Travis County Commissioners Court
July 17, 2007
Item 30
>> number 30 is to receive, report and take appropriate action regarding legislative action taken durring the 80th Texas legislature and the impact of certain legislation on Travis County.
>> good morning, judge and Commissioners. My name is bob kim, I'm here with chris shield and tallia gasser,en a we are very pleased to present to you our written summary of the legislative session. I think by now you probably all have copies of that written report. What we'd like to do is first off, I'd like to take a few minutes and walk you through the report and show you what is in there, and then we'll be happy to answer any questions the court has regarding the bills. Let me start off briefly with the first page in the report. The acknowledgments. This is a page where we take time to thank you, to thank your staff, to thank the Travis County delegation and their staff, the associations that you participate in, the conference of urban counties don lee and his staff, the Commissioners and judges association, jim alison and his staff, Texas association of counties, paul sug and cary baitel and their staff and all the help and leadership they provide on county issues. On the third page of the report we have a table of contents, an introduction, which we will talk about briefly. Priority one legislation, as you know, those are the bills that you have asked us to actively work on during the session. So you are very familiar with those . Priority two legislation are the approximately 40 bills in the section that you took a vote on during the session to either support or oppose. In the summaries of those bills, besides the impact that we see it having on Travis County, it also includes the vote that you took on that. So you will know what your position was there. Another section that is fairly substantial in the report. Other bills of interest that have passed. These were bills, these are bills that affect counties and ones that we may not have talked about on more than perhaps one occasion during the course of the session, but we want to highlight those bills because some of those have new responsibilities or duties for you as Commissioners, as county officials, and we want to highlight some of those for you. Finally, bills opposed by Travis County that failed to pass. There were a number of bills that you had asked us to go over there and try to improve. You often gave us language to try to include. And that is a list of those bills that did not pass, that would have, in your opinion, have had an adverse impact on the county and its citizens.
>> senate bill 1690 included in that? Senate bill 1690 included in the ones that, in fact, are having an impact on residents of Travis County?
>> that is a bill that did not pass, yes.
>> so was that included?
>> I believe it was not included in the bills that failed to pass.
>> why?
>> yes, there was a group of three bills relating to land use that did not pass.
>> yeah. We really want to make sure that the upcoming legislative session, that we continue to push forward with some type of land use authority for zoning, especially for counties that would like to have that option available to them. I know there are counties that may not want it but there are counties, I think, that would like to have it. Of course, not being available, I think it's something that we need to continue to work on. I don't want to just have it die on the vine and not do anything about it . That was another portion of this presentation that we were, if the court would like to begin to give us some direction for next session so that we can start working on those type of issues.
>> yeah, well, 1690 is one of them, I think. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
>> wanted to just make a few comments about the introduction. Before that I wanted to publically thank our team here, chris shields that I've worked with for almost nine years now. He is outstanding at what he does and he is so easy to work with and does a great job. Whatever we need and whatever I ask him to do, he goes and does it without complaint. Of course, our newest member tallia gaster, that came on and did an outstanding job for the county and the team. I want to thank them. As long as I'm at it, we have daniel bradford here sitting at the table with us. Daniel was very, very instrumental, did an outstanding job in helping coordinate the relationship between us and the county. Daniel, thanks for being here and for all your help.
>> also working with you all got daniel a big promotion.
>> never thought about it that way.
>> judge.
>> thanks to all of you. Really appreciate it.
>> the introduction is an overview of what we think happened during the session, the impact on the counties. As you know, whenever a piece of legislation passes, it's requirely the result of just one representative or one senator. It's ly many, many people both on the outside and inside of the process. And on various issues, the county was, we think, very instrumental in terms of either you as the court or your staff, taking part through either going to the legislature and being a witness or providing us with information that we in turn could provide to the Travis County delegation and other representatives. There were other issues that the county took a lead on. A good example was the gasby 45 and susan spitaro and her staff, how they grabbed that issue and moved it forward. Your priority one issues, there were several bills there that had statewide impact, notably the bill that dealt with the constables and their liability, and Travis County took a huge lead in that legislation, the constable e lfon the t, the county attorneys that helped draft that legislation, a great role in that particular bill. Another bill that the sheriffs are requested you to support, and that dealt with misdemeanor citations, again a bill with statewide impact and a bill that your staff was very, very active on. The sheriff's office as well. In terms of providing information, appearing as witnesses in both the house and senate on those bills. We wanted to recognize those efforts and also to let you know that here, I think it's the fifth session that we have been involved with the court, how the staff has become more involved and grown in this process. Really, we think has had an opportunity impact over there at the legislature. With that, we are happy to answer any questions that you have on any of the bills throughout the report.
