High Plains Report

Here is a side by side comparison of the proposed budgets from the House and Senate, Prepared by The Legislative Budget Board.  The LBB is a permanent joint committee of the Texas Legislature that develops budget and policy recommendations for legislative appropriations for all agencies of state government, as well as completes fiscal analyses for proposed legislation. The LBB also conducts evaluations and reviews for the purpose of identifying and recommending changes that improve the efficiency and performance of state and local operations and finances. 

In this radio address, Sen. Robert Duncan discusses the pros and cons of the Governor's proposal to sell the Texas lottery.  Some estimate the Lottery could be sold for $14 billion.  The lottery currently generates about a billion dollars a year.

www.senatorduncan.com

House Speaker Tom Craddick said in an interview today he expects the legislative session that started last month to lack the pressures of his first four years steering the House, a period encompassing laws restricting lawsuits, lowering school property taxes and redrawing congressional districts to reflect Republican gains.

Austin American Statesman

In this radio address, Senator Duncan discusses the positive impact the west Texas Regional Public Defender Offices for capital murder cases would have on the area, including how this program will help save counties money and will provide a higher quality of criminal defense to the indigent in these cases. 

South Plains lawmakers submitting proposals for new legislation

BY ENRIQUE RANGEL
AUSTIN BUREAU

AUSTIN - State representatives Joe Heflin and Delwin Jones have filed one bill each while State Sen. Kel Seliger has filed three.

On the other hand, representatives Warren Chisum and Carl Isett have already filed 16 and 12 bills and resolutions, respectively.

But "who is counting?" asks Jones, a Lubbock Republican, as he gently pats the back of a reporter with a grin on his face.

According to a news release from State Representative Carl Isett (R-Lubbock), the Lubbock legislator will file his Taxpayer Protection Act for the fourth session in a row.  The Taxpayer Protection Act is the basis for one of the recommendations in the report by the Governor’s Task Force on Appraisal Reform.The report recommends lowering the allowable increase in tax revenues received by local governments from 8% to 5% of last year's revenues.

BY ENRIQUE RANGEL
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL AUSTIN BUREAU

AUSTIN - Unlike virtually all of his colleagues in the Texas Legislature, Rep. Warren Chisum never went to college.

Yet, in his 18-year legislative career, the Pampa Republican not only became a key player, but now he is chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee, the most influential committee in the 181-member, two-chamber Legislature.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Harnessing the Wind

BY D. LANCE LUNSFORD
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

It's windy, man.

No, not that Windy Man, the disgraced concrete structure that state officials once planned to put around Lubbock highways.

Rather, it's the non-stop howling variety that is, more and more, bringing money to the region. Investors see potential in what people here have known for a long time about the South Plains and Panhandle - it's windy, man.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Notable priorities:

- Initiatives taken by school districts to increase efficiency and quality of education through innovative measures such as shared services.      

11:30 AM CST on Friday, January 19, 2007
By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick says the unprecedented coup that nearly ended his leadership was a signal that he had lost touch with some lawmakers, and he vowed not to retaliate against fellow Republicans – some of them trusted associates – who rose up against him.

Dallas Morning News