $182 billion for the next two years. Legislators were able to defer some of the possible shortfall with funding from the federal stimulus plan passed in February.

The budget passed this year will provide up to $1.9 billion in additional school funding, Bonnen said.

Many local school officials have said they feared they might have to seek voter approval for a tax rate more than the allowed maximum of $1.04 per $100 of appraised property value to balance their budgets.

While the extra funding will help districts, the funding was not applied equitably, Weber said.

“Some (districts) get more per student than others,” he said.

Legislators also passed changes to the franchise tax. Currently, businesses that make more than $300,000 a year have to pay the tax. The change raises that threshold to $1 million a year.

“I’d still like to increase it, but I’m proud we made progress,” Bonnen said.

GETTING AN EDUCATION

Bonnen said he was able to add a provision in a bill to change the top 10 percent college rule. The rule allows high school students who place in the top 10 percent of their class automatic admittance to a state university.

A bill passed to reduce the number of students the University of Texas is made to accept under the rule included Bonnen’s provision that allows students to keep automatic status even if they choose to attend community college first.

“They have three years that they could attend a community college before moving on,” he said. “That is a titanic move to making education affordable.”

Bonnen also helped pass House Bill 3202, which transferred more than 300 acres held by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to Brazoria County, which officials hope to use to expand the Brazoria County Airport.

Bills also were passed to allow interstate gun sales from states not bordering Texas, creating a management district for the Alden Lakes subdivision in Lake Jackson and expanding powers for an associate judge in the county that includes presiding over some criminal matters.

Bonnen and Huffman also worked to pass House Bill 1750, which allows Brazoria County commissioners to hire criminal magistrates who could perform some duties now done by justices of the peace.

“They can give an individual their rights,” Huffman said. “They also can sign some search warrants.”

John Tompkins is senior reporter for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 849-8581.

Political Advertisement paid for by Friends of Randy Weber

site by Advarion Incorporated