The Mignon Memo

Election Day – November 2nd – is 42 days away. Yes, that means 42 more days of television commercials, newspaper endorsements, flyers and lengthy phone messages. Although legislative committees are still meeting in Austin, most members quickly return to their districts to spend time with the voters who they hope will send them back to Austin in January.

Hearings on redistricting, the redrawing of congressional and state legislative districts that occurs every ten years, are being held across the state. Both the Texas House and Texas Senate have special committees dedicated to the task. For more information on whether one of these committees is coming to a location near you, follow this link to the House Committee on Redistricting http://www.house.state.tx.us/committees/list81/080.htm or this link to the Senate Committee on Redistricting http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/commit/c625/c625.htm.

Will there be a gubernatorial debate in Texas? At this point, no one knows. Governor Rick Perry has said that if Bill White doesn’t release certain tax returns by Sept. 15 – today, there will be no gubernatorial debate. White has argued that it is not proper for Perry to set conditions for the debate. The last time a gubernatorial race was decided in Texas without a debate was 1990. The candidates that year were Democrat Ann Richards and Republican Clayton Williams.

Texas’ sales tax collections closed out the fiscal year $1.5 billion — or 7 percent — short of projections for 2010, according to figures released last week by Comptroller Susan Combs.

Add another name to the list of possible candidates for Texas House Speaker. Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) said Tuesday that he would decide before the November elections whether to challenge current Speaker Joe Straus. Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) has already thrown his hat into the ring and filed paperwork with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Rich Parsons is leaving his post as press secretary to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst to become Vice-President of Public Affairs at Hahn, Texas, an Austin based communications firm.

With early voting set to begin in 47 days and the general election only 63 days away, Harris County officials are hard at work after a fire last Friday destroyed nearly all Harris County’s electronic voting machines. The Harris County Commissioners Court approved County Clerk Beverly Kaufman’s emergency plan Monday to spend $13.6 million to buy 2,325 electronic voting machines and supporting equipment. Kaufman’s plan also includes 1.4 million paper ballots, which will be distributed to polling stations as a backup in case a shortage of machines leads to long lines. Why is this fire a big deal? Harris County, with 1.9 million registered voters, accounts for nearly 15 percent of the state’s electorate. It is also home to the Democrat candidate for governor, Bill White. Concerns over voter participation let sixteen Democratic lawmakers from Harris County to send a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calling on the Department of Justice to assist and oversee the new plans for conducting the upcoming elections in Harris County.

Speaking of the gubernatorial race, the five largest newspapers in Texas announced plans to host a gubernatorial debate on Oct. 19th at 7:00pm in KLRU’s studio in Austin. All candidates who register 10 percent or better in a preference poll to be conducted by the newspapers in mid-September will be invited. Both Gov. Rick Perry and former Houston Mayor Bill White will receive invitations to attend. Libertarian Katherine Glass will have to improve in the polls in order to secure an invitation. Perry has repeatedly said he won’t debate White until White releases tax returns from the 1990s.

Rep. David Swinford (R-Dumas) announced that he is retiring, effective today. Last year, Swinford announced that he would not run for another term as representative of House District 87. Republican Four Price and Democrat Abel Bosquez are on the general election ballot for November 2. Due to the timing, Governor Rick Perry announced that he will not call a special election for the seat. The seat will remain vacant until the winner of the general election contest is sworn in on January 11, 2011.

John Cullar, the Democratic nominee running against Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) in Senate District 22, pulled out of the race on Friday, the last day before the November ballot was set. Cullar and the Texas Democratic Party had argued that Birdwell was ineligible to run for the seat because he had not lived in the district for five years as required by the Texas Constitution. Last Thursday, the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas denied Cullar’s petition on technical legal grounds for the Democrats failing to first take their case to the Republican Party of Texas, which had the ability to remove Birdwell from the ballot.

At the state capitol, Texas House and Senate committees have heard testimony from the state’s budget experts regarding the predicted budget shortfall. The state’s revised business franchise tax is not living up to expectations. During a hearing this week, the Texas Comptroller’s Office said that Texas will collect $3.85 billion this year, a figure that is down $500 million from what was anticipated in the biennial revenue estimate. In addition to examining tax collections, legislators will begin considering other ways to reduce the biennial budget. As state agencies begin to submit their LARS (Legislative Appropriations Requests), look for proposed reductions to the state’s public employee workforce.

This week, we continue our focus on frequently asked questions.