>> the report only lists our successes. It doesn't detail any of our failures. Correct? It's only bills that passed.
>> the final portion of the report does have bills that failed to pass.
>> but those were the ones we didn't like, right?
>> that's correct. That's correct. There were bills that you supported that failed to pass. You are correct. If they did not pass, then we did not highlight them. I think the ones that Commissioner Davis had mentioned is probably a good example.
>> I think that it would be instructive for us to list our initiatives that didn't fly as well. I think that in some respects that would be a better guide post for what we need do in the interim.
>> exactly.
>> to prepare for the next legislative session. I think it is valuable and gratifying to see how we succeeded, I think perhaps where we didn't succeed is, would be very useful.
>> if the court is in agreement, we would provide you a written supplemental report of those bills. And that is, I think, would be a good starting point for discussion for what we have to do next session.
>> what would be a good starting point? I have heard that a few times. As far as the next legislative session. When would be a good time for us to hammer out these things once you flush them out, the bills that of course the Commissioners court supported and of course they didn't pass at the legislature. What would be a good time for us to look at these bills, flush them out, lack at them and then get started the neck next time around. In other words so we get a good head of steam leading into the next legislative session.
>> Commissioner Davis, once we file this report with you today, we would like to start immediately for next session. Just to follow up on the discussion you all had last week on a position, the sooner we can start, it really isn't the two or three months before the legislative session. We really need to start now, working with the court and your staff, to form lalt those issues that you want to work on and begin to have consensus within the county. We can get those builts, if we can get those bills drafted before the end of this year, at least in draft form. Then we have a full year to deal with the stakeholders that are going to come out and oppose the legislation. As you know, there's always someone that has a different viewpoint. We need time to sit down with those people and work on language, bring it back to you so you can review it. So the sooner we can start, the more effective we will be. I think also, I think we can take on some larger issues because if we start now, and you have a draft agenda before the end of this year, then we can take that agenda to the legislators interested in that. And as they pick it up and become more interested, we can do a lot more with those pieces of legislation.
>> was there any instance in any of these bills that failed, the ones that the court supported, is there any indication that we know why we actually filed? In other words, I know some of them died in committee and stuff like that. But why did they die in committee? Why didn't they move? Is there any way to track that ?
>> absolutely. I think on every bill that failed we can identify either members of the legislature or interest groups that were opposed to the bill. They just didn't like that particular language. Now, their opposition, it's not to say that we can't turn their opposition. It may be a matter of removing something from the bill or changing some language or giving us some assurances that the legislation is doing something different than they thought it might be doing. That is again why we need as much time as we can get. It's just a process. The more time we can do, the more people we can engage on that, I think the better success the county is going to have.
>> how many bills, and I think this tells us, how many bills get written or brought up, and what percentage of bills pass? That probably speaks to what you are talking about.
>> for the last four or five sessions there's been approximately 6,000 bills filed, roughly 28 percent of those bills passed. But of those 28 percent, most of those are local and consent. So you probably have about one in ten bills passing thatter actually contested. So it's a small percentage.
>> that is what is so important to really know what goes on over there and why you all are so important. You can, you know, bring, you can write or bring up the bills that we were trying to pass, and give us the guidance on here is the poison pill in this bill. Here is the poison pill in this bill. Because that is how it works over there. You only need one in the eyes of the beholder, egregious something, and before you nee know, you have so many people that pile on it that you guys are go over there and work yourself into the ground knowing, if I were to ask you guys ahead of time which one of these bills do you think really has a chance, we probably would be surprised about how few you all would go, let me tell you where this one is going to have an issue, where this one is going to have several issues. That is the reality of how that thing works over there.
>> a lot of times you don't know why people are opposing a bill until you go talk to them, until they actually see the language. That is why we are encouraging you to get draft language now why counsel is there and ready to do it. Once you can see it and then once they tell you the issues you are have, you can go back to the drawing board and possibly come up with something that they will accept. Not not always, but you certainly have a much better chance.
>> the Travis County delegation on the house and senate side, is there any way possible that we could infiltrate what we are doing here early on? As far as letting them know--
>> we can't do anything without a legislator being the champion of that issue.
>> exactly. So that is the point I'm trying to bring up. The entire delegation, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't know that this is what Travis County is interested in and who will want to pick up the ball and run with it.
