More on Perry's funds transfer--House takes money away

According to the Quorum Report, at the end of the House passing its budget, an amendment from Yvonne Davis was added that would take away the funds from Perry's enterprise fund. This is the fund that earlier this session was in the news when Perry gave $50 million that had come at least indirectly from unemployment insurance funds to A&M for a medical research building. The project might have been worthy, but legislators objected to Perry bestowing the money unilaterally instead of going through the usual procedure.

The House seems to be telling Perry directly that it has ultimate budgetary control by passing this amendment that, as the Quorum Report says, "would zero out the budget's funding for the Guv's enterprise fund." The amount that legislators transferred out of the enterprise fund to the job skills development fund is $136 million.

State Republican Executive Committee Member asks Craddick to step down as Speaker

After Craddick declared the Corridor "dead," and after some of the leading Corridor opponents commented on his comment, now Mark McCaig, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, has a column in the Statesman calling for Craddick to relinquish the speakership.

He believes "a Democratic takeover of the Texas House of Representatives is a very real possibility" and that "the only way to prevent further erosion of the Republican majority in the Texas House is for Tom Craddick to immediately announce that he will not seek another term as speaker."

Among other complaints, McCaig points to Craddick's "lobby-driven agenda at the expense of issues important to ordinary Texans." McCaig doesn't mention it specifically, but I would point to such special interests as road contractors driving the Corridor and other public-private partnership toll roads at the expense of rural landowners and the traveling public.

Read the whole column at
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/10/1023mccaig_edit.html