This week our 2009 Legislative Report Card has been released and although we gave credit where credit was due, senators didn't do well on the test. The test was simple - are you for the taxpayers or the tax spenders?

We salute Senator Troy Fraser of Horseshoe Bay, Mike Jackson of La Porte, Dan Patrick of Houston, and Tommy Williams for making an A on our report card. They kept hardworking taxpayers in mind while voting this past legislative session.

We would also like to salute Representatives Charles "Doc" Anderson of Waco, Wayne Christian of Center, Dan Flynn of Van, Linda Harper Brown of Irving, Jodie Laubenberg of Parker, and Ken Paxton of McKinney for earning an A-Plus and the other 38 "Defenders of the American Dream" in our Texas State House

View our 2009 Legislative Report Card

You can view the entire report card, complete with legislators' votes here

State Budget passes with low spending growth
AFP has long proposed budget growth to be limited to the increase in population and inflation. We are pleased to report that the 2010-11 biennial budget of $182 billion represents a 7.4 percent increase over the 2008-09 biennial budget. This is an increase of just 3.7 percent per year.

The budget did not touch the rainy day/budget stabilization funds. The federal stimulus dollars were directed for one-time uses. This is all great news for Texas taxpayers and good news for the Texas economy. We are still #1 in exports, Fortune 500 Companies, job creation, and more.

Feds didn’t prevail in attempt to broaden eligibility for Texas Unemployment Insurance
In the big battle over whether or not to take the unemployment insurance (UI) stimulus funds with the strings attached (requiring Texas to expand the UI program), we prevailed and that stimulus money was rejected.

Legislature studies spending limitation
The legislature also required the LBB to undertake a study to evaluate the effect of creating a constitutional and statutory spending limit based on the sum of the rate of population growth and the rate of monetary inflation. The budget left a surplus of approximately $250 million.

For more budget highlights

Local Option Gas Tax defeated
Taxpayers prevailed in a hard-fought battle to deny local taxing entities with a new taxing authority, the so-called local option gas tax. Thanks to thousands of calls going into legislators’ offices, legislators got the message. The votes were not there to pass this measure, though it was lobbied heavily by DFW local officials and their multi-million dollar lobby teams.

Smoking Ban defeated
Big-brother do-gooders are often pushing liberty-limiting laws like smoking bans. Sen. Rodney Ellis and Rep. Myra Crownover proposed legislation this session to make smoking in all public places unlawful. Problem is, these legislators assumed private business establishments to be public places. They are not, and a smoking ban would violate the private property rights of these business owners. The legislative battle was hard-fought and the smoking ban advocates included associations which receive public funding. However, constitutional property rights protections prevailed. Neither bill made it to the floor of their respective house. This represented a major victory for property rights advocates, consumer choice and individual liberty. Read the AFP-TX perspective here.

Eminent domain legislation passes
Last legislative session, Rep. Frank Corte was unable to get his legislation to “fix” the Kelo decision and prohibit government from taking private property and providing it to developers who could generate more sales tax revenue. This session, HJR 14 by Corte passed and Texas property owners have the protections they deserve.

Business tax relief provided
The legislature tripled the margins tax exemption threshold, providing a tax cut for about 40,000 small businesses. NFIB had more information on this issue.

Some property tax protections pass
Rep. John Otto (R-Dayton) headed The Property Tax Relief and Appraisal Reform Select Committee this interim and worked hard this session to get some significant property tax appraisal reform legislation passed. He filed a large bill with many reforms, but was successful in breaking the bill down and passed some of those measures. Here are highlights of the property tax reforms passed this session.

Taxpayer protections fail to pass
We were unable to enact legislation to provide voter approval for local government spending to exceed the population and inflation – or 5%. Your taxpyaer-funded lobbyists, local government associations, and local elected officials fought hard to keep this bill from passing. House Ways and Means Chairman Rene Olivera told the Texas Association of Counties that he would not allow the bills to get a vote in his committee. Though the votes to pass out of committee were there, he turned his back on the taxpayers and upheld his promise to the tax spenders.

AFP-Texas also supported legislation to end the practice of using tax dollars to fund lobby activities and to pay lobbyists. State agencies have a ban on lobbying but local government entities do not. We simply want that ban extended. Taxpayers should not be forced to fund lobby activities, many of which lobby against taxpayers.

Senate Denied Confirmation of SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy
Gov. Rick Perry appointed the elected State Board of Education (SBOE) Don McLeroy as chairman of the SBOE.

HB 4294 undermined the role of the elected SBOE by giving the appointed Commissioner of Education the authority to develop a list of approved electronic textbooks, provides that the textbooks may be purchased with Permanent School Funds provided through the SBOE.

AFP stopped some “anti-citizen watchdog” amendments
Sometimes what isn’t in a bill is most important. For instance, the Texas Municipal League (TML) attempted to put an amendment in legislation making a citizen liable for costs should the citizen make a complaint against an employee of a taxing entity and the Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) rules on the side of the taxing entity. This would have silenced watchdogs and journalists and given taxing entities opportunity to be more pro-active in promoting bond initiatives or defeating rollback elections. HB 677 by Rep. Harnett removed that amendment when we pointed it out. His bill amended the TEC code to require that anyone filing a complaint against a candidate needed to either be a resident of Texas or own property in the state. It provides liability for the respondent’s cost of defending a complaint if it is filed less than 30 days from the election. But fortunately it didn’t provide a free ticket for taxing entities to avoid public scrutiny.

More government-run health care was rejected
Proposals to increase the eligibility for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to 300% of the poverty level were defeated. Current eligibility is 200% of poverty level. Putting more people on a government-run health care plan simply distorts the marketplace. The thought that parents making 3 times the poverty level would have opportunity to get government-subsidized health care for their children is a bad policy cloaked in its being "for the children". I wonder how many of those households put a priority in buying a TV, cable access or satellite TV or other luxuries. Many parents are providing coverage for their children and paying higher taxes for these programs. To act as if federal dollars are free is also foolish and fool hardy.

For an overview and recommendations on CHIP, here is the TPPF policy paper we highly recommend.

What didn’t pass
We regret that we were unable to get more taxpayer protections passed which would empower taxpayers to determine just how much government we want and are willing to pay for. We were also unable to end the practice of taxpayer-funded lobbying. It is clear more work needs to be done before we can assure hard-working Texas taxpayers that their tax dollars will not be used to oppose taxpayer protections. Read more about it here.