Texas' 86th Legislature convenes in Austin Tuesday with a focus on school reform and property taxes.
Sure there will be debate over cities mandating paid sick leave, pro-life, marijuana, 3D guns and other topics. But Harvey Kronberg at The Quorum Report says much of the session will be dedicated to the nuts and bolts of government.
“You can't deal with property taxes without dealing with school finance,and it's going to be interesting to see how they thread that needle,”he says. “There are lots of conversation about caps or allowing voters a certain threshold past which they could either approve or disapprove property taxes.”
“We have a lot of major issues over at Health and Human Services and in contracting that need to be addressed,” Kronberg added.
And there's optimism on both sides of the aisle about new House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton.
“Bonnen is perceived to be more conservative, but not necessarily more ideological. He's a pragmatic legislator,” says Kronberg. “One of the things Bonnen promised the membership was to shuffle the deck and reward talent.”
Meanwhile,the Texas Senate welcomes six new members, while the House has nearly 30.