>> actually, my opinion is that our delegation is not, they are north the issuethe--not the issue. What happens to us, people in other district influence what we want in the urban areas. So it's urban versus rural and the kinds of things, challenges that urban counties have. I've always found our delegation to be right on top of the issue. You know, with just them being there, it's not enough. So we need to talk to other representatives from other counties and see if we can come to agreement.
>> I think it's a family affair.
>> what was the largest impediment procedurally this session in working with us? Give us something that could change that would make our success rate that would improve our success rate.
>> and do in the say the Commissioners court.
>> that's what we were going to say, the judge specifically. I was trying to stop bob from saying that. I think the number one impediment, and bob and tallia may want to add something to this thought, but it's getting started too late in the process. I will tell you without shame that we have tried our best to encourage the departments and the court to get engaged with us earlier on than we have been able to persuade everyone to do. So I think we did a better job this session than we have ever done in the past. And I think that's one of the reasons why we had seven priority one items and all seven of them passed. But we still kind of started about in September or so before the session. And if we follow Commissioner Davis's suggestion and what everyone seems to be agreeing with, and try to have a better handle on what you want to do a whole year ahead of team, that is going to make a huge difference in the scope of the issues that we're able to take on. The other, one point I do want to make, show, is that at least half of what the court was involved with this time, if you kind of measurist on some sort of point basis, was defensive. At least half of what was important to this court in the big scheme of things was preventing stuff from passing that there was no salvation for. It wasn't a matter of us fixing it. It just was legislation that would have negatively or adversely impact the the county. Those things we don't always know about ahead of time. They are stuff that we kind of have to see what gets filed and then go work on. And the court had, and certainly Travis County can't take credit for this, but as a part of the county organizations and whatnot, the court had a very good year defeating several bills which really were very negative. So that is going tor half of your job, I think, in 2009 no matter what. But this part, in my mind, the number one thing we can do is just get started earlier and figure out what you want to do. And that is an absolute requirement on the big issues.
>> what would you say would be, what was our best tool this legislative session? I asked you about our number one impediment. What was our number one best tool? So that we can improve on it.
>> in my opinion, I really think it's your staff. If you saw the staff eight years ago and where they are today, there are so many of them there that know the process so well and they are on top, they read the bills, they are on top of it, they provide us with great feedback that we can then use when we are over there. So now, it's sometimes difficult to coordinate those communications just because of the setup and we struggle with that a bit.
>> so we need to maximize.
>> you have great people. And since they are here in town it's easy for them to walk across the street. That would be it. I mean, I say the staff, an extanks--extension, you five because you are here and you can walk across the street as well and have an impactment it's frustrating, as it may be, because I know you have all gone over there especially the judge. Every time a judge goes over to testify on a bill, he has to sit there for five hours. It's the rule of judge Biscoe.
>> ohm one member of the committee is there when I get a chance to speak.
>> the court would be very, very appreciatetive and pleased if you were ever a fly on the wall during the staff meetings that we have with your staff. They are lengthy, good, substantive, very well done meetings and conversations. And that, I think what bob is saying, we can remember a few years ago when we didn't have that level of sophistication as a team and group. So that has been a huge plus for us.
>> I'm going to soap box very briefly. The county government, not just in travis but in other county governments, are becoming very sophisticated because we have to, because so much responsibility is is evolving to us. I thank you for helping us. I think our successes defeating bills is a precursor or canary in the coleman that we are becoming a stronger voice and will become, I anticipate, more effective in our offensive posture as well in pushing the ball. I think Travis County has a real opportunity to be an innovator in county governance along with the other major metropolitan counties in Texas. So I really look forward to becoming even more robust next legislative session and sessions beyond. Let me just say, daniel bradford made this big book, a modern day come pentium and what not for this session, and it's being passed on to peter ein horn, we will no longer call daniel a trait for his office now that we have his replacement. Daniel has gone down to the county attorney's office. I wanted to say, I really appreciate all that daniel did this last session.
>> my pleasure.
>> and peter has some pretty big feet, so he might be able to fill your shoes.
>> tac and cuc do a pretty good job of preparing for the next legislative session far in advance of convening of the session?
>> can I just note something? I just received an e-mail from policy folks at cuc saying that they would be having a committee meeting next week, I believe, or the beginning of August to prepare for the interim. So I think as they prepare, you know, we should probably follow suit.
>> they did a good job this session, a good job preparing for the seg, and I think they will do a good job on the big issues. The issues we are concerned about are the ones more specific to Travis County, some of which have statewide implications but maybe just don't matter as much to other counties or haven't been identified by other counties as something they want to focus on. That is the part of the equation that we want to ask for the court and the staff to engage much earlier on. It's those priority one type issues that, all of them were important to the court, and a couple were big deals, but we could certainly potentially expand the scope and importance of what you put on your priority one list with advance efforts.
