Sine Die – Last Day of the 84th Legislative Session June 1, 2015

As today is officially the last day of the 84th Texas Legislative Session, I want to share with you several big picture thoughts about my just completed second session in the Texas Legislature. While everyone will have different opinions on this, I feel that this was a fairly successful legislative session (though often that depends on whether you are focused on the things that were done or on the things left undone).

The budget ended up being a very solid one this year. While the growth in the budget was close to the same as last year’s budget, the priorities paid for in this budget were much more in line with the desires of the people of the State of Texas. The budget stayed well under the Constitutional spending limit, and we were able to approve significant tax cuts for both businesses and homeowners and give additional funding to priority state agencies. Perhaps the best indication of the improvement in the budget is the final budget votes in the house; 30 Republicans vote against it last year, while only 1 voted against it this year. By contrast, only 1 Democrat member voted against the budget last year, compared to 32 this year.

The Legislature also acted on a number of other issues this year that I thought were very important, including end-of-life issues, judicial bypass rules for abortions, transportation funding, and a number of modest decreases in educational testing requirements. We have updated you on many of these during the session but will also be recapping them during the next couple of weeks.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the session for me, personally, was our inability to get traction to discuss a real state water plan. The VERY good news is that God has seen fit to give us a reprieve from the drought that should allow us another couple of sessions before this must be addressed. It’s important to remember that we live in Texas and will no doubt face drought conditions in the state again soon. It is my sincere desire that we will be able to make this a matter of significant work before the next legislative session begins in 2017.