06.20.09

Perry’s vetoes and HB 3148

Posted in 81st Legislature, Around The State, Commentary, Criminal Justice, Uncategorized at 10:50 am by wcnews

Kuff has a wrap-up of all the bills Gov. Rick Perry vetoed since session ended.  Here’s some of what he wrote, And here are the vetoes.

Here’s the full list, with links to statements about individual bills, here’s his press release, and here’s his budget statement. A few points of interest:

- Perry wimped out and allowed HB770, the Wayne Christian Homestead Bill, to become law without his signature. Way to lead, big guy. I can’t wait to get Jerry Patterson’s press release about this.

- As already noted, he axed SB488, the Safe Passing Bill. Bicyclists are pissed off.

[...]

- He vetoed HB3148, which would have allowed some minors who engaged in consensual sex to not have to register as sex offenders, which strikes me as petty and short-sighted. I’ll bet that will annoy Grits.

- Rep. Jerry Madden gets his wish, and SB1440 gets zapped.

- Two bills supported by environmentalists, HB821, which related to recycling TV sets; and SB2169, which would have established a smart growth policy work group and the development of a smart growth policy for Texas, got nixed.

- Perry signed HB4294, the electronic textbooks bill, over the objections of some social conservatives. Credit where it’s due – I thought this was a decent bill.

- He signed SB1410, thus negating West University Place’s ordinance requiring fire sprinklers in some new construction. Local control, schmocal control.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m sure there are other gems in there that are not immediately obvious to me, so leave a comment and let me know about them.

There’s many more so go read Kuff’s post. HB 3148 is a particularly bad veto. Especially after the bipartisan support that gathered around that bill. It was a tough vote for some but it was right for this to become law.  Even Rep. Dan Gattis (D-Georgetown) came around on this bill and  stuck his neck out in support of it.

Here’s what Grits had to say in his post Governor Perry’s 2009 Criminal Justice Vetoes.

No leeway, however modest, on sex offender registration
HB 3148 by Smith/West would have allowed those convicted of indecency with a child for an offense committed when they were under 21 in “Romeo and Juliet” type cases to petition the court to keep them off the state sex offender registry. While acknowledging that this might happen only under “very limited circumstances,” that a judge would still have to sign off, and that “other provisions of the criminal code provide some protections against very young victims being re-victimized,” Perry vetoed the bill anyway, declaring, ” I am not willing to take that gamble with the lives of young Texans.”

Looks like Perry was just pandering to the base again on that one.  As Gattis said this bill is, “..the right thing. It’s the moral thing..” to and it lets no one off the hook. It just allows minors who made a mistake to pay their debt and go on with their lives without a being treated like pedophiles for the rest of their lives. This was a shameful veto by Gov. Perry.

Permalink