>> I think, judge, concerning the post legislative issues going to some of those issues, which they do every time the legislature meets, and cuc will do the same thing to work on those issues.
>> both of those organizations are more defensive than anything. But if issues, and they work year-round.
>> bob, you are a football tan ?
>> yes, sir.
>> best offense is good defense. What we have learned too is a lot of critical legislation that others think will help us will in fact harm us. And unfortunately, right about November, December, every year, every other year I get to feeling real defensive. All I'm saying, nothing wrong with that. I think that we have survived because of a pretty good defense to some of that sort of stuff.
>> when I worked as lawyer in the senate I worked for a senator whose famous saying was the last thing we need is another piece of legislation. I'm not suggesting that we go out there and get bills that we can pass just for the same of getting bills. I'm saying if there are some problems out there, some issues, let us attack those from the legislative angle. It may turn out that there's not a legislative solution. We have seen that in the past. Once we get people together there's things that can be done without a legislative solution. You're right, once you lay something out there, you know, it can look a whole lot different after it gets through the process. And you may not be pleased with that. So I'm saying that we can be more useful in helping the county solve some problems because we can bring in that legislative side to it. If there's a senator or a representative in a piece of legislation that can fix that problem or part of it, then we would do it. But we're not suggesting that let's just have a, you know, 25 bills next session to have 25 bills. I would be happy to have zero because then we could do a lot better job on the defensive part.
>> I've always wondered why counties really don't get together and help one another. I mean, to me the most telling point about the legislature is, you know, people don't stap up and object to bill, they just figure out a way to quietly kill it in one of those committees. But if you know in advance that there is an issue dear to you and critical legislation, I don't know why we don't communicate that to the other, all the other counties and hope that they will inform their delegation, and in return we will do the same thing for them is there that is something that you work on in the interim. You start building those coalitions and start identifying those issues and start educating.
>> and one interesting part of the puzzle, the cuc does some of this for us in regard to integrating policy that would affect all urban counties. But in instances where it's a critical bill to us and a local bill, the cuc's mission statement doesn't include advocacy of a bill that only has a limited scope. They will only advocate a coordinated response when it's a bill that affects them all. So that is something that we really have to carry the ball on. We have to carry our own weight by finding other like counties that have similar issues and working in coordination with them in the interim.
>> I'm suggesting a novel approach of just trying all the other counties on stuff because what they argue is that even if it's local legislation, if it's in place for Travis County and they don't like it, they think that the next session, their residents will put pressure on them to pursue like legislation. I've heard that argument many times. I don't know whether it's true or not. But it's true that they argue it, and they use that as just if if--justification really for asking their delegation to do what they can to kill it.
>> I think you have identified a very important strategy in on you we should go forward. We have reached that tipping point. As we were just talking about the counties are having to become more sophisticated and that is a more sophisticated approach. It's really a matter of finding those parties, educating them where they disagree with us, and getting them to agree to play with us when they do agree with us. And we have all the ability now in the internet and telecommunications has really made that a very viable strategy now.
>> makes sense if you have a year and a half. It's hard to get done in 30-60 days.
>> and judge, on any issue that comes before us, that I see as one of our main roles is to identify the supporters and oh pony . If you can't da--oh poniants. If you can't do that you are going to be surprised. That is one of the things we try to do, get word out and circulate drafts. Sometimes like someone always pops up at the 11th hour. If we have more time we have a better opportunity of reaching more folks that might surprise us.
>> I hate to say this publicly, but a lot of legislators really don't fully appreciate the impact of legislation, but they have been either encouraged to oppose or support because friendly legislators have taken a position. And when you chat with them and you ask, you know the impact of this is this, a lot of them really just admit, I didn't really know that.
>> I think even on top of that, judge, the process itself by its nature pushes responsibilities and obligations and costs down streemstream. And so some of the acts of the legislature, as this court very well knows, costs county governments or city governments or school boards dollars. That has been an increasing area of conflict. This year we tried again for there to be legislation that would reduce the ability of the legislature to pass along unfunded mandates to counties, but we have never been successful in that, part list because we can't quite define that. But in some areas, such as criminal justice, that is not just a significant cost, it's one of the major costs of county government. And so that is almost the process. It's not even the individual legislators not being sensitive to it. It's almost institutionalized that it seems to me that's how it works. But on a very positive note, the legislature reversed that trend in the criminal justice area this session for the first time since I've been working around the capitol. And it's a significant way in criminal justice. I think hopefully they will begin to reverse that trend in other areas going forward.
