Winners And Losers From The Marathon State Budget Debate

This week in Texas politics with the Texas Tribune.

By Rhonda FanningApril 7, 2017 12:32 pm, , ,

It’s time to talk about the week that was in Texas politics. Texas Tribune multimedia reporter Alana Rocha spoke with the Standard about what’s been going on across the state.

The big news from early this morning: the Texas House budget battle. And that means there are some winners and losers this week.

“That’s how you could see it with those several hundred amendments of which they only got to a fraction of in a 15-hour debate,” Rocha said. “But a big winner was child welfare [and] foster care programs, you saw money stripped from the attorney general’s office, $20 million that would normally go to his office to fight lawsuits. Also $43 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund, kind of the governor’s bank account to be able to lure businesses to the state went to two foster care programs. So that was definitely a big winner.”

The losers include the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

“There were certainly tense moments, but anti-abortion efforts did succeed, but at the expense of air quality. There was $10 million that went to abortion alternatives. And the Republican lawmakers argue that that account normally for TCEQ has more money than it needs so they could stand to strip money from that.”

What you’ll hear in this segment: 

-What happened when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for a vote on his “school choice” bill 

-Updates on a bill that would allow Texans to donate money towards the rape kit backlog when they obtain or renew their driver’s license