hot list: day 99

Day 99 of the 82nd Texas Legislature

LINE OF THE DAY
“I don’t know that you can raise a tax high enough to curtail the consumption of things that are unhealthy for our children.”
Sen Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, on a bill to tax sodas.

OBSERVED
Teachers may soon be laid off and nursing homes might close, but some Texas lawmakers are fighting to save money for an especially disenfranchised group: mega-yacht owners. As Forrest Wilder reports, the House Ways and Means committee heard a bill yesterday that would give a tax break on boats over $250,000.  

BEST OF THE REST
Texas lawmakers yesterday took one small step toward putting more money into the austere House budget that cuts $23 billion from current state spending. As Peggy Fikac of the Houston Chronicle reports, House budget writers approved a bill that would add $3 billion in non-tax revenue to the bare-bones 2012-2013 budget.  

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
Today the House will take up a number of bills, including one to outlaw salvia and a bill that would create an innocence commission to investigate cases of wrongful conviction. Meanwhile, there are rumors that the Senate may debate the sonogram bill.