TxDOT restructuring fails, special session next?

TxDOT safety net also failed

Steve Hawley, Jun 02, 09.

The Texas House and Senate failed to reach a compromise on the bill restructuring the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), according to the Houston Chronicle, and the legislature also failed to pass a “safety net” bill to keep TxDOT in business beyond the end of the fiscal year in September. A special session may be necessary to keep the agency alive.

The legislative session technically ended Sunday, with Monday reserved for technical changes to bills. The House approved a two-year TxDOT extension as a technical correction to an unrelated bill sitting on Gov. Rick Perry’s desk, according to the Austin American-Statesman, but the Senate adjourned without voting on the measure. Some lawmakers were concerned that the addition comprised a new law, rather than a technical change to an existing bill.

TxDOT, as well as a number of other state agencies, must be renewed every four years through the so-called “sunset” process. Without renewal, the agency will cease to exist on September 1, 2010, prior to the next legislative session. Some representatives believe the governor must convene a 30-day special session to save TxDOT, while others—including Speaker of the House Joe Straus of San Antonio—insist that a special session is not necessary to keep the department alive. The Chronicle reports that Gov. Perry believes there are multiple ways to keep the agency operating, saying, “The idea that these agencies are going to go away, that’s just not going to happen.”

Lawmakers have increasingly criticized the agency in recent years over its lack of transparency and accountability to both the public and the legislature, and a report released in December called for an overhaul of the agency. The House bill, approved in early May, called for a fifteen-member elected commission instead of the current five-member appointed model. The Senate version, adopted two weeks later, kept the five appointed commissioners but shortened their term lengths.

The two bills contained several other contentious differences as well. The Senate version included an amendment allowing voters to approve new “local-option” taxes to fund local transportation projects, while a House amendment called for red light cameras to be phased out across the state. According to the Trailblazers blog at the Dallas Morning News, Sen. John Carona of Dallas, chair of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, had threatened to filibuster the bill after the conference committee stripped it of the local-option amendment. Carona said the amendment was essential to easing traffic congestion in North Texas.