On this day – a Senate race starts, the first details of the base budget continue to reverberate around the Capitol and the political costs of not raising taxes.
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*The 2012 Senate Race Starts (Really…)*
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Republican who won Lloyd Bentsen’s seat, announced Thursday that she would retire from the US Senate in 2012, at the end of her current term. It’s the first major opening for a statewide elected office in Texas in almost a decade. The line-up of candidates looking to replace her is long, but the one name that really matters is that of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who said Thursday he would consider seeking the Senate seat.
RG Ratcliffe reports on the machinations to win the seat held by the first woman Republican elected to statewide office in living memory:
Every move Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst makes for the rest of this legislative session will be measured through the prism of his future ambitions after he announced Thursday he will seriously consider running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by the retiring U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Dewhurst did not officially join the field of candidates, but given voter fever over federal taxes and spending, Dewhurst will face even harder choices as the Legislature tries to balance the state budget in the face of a shortfall as high as $27 billion.
Republicans already in the race include Railroad Commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones and Michael Williams and former Secretary of State Roger Williams. Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert also is looking at joining the GOP contest. Former Comptroller John Sharp is the only Democrat in the race so far.
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*Deep Deficit Impact*
Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, and Lt. Governor David Dewhurst offered some of the first details about the base budget (to be released Tuesday; hold the questions until Wednesday, please) to the press today. Among the details, that the state would eliminate about 8000 positions – some of those positions are currently staffed. Pitts, who was speaking a forum hosted by the Texas Tribune, that very few programs would be exempt from budget cuts as the Legislature tries to dig itself out of a budget hole that’s $15-27 billion deep.
Pitts also took the opportunity to talk about other issues facing the state during the upcoming session — promising that Tea Party-favored legislation, like Voter ID, would be passed and enacted into law. He also said that the current infusion of violent rhetoric into the political discourse has made him feel less safe.
“I think I was put on the top 5 or the top 10 of the people and they said ‘happy hunting’ on the bottom of the email,” Pitts said about an e-mail that was circulated by opponents targeting him. “I don’t feel quite as secure as I would like to feel, and it’s a sad day that you feel that way. What happened in Arizona was awful and I don’t want it to be repeated again in the state of Texas.”
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*The Political Costs of Not Raising Revenue*
Closing the budget deficit is going to require massive cuts to state services if the Republican majority continues to insist on not raising taxes. No one knows exactly where the cuts will come from but more than 90 percent of the state’s budget is consumed by funding public education, healthcare and corrections. Universities will see their budgets axed, public school teachers will be laid off and schools will be closed, public hospitals will have to do even more with even less. According to a recent poll conducted by Texas newspapers, voters oppose most of those cuts while simultaneously opposing tax increases. The question becomes, what gives first when an unstoppable force (the budget crisis) meets an immovable object (opposition to taxes)?
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The Sked
– The House and the Senate will not be in session tomorrow
– The base budget will be released on Tuesday
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EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT
– From the Chronicle’s Washington D.C. Bureau, Richard Dunham reports on Kay Bailey Hutchison’s decision not to seek re-election.
– The Chronicle’s Joe Holley and the Austin bureau’s RG Ratcliffe report on enterprising politicians lining up to run for Hutchison’s seat.
– Peggy Fikac reports on the the first details of the base budget, including the elimination of up to 8,000 positions in state government.
– Bob Garrett of the Dallas Morning News reports on the House cutting their own budget by 10 percent due.
– And in news from California (because I know you come here just for that): Robert Rizzo — the indicted city manager of Bell, California; who was making more than $800,000 a year — was spotted doing volunteer work as a parking lot attendant in Hunnington Beach at the International Surfing Museum. It’s part of the community service he must complete as part of his sentence for a DUI conviction. Well, after Steve Lopez of the LATimes wrote a column about it, people complained and the museum fired him.
