For weeks it has been assumed that community activist Claudia Fowler would run in the Democratic Primary for District 110 in the Texas House of Representatives.  Fowler worked with Obama Dallas back in 2008, has worked with the Urban League and currently hosts “The Queen of Community Conversation,” on the DFWiRadio.com.

The last two times I saw Claudia she said she was seriously considering becoming a candidate herself. But today the word came down that Ms. Fowler has decided not to run, and is throwing her support behind Larry Taylor.

District 110 currently includes Fowler’s home area of Joppa.  “I care deeply about Joppa and my district and had even been considering a run myself,” said Fowler in a recently released statement.

She went on to say ““I am enthusiastic about Larry Taylor’s campaign because he shares my Democratic values and because he will stand up for the needs of this community.”  Fowler said she will encourage citizens of Joppa as well as her friends and family to support Taylor’s candidacy.

Larry Taylor

Former Eddie Bernice Johnson staffer and current Craig Watkins prosecutor Larry Taylor has filed as a candidate for the Texas House 110 Democratic Primary in 2012.  ”I am excited to begin this journey to bring House District 110′s values to Austin,” Taylor said in a message to supporters “but I cannot do this alone.”

Last week Taylor dropped by our newsroom to discuss his decision to run for elected office.  He’s worked for the House Parliamentarian in Austin, as Director of Outreach for Congresswoman Johnson and a Misdemeanor Prosecutor for Dallas County.  ”I decided to take my public service to a new level,” he said.  ”Having worked with state, federal and now local agencies has provided me with insight on how I can further help House District 110,” said Taylor.

The Man In the Bow Tie

Mr. Taylor is touting the endorsement of his current boss Dallas County District Attorney Watkins as well as State Senator Royce West, saying he would consider himself “blessed to be able to join Senator West in the State Legislature.”  Taylor said he has reached out to many local officials though he has yet to speak with current District 110 Representative Barbara Mallory Caraway.

Anyone who has watched Taylor as he’s moved around Dallas the last few years can’t help but notice that he’s always fitted with a bow tie.  He said he does so because of something his great-grandmother said when she saw him in a bow tie one day.

“She told me I looked exactly like my great-grandfather who worked on the train,” Taylor explained.  ”Since then I’ve always worn bow ties,”  he said, “my great-grandfather and I were very close.”

Education and Business for District 110

According to Taylor, education is going to be a big focus of his campaign and would be an issue he would champion in Austin.  He doesn’t have to look very far to find someone who will give him an earful about the state of education in Texas. “I just call my mom and put her on speaker phone,” said Taylor, “because she’s a teacher.”  He called recent budget cuts to state education “a bad move” saying teachers are having to do more with less resources for their students.

The Texas A&M and Thurgood Marshall School of Law graduate also says he wants to bring more business opportunities to the area that currently includes portions of Dallas, Balch Springs, Hutchins, Mesquite, Seagoville, and unincorporated Dallas County.

“You shouldn’t have to travel outside the district for everything,” Taylor said.  ”If we can’t get Starbucks to come to our community, there has to be someone in District 110 that can make a good cup of coffee,” he said.  ”Then we have to support them”

Part of a New Generation

As more candidates for the 2012 race make themselves known, it’s clear that a younger group of Dallas .  ”A lot of our current elected officials are my mentor’s,” he explained,” but I’m that new generation, with a new way of thinking.”  Taylor said it’s important that younger leaders respect those who have come before them and use their lessons to build a better tomorrow.

He joins Sylvia Rhodes Bradley (Dallas County Commissioner Court Place 3) and Taj Clayton (U.S. House District 30) as candidates who are running as part of the new guard in Southern Dallas. But most of all he hopes to join State Representative Eric Johnson who actually broke through and won his Texas House 100 race last year. “My skill set and my experience make me a good fit for the State House position.”

For more information about this candidate, visit www.votelarrytaylor.com

After hearing nearly two hours of testimony – mostly opposing the issuance of a license plate bearing the Confederate battle flag logo, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, (DMV) with no debate, voted unanimously to deny the application submitted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Dallas State Sen. Royce West was on hand to testify at the DMV regular board meeting this morning that was moved to the John H. Reagan Building on the capitol grounds to accommodate larger than normal crowds.

The 2011, 82nd Texas legislative session and a 30-day special called session was by far the most controversial in recent history.  The 2010 general election gave Republicans a super majority in the House; 101 to 49 Democrats and in the Senate there are 19 republicans and 12 democrats.  Therefore the Republicans controlled the agenda and any legislation that would be considered by the whole body.

Secondly, the Governor also pushed a very conservative agenda. Governor Rick Perry, now seeking the republican nomination for President of the United States, designated six bills as emergencies to ensure they would be considered early in the session.

