Travis County Commissioners Court
December 23, 2008
Item 22
22 is to consider and take appropriate action on legislative matters, including, a, the legislative tracking system Travis County will use.
and b, the Travis County legislative program for the 81st Texas legislature, which begins on January 13th, 2009.
a, the tracking system.
>> judge, a pleasure to address you and the members of the court about this issue.
I know that everybody has had visions of sugar plumb fathers dancing in their heads, awaiting christmas.
those of us who are in the intergovernmental retles have have visions of a legislative session beginning three weeks from today.
instead of sugar plums dancing we have speaker politics dancing in our heads.
so our legislative consultant greg nap was here earlier this morning, but could noting here this afternoon.
he left his apologies to the court that he couldn't be here.
wanted to be here for this presentation.
I have a little slide show.
the slides are actually in your packets, but this is just -- I first want to overview what are my goals in terms of how we manage the legislative process during the next six months and so on the first slide, basically our goals are that we'll be -- that the numbers of the court will get the information -- that the members of the court will get the information they need.
we will set up a user friendly process for getting information out to the managers and forgetting evaluations back from the managers.
we're using the telecom system in order to identify bills and we're using the atlas system in order to annualize bills.
we've got about 100 atlas assignments out now that analysts throughout the county are working on.
that information is going to come back to our office and then will be given to you all in digestible form so that you could begin to make recommendations about specific legislative items you want to move forward on and specific bills that you want to support or oppose.
the goal is to create an opportunity for you to have the information you need in order to make recommendations about supporting, opposing or just monitoring bills.
and then for us to be able to communicate that clearly to our legislative consultants and' create a feedback loop where we can get information back to you as quickly as possible about the status of our legislative agenda.
I have tried to articulate that visually in a -- in the chart that you're seeing now, which basically shows all the different sources from which we would be tracking legislation.
we're watching reports from the conference of urban counties, from the Texas association of counties.
we're studying night rider, which is a service that allows us to put in certain key words or key concepts, and track any legislation that's filed regarding those key concepts.
and in any other sources we have, including your offices.
if you hear about a bill that you think is relevant to the county or is important, I hope you will let us know.
we will start tracking all that, getting the analysts to do analyses and write reports on them, getting that feedback back to you in terms of recommendations on whether to support or oppose or just to continue to monitor specific legislation.
giving those directions to our legislative consultants and then creating a feedback loop again where we hear back from them on what success we're having in terms of our legislative agenda.
so that's the process we want to use.
as you know in past years, court has always set aside some time on a regular basis in its weekly meetings to discuss legislation during the legislative session.
I would anticipate that that would continue probably beginning certainly sometime in the month of January, if not January 6th.
in the meantime, though, we have a proposal to set before you, which is the legislative agenda for the Travis County for the session.
this is a document that is principally the work product of the executive managers.
it really represents our internal suggestions with respect to our legislative agenda.
and what I'd like to ask is for the court to adopt this document as a broad legislative program for Travis County.
>> I would suggest also that -- there were some tweaks that I would like to see happen with it just from a wordsmithing perspective.
and I imagine there would be things that would change in this document over the course of the legislative session.
so I would move approval of this with the knowledge that it's a living and breathing document and will probably change significantly.
>> second.
>> this is a?
>> yes.
>> this is the document that has night rider up in the corner?
>> the document I'm speaking of now is the document that says Travis County legislative program, 81st Texas legislature.
I believe that's number 22-b in your packet.
>> you don't like a?
>> well, the a was just a briefing I wanted to give to the members of the court.
there's no action necessary on a.
but on b there is action necessary.
>> motion and a second to approve b.
b, which is the list of Travis County legislative program.
>> and if I may, judge, I would like to reiterate or emphasize what Commissioner eckhardt suggested, that this is a working document.
I assume that there will be some revisions to it.
I already have a note that I have to add something about billboards in here.
so this is going to be a working document for the court, and of course to the extent that it is general and sets forth the broad ideas of what we want, it will be important direction for our legislative consultants, for our legislative delegation and for staff as we begin working on bills.
but before we ask the court to support or oppose a specific piece of legislation, we will come back to the court with that specific language and put that on the agenda for the court.
so this is to really set a broad direction for our legislative consultant, the Travis County legislative delegation and the staff people who will be involved in the next six months of the legislative process.
>> any more discussion?
>> judge -- no.
let's just vote.
because we can go down through this thing, some of the things are there are just going to be --
>> well, there will be specific bills in these broad categories.
>> yes.
our intent is a that based on the court's action today, we will start giving direction to -- again, to both our own internal staff people and to our legislative consultants in terms of what bills to get drafted, what sponsors to work with, trying to move our legislative program forward.
but before we come back to the court and say, here is the bill that accomplishes the land use proposal that we have, we're going to ask the court to give us specific approval on that bill.
>> okay.
>> discussion?
all in favor?
show Commissioners Gomez, Davis, eckhardt and yours truly voting in favor.
Commissioner Daugherty voting against.
now, yesterday I received an e-mail from anne kitchen.
did anybody else get that?
I sent it to you?
>> you did send it to me.
>> okay.
and I think what we ought to do is have her visit with us briefly, probably after the first of the year.
and what she says is that she probably needed the county's support for the legislative items related to the small business initiative that she's been working on.
and I have seen that presentation a couple of times, I think.
it's really a way to help small businesses provide health insurance for their employees at a much more affordable rate than otherwise available.
so what I'd like to do today is just indicate our general support, but ask her to come visit with us.
and if you would just make a note there for us to get that scheduled and be available when we chat with her.
because it really is interesting and it's totally voluntary also for small businesses.
she was out at capcog speaking with the other counties and most of them, it's kind of private sector initiative.
if you want to participate you do.
if you don't, you don't have to.
so I thought she was well received out there too, but we ought to hear her here.
what's the name of her group?
>> icc, the indigent care coalition.
integrated, sorry.
>> also it probably would be good to see what spins out of the president-elect obama's office as far as a lot of health care deals.
because I understand that there may be some suggested assistance to help help businesses or anybody else, the needs as far as health care concerning that.
what that is specifically I do not know, but I hear talk about it.
>> Commissioner, that was part of his platform during the general election.
there has also been some talk with respect to the economic stimulus package that some of the money in that package would be directed towards helping to accomplish some of what were already his goals.
that may be one of them.
>> it may be good to maybe have a little spin on that.
>> yes, sir.
>> as you know, the economic stimulus package is a work in progress, even more so than our document is.
and we will be reporting back to the court in the first part of next year about a set of recommendations for Travis County's, if you will, wish list for the economic stimulus package.
the city of san antonio has put one together.
as we know, txdot has put one together.
so there are a number of these being fashioned and we're working with the managers on a set of questions to ask them to help best advise the court on what would be our wish list under the economic stimulus package.
>> great.
>> we'll set that up.
anything else today under 22?
did we get the briefing on a?
>> yes, sir.
>> we've already received it?
>> yes.
it was that wonderful little chart.
>> [ laughter ]
>> got a feedback loop.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 6:05 PM