Acceleration
Dear friend,
With only 41 days to go in the session and the pace accelerating, I’m pleased to report upon this office’s recent legislative activity. That includes action from this week, upcoming bills to be considered, and a review of the past two weeks, which saw passage of the last of my six priority bills from the Senate.
The first passed in February, early in the session. That was SB 120, the bill that creates Texas Tech Health Sciences University as a standalone institution; the bill is pending in the House Higher Education Committee.
This past week the Senate passed the last two of the five bills related to dealing with the cheating scandal at the El Paso Independent School District.
The two that passed last week are:
- SB 119, which would create a program that would require EPISD to offer remedial classes and alternative graduation for students cheated of their education by the actions of district administrators (April 8).
- SB121, which strengthens whistleblower protections to encourage school district employees to report illegal activity without fear of retaliation (April 9).
And during the previous week (April 3) the Senate had passed:
- SB 122, which adds school districts’ boards of trustees to the list of county officials who can be removed from office for incompetence or misconduct.
- SB 123, which strengthens TEA’s oversight of school districts by providing the commissioner of education with the authority to issue subpoenas and the ability to more easily investigate suspicious data reporting by districts.
- SB 124, which makes the fraudulent manipulation of data reported to the TEA a third degree felony.
EPISD has struggled to deal with revelations that its former superintendent and several administrators manipulated both students and data to give the appearance that standardized test scores were improving. This scheme included denying some students credits to advance to the 10th grade, forcing students to drop out or transfer to alternative schools, not allowing some students to enroll, and ultimately submitting false data to TEA and the U.S. Department of Education.
While this happened, the former superintendent, Lorenzo Garcia, received salary bonuses because the false appearance of achievement allowed EPISD to improve performance ratings. Garcia has since pled guilty to charges of fraud as well as unrelated federal charges stemming from contracts he gave to a former mistress.
Other action
I filed the five bills related to the cheating scandal and the Texas Tech standalone designation on the first day of pre-filing in November to highlight their importance. But they are far from the only legislation of importance to Texas and District 29.
Another bill to pass last week was SB 1082, which will help recruit out-of-state physicians to medically underserved areas.
Many regions of the state have shortages in a variety of health care professions. However, the border region and rural areas of the state face even more significant shortages in physicians, dentists, nurses, and allied health professionals. This bill reduces an administrative barrier to access to health care.
Although there are shortages in many parts of the state, some qualified physicians who have valuable experience and want to practice in Texas are unable to ever obtain a license in the state because the limit on exam attempts or timeframe renders them ineligible, even with board certification.
In comparison, 27 states and Washington D.C. — including those with large physician populations like Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and California — have no limits on exam attempts. As a result, many Texas Tech graduates are currently practicing in New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Florida and can’t ever come back to practice in El Paso or other areas of the state.
The bill changes the attempt limit on each individual part of the exam from three to five, but maintains the total attempt limit for all three parts of the exam at nine.
In addition, the bill creates narrow exceptions to the limitation on exam attempts and the timeframe for passing all parts of the exam. To qualify for either of these exceptions, a physician must meet all of the following requirements:
- Be licensed in good standing in another state for at least five years;
- Not hold a medical license in the other state that has or has ever had any restrictions, disciplinary orders, or probation; and
- Plan to practice in a medically underserved area or a health manpower shortage area.
Tough vote
I voted on Thursday in favor of SB 2, the so-called “Charter School” bill.
It wasn’t an easy vote, as I am a strong believer in public schools. But this bill as passed improves the Texas charter school system in several key areas. It tightens regulations with respect to charter schools, and makes it easier to close bad charters. It creates a cap on the overall number of charters at 305 by 2019, growing with the population, and it encourages dropout recovery by removing any cap on schools that serve that population.
Importantly, this does not create a voucher system for private schools, which I continue to oppose. I fully support public education and will continue to fight for that. We have several proposals on the table to add public education funding in this session; we must find a way to get there. While the Senate budget adds to the per-student funding from the previous biennium by about $138, raising it from $5,435 to $5,573, respectively, it does not restore it to where we were in 2011 prior to the cuts — $5,760.
A proposal was released late last week to use the Rainy Day Fund to put $2.5 billion into roads and $3.5 billion into water. I think the state needs these investments, but it would be shameful to put money into water and roads, both of which we need to shore up, and not commit to building Texas’ most important resource, its people.
So far this week
We got off to a good start, passing two bills yesterday from the full Senate:
- SB 459, which addresses the problem of illegal tire dumping in the desert. Used tire disposal has been a rampant problem for years. More than 24 million tires are discarded each year in Texas, and too many of them end up either in environmentally hazardous tire piles or back on the road, creating a safety hazard. The bill defines unsafe tires and prohibits their sale, makes retailers responsible for disposal of the unsafe tires, and provides penalties and a source of funding so the state can track and prosecute transporters who illegally dump the tires.
- SB 336, which will help El Paso County hire a medical examiner. Current law requires that a person must be licensed by the Texas Medical Board to be appointed as a medical examiner. But it’s unclear if a provisional license suffices; this bill clarifies that a provisional license is sufficient if the physician is licensed and in good standing in another state and has applied for a license to practice medicine in Texas.
Also eligible for a hearing this week in the full Senate is SB 1584, which would dissolve the Economic Development Corporation of Presidio and create the Presidio Municipal Development District. This is very important for the residents of that city, which is taking great strides to boost its trade with Mexico, conserve its water, and grow its economy.
Among bills eligible for committee hearings are:
- SB 538, which repeals an unconstitutional law criminalizing homosexuality that Texas legislators refuse to take off the books. Despite a ruling by the nation’s highest court striking down 21.06 of the Penal Code, and rebukes of the law from all sides of the political spectrum, the statute remains unchanged today. There is no valid legal reason to keep the void section of code on the books, besides the simple argument that it’s the right thing to do to take it off, there are consequences when poorly trained authorities mistakenly try to enforce it. For example, in El Paso in 2009, two men were kicked out of a restaurant by a security guard who said they were kissing and it was offensive. The men called police and said one of the responding officers told them that they could be arrested.
- SB 1239, the so-called “Renewable Buyback” bill, which allows customers to capture the full value of an investment in onsite renewable generation. When a property owner installs solar panels or similar onsite generation, any excess electricity they produce flows onto the electric distribution system, reducing the energy costs of that customer’s electric provider during peak hours. Texas is one of only seven states (ID, SD, MS, AL, TN, SC) that don’t require customers to be compensated for this electricity they provide to the grid, most often during peak hours when electricity prices are highest. The lack of fair compensation is cited by potential onsite renewable energy purchasers – who range from large commercial stores to residential customers — as a key reason for declining to invest in Texas.
- Closely related to SB 1239 is SB 1586, which allows public buildings to generate more electricity onsite through renewable power than currently is allowed. Currently, public buildings that include “distributed renewable generation” — typically, solar power meant for on-site use — are limited to a two megawatt capacity. The bill raises that to 10 megawatts, which would create enough electricity to power significant public structures such as schools, office buildings and, in the case of El Paso, much of Fort Bliss.
- SB 1743, which prohibits retaliation for a worker who seeks to recover wages owed by filing a formal complaint, seeking assistance, or exercising a right or remedy protected by law.
As you can see, we’re quite busy in Austin! It is an honor to work for you and Senate District 29.
Sincerely,