The emergency bills were:

1) “Voter id” requiring a voter to show a photo id when voting.
2) “Donogram bill” requiring women to get a sonogram before having an abortion.
3) “Sanctuary cities” giving local law enforcement the authority to question the legal status of a personwhen legally detained or arrested.
4) A resolution requiring the federal government to put forth a constitutional amendment to adopt abalanced budget.
5) “Eminent domain” dealing with property owner rights and
6) “Lawsuit reform” requiring losers to pay their opponents legal fees.

“Sanctuary cities” is the only “emergency” legislation that failed.  The budget however presented the biggest challenge.  Texas faced a $27 billion deficit going into the 2011 session.  The state constitution requires that the budget is balanced. Governor Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Speaker of the House Joe Strauss pledged early on they would not increase revenue through taxes and would not use the rainy day fund to offset the deficit.

They committed to balancing the budget with only cuts.  Ultimately, funding for programs in health and human services and education were hit the hardest.  Here is a brief review of some of the budget cuts and how they will affect education during the next biennium:

• Cut in state pension and health-care contributions for retired teachers.
• School districts will receive $4 billion less in state aid, a cut of about $400 a year per student.
• Thousands of jobs eliminated in school districts throughout the state.
• The elimination of discretionary grants from the Texas Education Agency.

I am concerned about the cuts in education and how they will affect our children’s future. Texas is 49th out of 50 states in education funding.  We are still at the bottom because of the lack of commitment by the Texas legislative body to maintain the status quo or to provide funding for the more than 80,000 a year student population growth.

The Governor signed these bills into law.  I did not vote for any of the legislation mentioned in this article because I believed it was detrimental to the citizens i represent.  Texas can do better.

State Representative Barbara Mallory Caraway serves Texas House District 110

State Senator Royce West

We knew when we arrived in January that we faced a shortage in the state’s budget in excess of $20 billion. And we knew that talk of raising or generating new funding sources would fall on ears rendered tone-deaf by the Tea Party’s no new taxes roar. And now, we know that the repercussions of the budget passed by the 82nd Legislature will last long past the biennium.

The fact that we were thrust into a recently-ended special session is a direct result of how some of my colleagues felt about how we – as state lawmakers – will hand to local school districts a budget that is at least $4 billion short of what it will take to sustain existing funding levels and will result in the loss of thousands of jobs. Fact also is that somewhere during the latter part of FY13, school districts will run out of money if additional measures are not taken.

My Democratic colleagues made the decision during the regular session that they could not support a budget that for the first time since at least 1949, will not provide for the more than 70,000 new students who show up on Texas’ schools doorsteps each year. It’s also the first time in decades that a budget vote has been cast strictly along party lines.

There are 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats in the Texas Senate. The outcome of the November 2010 midterm elections, and a surprise defection or two, saw a super-majority of 101 Republicans cement control of  the Texas House of Representatives. I often use former President Bill Clinton’s saying that elections have consequences. And the consequences of the 2010 elections and the 2012-13 budget will resonate, and yes rain, on many Texans for years to come.

Understand this to mean that House Republicans can meet, form a quorum and pass bills as though Democrats do not exist. The only barrier to a resistance-free path to the governor’s desk for legislation that is potentially harmful to our communities is the rule that requires a two-thirds vote to advance any piece of legislation to the Senate floor. One problem: on partisan issues, Republicans wield the means to bypass the two-thirds rule.

This happened during the regular session with controversial bills on sonograms and voter ID, and even HB1, the state’s budget bill.  And also, during a special session the two-thirds rule is often not in place.

The consequences of all this have already begun with school districts – as early as May – announcing personnel layoffs. Statewide, teachers comprise more than 60 percent of a school district’s budget. Teachers, teacher aides and support personnel could lose jobs by the thousands because state leadership championed a pledge of no new taxes and due to my colleagues resistance of all measures that would raise revenues.

With the state’s flat refusal to raise funds, even by closing millions in tax loopholes, those decisions will be pushed down for cities, counties and school districts to make the unenviable choices of dipping into fund reserves, raising taxes or making cuts. Some combination of the three is all but certain.

The budget will also not fund caseload growth for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – which pays healthcare costs for those who are indigent or cannot afford health insurance. Medicaid is paid for by the state matching federal contributions that pay medical providers.

One might ask, ‘why don’t we use the $9.5 billion we’ll have in the Economic Stabilization Fund, i.e., the Rainy Day Fund?’ Well if you haven’t been able to track us day-to-day, we have. The Legislature will pay for the shortages in the current FY11 budget with $3.2 billion from the state’s savings account.