Are Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media being widely used by politicians in Texas?
For those of you who have been hoping that the use of social media is a phase that you can avoid, you better learn the lingo and join the fray. Politicians across Texas, especially statewide officials and members of the Texas Legislature, have jumped on the bandwagon.

The tweeting in Texas picked up during the 81st Legislative Session in 2009. Governor Perry tweets as does Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Texas House Speaker Joe Straus. Perry and Dewhurst are on Facebook as well. Some politicians choose to have campaign related pages as well as personal pages but most combine the two. Many state legislators have their Facebook pages set up to automatically accept friend requests so no potential voter feels left out.

State agencies have gotten into the act, using social media to provide information to the general public. Follow this link to Texas.gov to learn which agencies have a social media presence: http://www.texas.gov/en/Connect/Pages/social-media.aspx

During this interim, Lt. David Dewhurst charged the Senate State Affairs Committee with discussing how advances in technology and the emergence of various forms of social media have affected communications by and within governmental bodies. During a hearing on the issue on May 11th, senators heard from various groups and individuals who urged them to incorporate rules on the use of social media into the Texas Public Information Act.

As the oppressive Texas heat of August rolls in, Austin is quiet as legislators and their staffs attend legislative conferences in cooler locations and other capitol denizens take that last summer vacation before school starts. Absent any breaking news, the Mignon Memo will focus on frequently asked questions this month to provide some general background information as we begin preparations for the 82nd Legislative Session.

What do the acronyms “LBB” and “LAR” mean? Why are they important?

As agencies begin to develop their Legislative Appropriations Requests (LARs) for the 2012-2013 biennium, it is a good time to focus on the Legislative Budget Board (LBB). The LBB is a permanent joint committee of the House and Senate that assists the Texas Legislature with fiscal matters. It creates fiscal analyses for proposed legislation, develops budget and policy recommendations for state agencies, and conducts performance reviews of state agencies to improve efficiency. The Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of the House serve as joint chairs of the LBB. The Chairs of the Senate Finance Committee, the House Appropriations Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee are automatic members. The Lieutenant Governor then appoints three Senate members and the Speaker appoints two House members. The LBB has been led by five directors since its creation with John S. O’Brien currently directing the agency.
The LBB was created in 1949 to address the escalating state government expenditures after the end of World War II; and to satisfy a recommendation from the State Auditor’s Office for the creation of a legislative committee for the continuous review of state spending. All state agencies were required to submit their budget requests to the LBB for review and recommendations. In 1973, the LBB’s duties were expanded to include evaluation of agency programs and estimation of the probable costs of implementing legislation introduced in the legislative session. Fiscal notes become even more critical in years of tight budgeting. A high fiscal note often kills a bill before the merits are debated.

Each agency’s appropriation request provides a fiscal expression of the agency’s strategic priorities. This fiscal expression includes quantitative information such as projected performance, projected cost, and methods of financing proposed for state services. In addition to numerical figures, information is also provided in the form of narrative language or “riders”. Each LAR is divided into two components: the “baseline” or “base level” request; and requests for consideration of “exceptional items,” which are desired services in addition to the baseline request. As a starting point for budget deliberations for the upcoming biennium, an agency’s baseline request for general revenue related (GR and GR-Dedicated) funds may not exceed the sum of amounts expended in fiscal year 2010 and budgeted in fiscal year 2011 adjusted to reflect the full five percent reduction target identified by the LBB for each agency. Agencies must also submit a supplemental schedule detailing how they would reduce the baseline request by an additional 10 percent (in five percent increments) in general revenue-related funding. The House Appropriations Committee and Senate Finance Committee will start reviewing these LARs this fall.

Still curious? Then follow this link to the LBB’s website where you can access the current state budget as a publication entitled Budget 101: A Guide to the Budget Process in Texas: http://www.lbb.state.tx.us/

Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) was the unanimous choice of the eight Republican Party county chairs to appear as the Republican Party’s nominee for Senate District 22 on the November general election ballot.

President Barack Obama will be in Texas in early August. He plans to headline an August 9th fundraiser in Austin for the Democratic National Committee. He is also scheduled to headline a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee event the same day in Houston.

Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) has been sworn in and former Sen. Kip Averitt (R-Waco) has officially withdrawn his name from the November general election ballot. That clears the way for the Republican and Democrat county chairs in the ten counties that make up Senate District 22 to choose their respective nominees for the November ballot. Continue Reading »

Governor Rick Perry appointed Brenda Pejovich of Dallas to the University of Texas System board of regents. Pejovich, a certified public accountant and CEO of BFG Management Co., replaces James Huffines. Continue Reading »