05.08.09

House goes with single statewide commissioner to lead TxDOT

Posted in 81st Legislature, Around The State, Road Issues, Transportation, Uncategorized at 8:19 am by wcnews

Vote of TxDOT Sunset bill postponed until today

Apparently they were going to try and finish last night, using a little legislative jujitsu, but not everyone would play along. The DMN’s Transportation blog has the skinny, After debate House members postpone vote on TxDOT bill till Friday.

Okay kids, this is getting complicated as the midnight hour approaches. The authors of the TxDOT reorg bill (which now has adopted myriad other items) seem to have agreed that all of the remaining amendments — and the amendments to the amendments — are without controversy. Therefore, they want the members to accept all of them at once — dozens of amendments not more than a handful of the members have actually read.

In return, the plan is to leave the journal open until 5 p.m. Friday, during which time members can actually read the amendments (imagine!) and register opposition.

Not everyone is happy. Yvonne Davis of Dallas laid into her colleagues, saying the process was in shambles. “I sometimes wonder why we even bother to come here, if we are going to take a bill this important and do it this way. I know we are all tired … but we are just destroying the process. We owe the people a little more than this.”

Her objections were batted away. But then someone off camera said “we really ought to not be doing this. 140,000 people elected you (to another member).”

Moments later, they changed course, and members decided to postpone the consideration of each of the amendments, and a final vote on the bill till tomorrow morning.

The big news is that an amendment passed to allow for ONE statewide elected commissioner – taking the place of 5 commissioners appointed by the Governor. But that amendment was amended, yes they do that, to add 14 regional commissioners to the commission. Jason Embry at First Read has more, House votes to triple size of TxDOT leadership.

Perhaps the most interesting amendment was the first one they took up. Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon proposed that the five-member Texas Transportation Commission, now appointed by the governor, be replaced with a single commissioner elected statewide. She said that the buck needs to stop with one person who is held accountable by the people, and the House seemed to agree, voting against an effort to kill her amendment.

Then the House seemed to go the other way. Members adopted an amendment by Rep. David Leibowitz to have, along with the one elected statewide, 14 regionally elected commissioners from around the state. McClendon didn’t fight him and his amendment to her amendment was adopted by a fairly comfortable margin.

Let’s stop and think about that: Suddenly the state would have 15 new positions for someone looking to get into, or advance in, statewide politics. The Legislature would have a whole new set of districts to draw during redistricting, and those districts would have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice. Would the Transportation Commission become a new version of the State Board of Education?

Leibowitz said he wasn’t married to the number of regional commissioners, and if the idea of regional members survives, expect it to be closer to eight or nine. The important thing, said Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, who as a member of the Sunset Advisory Commission has been very involved in the TxDOT bill, is that the commissioners will be elected by the public and not appointed by the governor.

Obviously taking away power from the governor to set transportation policy is  one of the main goals for the legislature in reforming TxDOT. More later.

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