In addition, the decision to not fund $4.8 billion in Medicaid caseload growth will call for that running tab to be settled-up by the Rainy Day Fund in 2013. Do the math, it’s simple grade school arithmetic, although rising class sizes may make even that task more difficult.

Royce West was first elected to the Texas Senate in November 1992 and represents the 23rd Senatorial District.

(May, 28, 2011) Tonight in an effort to stop the most offensive budget ever considered by the Texas House of Representatives, I raised several points of order on House Resolution 2558 as a means to stop further consideration of that measure and the Conference Committee Report for House Bill 1, the state budget.  While I knew this was a must pass bill for the House leadership, and that it would probably be overruled, I am certain that stopping these measures would have benefitted Texas and Texans!  Unfortunately the points of order were overruled and both measures were considered and passed.   Without any doubt, Texas and Texans deserve better!

As I still believe, there were many options never considered during the budget deliberations that would have created a more balanced and less offensive outcome to the citizens of this State.  Although I disagreed and questioned the Republican tactics of fiscal management since the start of this legislative session, I also offered solutions to our budget crisis.  I filed several bills in an effort to examine and eliminate the egregious tax breaks and exemptions which are given to various businesses.  My bills would have provided approximately $22 billion more dollars to restore funds to education, health care, student financial aid, Medicaid for the elderly, and other essential services.   Not only did the leadership ignore this huge resource of dollars hidden beneath those tax benefits, but they further refused to tap the “Rainy Day Fund” to sufficiently solve the state’s rainy day woes!

Because of the various accounting gimmicks and tricks, this budget will add to our State’s structural deficit!  This budget will cost Texas hundreds of thousands of jobs and countless citizens will no longer be able to count on the essential services of our government.

I could never accept the budget cuts being placed only on the backs of our citizens while businesses not share the burden.  The priorities of our budget should reflect the values of our State.  Texas and Texans deserve better!

State Representative Eric Johnson (D-Dallas) has been appointed to the Joint Oversight Committee on Higher Education Governance, Excellence, and Transparency by Speaker Joe Straus.  The Committee is responsible for overseeing the governing boards of the state’s institutions of higher learning and ensuring that their policy decisions are made transparently and follow best practices.

“I am honored that Speaker Straus has appointed me to the Higher Education Joint Oversight Committee,” said Representative Johnson.  “In order for quality higher education to be accessible and affordable for Texas families, it’s critical that the governing boards of our colleges and universities be held accountable for the policies they implement.  I look forward to working with the Committee over the next two years on an in-depth examination of these governing boards and proposing meaningful reforms where necessary.”

Representative Johnson is the only freshman legislator who will serve on the Joint Oversight Committee.  He also is a member of the House Committee on Appropriations and the House Committee on Higher Education.

State Senator Royce West will host  “Inside the Budget Battle” on Monday night, a Teleconference Town Hall Meeting. Senator West will be live from the State Capitol.  The info to participate in call is below:

Monday – May 2, 2011
7:30 p.m.— 8:30 p.m.
(Live Budget Discussion)

To participate in the TeleConference call 1-888-886-6603 ext. 16606

Following the superstition held by many athletes who grow a beard during the playoffs, State Representative Eric Johnson (D-Dallas) has refrained from shaving until he passes a bill out of the Texas House.  This morning, Representative Johnson passed his first two bills out of the House.

House Bill 184 seeks to minimize the time a district goes without representation when a vacancy occurs in the Legislature.  House Bill 1106 will ensure that Texans placed on deferred adjudication fully understand their right to limit who may view the record of their deferred adjudication.

“I was very excited to pass my first two bills out of the Texas House, meaning I can now finally cut off my beard,” said Representative Johnson.  “All joking aside, I am glad to advance these pieces of legislation, which address important issues facing the people of District 100 and the state of Texas by helping to ensure that citizens have representation and criminal defendants are aware of their rights.”

House Bill 184 requires the Secretary of State to declare an unopposed candidate elected to fill a vacancy in the legislature on the second day after the filing deadline or on the second day after the candidate becomes the only remaining eligible candidate for that office.  Currently, the Secretary of State has discretion as to when such an election is certified, which can leave districts without representation for longer than necessary.

House Bill 1106 requires a judge to inform a defendant being sentenced to deferred adjudication of his or her right to petition for an order of non-disclosure, which limits the entities to which information about the deferred adjudication can be released.  Since successful completion of a deferred adjudication does not result in a conviction, many defendants are unaware that their criminal record will reflect the deferred adjudication until the record poses problems as they attempt to find employment or housing.

Representative Johnson looks forward to his bills advancing through the Senate and continuing to work for the people of District 100 in the House as the Texas summer approaches sans beard.