Texas Do Not Call

Texas Legislature: Dissent may stifle pending bill

AUSTIN -- The state's anti-sanctuary-cities legislation may die in a special legislative session, said El Paso's Republican lawmaker, Dee Margo, who is hoping to help bury the measure.

The bill allowing local authorities to enforce federal immigration law drew Margo's support before it was derailed in the regular 140-day session. He said he voted for the measure before knowing that it could cost El Paso County millions of dollars.

"I thought it was a fairly innocuous bill," said Margo, a state representative. "I didn't think there was a whole lot to it. I thought it was more form than substance, and not one member of the city or county ever called me about it at all."

The bill would put local governments at risk of losing state grant money if they establish a policy that prohibits employees from questioning the immigration status of people they detain or arrest.

El Paso County already has such a policy as a result of a settlement reached on a 2006 civil-rights lawsuit. The county stands to lose between $7 million and $20 million in state grant money if the bill is passed before Wednesday, the last day of the special session.

Margo said he has been working with the state attorney general's office in hope of excluding El Paso County from the bill, but he is not comfortable that will happen, so he plans to cast a "no" vote.

The freshman legislator joins a growing list of Republican legislators who, either privately or publicly, are expressing reservations after initially supporting the measure.

In recent weeks, Republican lawmakers have heard from people who oppose the bill, including evangelical ministers and some of their largest business donors, such as Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and supermarket mogul Charles Butt.

"Given the high-powered folks that are coming out against it, and I agree, it's just taken on a life of its own," Margo said. "I'm not sure why we're spending the time on it that we are, frankly."

The anti-sanctuary-cities measure is one of several bills caught up in the Legislature because of disagreements among Republicans, who hold large majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Four days remain in the special session called by Gov. Rick Perry, and most of the legislation he has requested has yet to reach his desk.

Texas Do Not Call - News

NYT: Undercover Patients to Test Doctors for Government Survey

"Everybody with a brain knows we do not have enough doctors," Dr. Robert L. Hogue, a family physician in Brownwood, Texas, told the New York Times Monday morning in criticizing a new plan by the

Texas Is Pressed to Spare Mexican Citizen on Death Row

Most take no position on Mr. Leal's guilt or on the death penalty. Their argument is more practical. “If we do not comply with our obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the UN Charter,” said John B. Bellinger III,

Mets score a TKO in Texas: Fan's take

But the Mets seemingly do not get discouraged, not by injuries, not by powerful opponents, not by starting the season 5-13. The Mets have compensated for a lack of firepower with strong starting pitching and speed. Entering yesterday's game, the team's

Authorities investigate cause of 2-alarm plastics warehouse fire in Pasadena

They do not know when the owner will be back. One witness said she heard at least six explosions, but that was not confirmed by authorities. Firefighters later said it was possible the small explosions were caused by exploding propane tanks within the

Perry takes his text from book of Joel

Just to be clear: According to this way of thinking, if you are Jewish, Hindu, and certainly Muslim, if you are homosexual, if you drink or gamble too much, if you take the Lord's name in vain, if in fact you do not subscribe to a fairly narrow

BurkaBlog :: Rearranging the deck chairs on the ... - Texas Monthly

How else to characterize Susan Combs’ statement today detailing senior staff changes in the comptroller’s office? She so doesn’t get it. The problem in the comptroller’s is lack of competence. So what does she do to fix it? She hires a political operative. His name is David White. Here are his credentials for dealing with the fallout from the release of the personal information of 3.5 million Texans and other serious technology issues at the comptrollers’ office.

1. Served as political director for Rick Perry’s reelection. 4. Served as Christian’s lead public policy advisor on several key committees (Regulated Industries, State Affairs, Business and Commerce). I’ll say this for Mr. White. If ever the comptroller should need a revenue estimate for the cost of gender studies at state universities, or for the study of developing a curriculum for a course in the contributions of western civilization, she’s got her man. 6. Consultant for the Republican party of Texas.

These aren’t qualifications. These are connections. And you can’t fix a real problem with someone whose only qualification is his political connections.

There is a one-word description for Combs, and it is CLUELESS. Here she is, with her agency and her reputation in ruins and facing gazillion-dollar lawsuits, and she hires … a political consultant. And not just any consultant, but Wayne Christian’s chief of staff. This is classic Combs. She thinks that substantive problems require political solutions. There is no bottom to this pit of incompetence.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the problems at the comptrollers’ office will soon be but a memory. No doubt Mr. White will bring to his job the same analytical powers demonstrated by his previous boss.

Combs doomed herself shortly after taking office, the day that she fired deputy comptroller Billy Hamilton, one of the most competent and respected public servants in the history of the comptrollers’ office. If Combs had a lick of sense, she would have hired Hamilton instead of White and given him total authority to investigate and fix the problems in the office. But she could never do that, because she would have to admit that she should never have fired him. She’d rather be wrong than own up to a mistake. David White couldn’t hold Hamilton’s number two lead pencil.