>> .
>> my final question, in addition to looking at legislation that we supported that failed, why wouldn't we try, other legislation I think that is kind of like accessing the mobility fund, other stuff happens annually that all of the officials impacted complain about all of the time. We may not be able to change any of this but I don't know that complaining every time the legislature arrives helps any. You would think that putting together a strategy that educates Texas residents on the impact of using a mobility fund to fund, to divert to other projects, simply means you don't have as many transportation dollars. In the urban and small counties seems to me they are all saying transportation is important and the way that it's recommended to fund them now ie toll roads, hurts and my residents don't want that. I don't know why we wouldn't try to do something like that. The other thing, there is legislation that pass that had we need to see the impact of. I don't know why we wouldn't pull that list. That that $50 fee for the drug court. I understand it won't generate enough money to do good. We have a drug court already but we ought to look at that so if we reject it, we do so. The other thing, they did put more money in the tyc program, but our people are saying that the state will determine how to allocate that. I don't know how you increase your allocation or you just sit back and hope the state does the right thing. If they start releasing juveniles while they are still juveniles, they come back here and we have to provide some sort of treatment programs. If they release you as young young adults to get you out of the system, pretty soon you ends up in dell vail. Seems to me we ant to use the next few months to really figure out what the legislature did, whether they gave the money and authority to another state agency, whether they authorized counties to do different stuff and authorized setting a fee of some sort. We can kind of wait and that will come to us in time, hopefully before the legislature comes to town again, but on some of this, we may be able to proactively generate additional revenue to meet some of the service needs we have. A lot of the stuff was painted as pretty good news, immediately after the session ended, and, you know we have to figure out how it impacts us and whether it's really good news for us. Those two came to mind.
>> piggy backing on what you are saying, just as a point of clarification, as a lobbying team, you look to us as an entity to do that kind of tracking about the impact of legislation after it's passed, correct? Or is that part of your purview in any way ?
>> we do request analysis from the staff as they are the experts in their department.
>> and so advocating at the state level, for instance, the tyc pot of money, of course judge meir and others involved in jury nile de--juvenile detention will go and lobby, but do you see advantage in having a point person at the county who pulls all of that together ?
>> absolutely. And Commissioner, we would like to think that we bring value. We try to bring value to the county as part of our representation to you, in helping you identify and understand these issues. But certainly, you have here on the staff the substantive expertise that we do not have, and the actual implementation and execution of these policies to understand what their exact impact is on you. And so, you know, we are a part, we see ourselves as a part of the team. We are certainly not the people who can say, oh, you know, this tyc money needs to be accessed this particular way in order to maximize its benefit to the county because we don't have that level of expertise. But we feel like we have enough expertise to recognize things that are important and then to understand them when they are better explained or when we in a clab aretive way identify way--collaborative way. That's kind of how we see the points that you and judge Biscoe are making.
>> let me refine my question and throw it out as hypothetical. I see a need in the interim for lobbying efforts, not necessarily by you all but I would like input from you all, lobbying efforts not of the legislature but agencies charged with implementing the legislation, as well as the other coordinating agencies like the lbb, for instance, and someone of knowledge or a team of people of knowledge of our specific county's issues in the interim to lobby those agencies. Perhaps with you all's help with an eye toward the next legislative session. Do you all see value in that? And do you see it occurring in other counties?
>> yes. Intergovernmental relations is a critical part of the in house government affairs position. That means interacting with city and other governmental agencies in that area or in the state that are relevant to those issues. Many counties assign responsible such as overseeing intergovernmental contracts and a variety of other things to that position. But clearly, that is outside our purview and our role as your lobby it. Although, because that is kind of missing, bob started a meeting before the session began and during the session to where we actually reached out to the in house and external lobbists for some of the other governmental entities in Travis County just to try to give us some of that but doing that on an in house basis is the norm. I think would bring great value to the county.
>> thanks for that.
>> probably four or five pieces of legislation that were not on our radar during the session and are not today. I say that because typically three or four or five pieces surface later on that really have fairly serious impact on us. What's the easiest way to ascertain that legislation? Any way to plug in Texas counties and--
>> the one portion of this report that deals with other bills of interest, we tried to go out and find some of these bills that are, as you described it. We may not have discussed that much during the seg. Try as you go through your budget process, as you have operational issues here, you can look at those and your staff can look to see if they are some benefit. Also, the conference of urban counties and tac will come out with a comprehensive big report that will comment on every single bill that affects county government. Not only the Commissioners court but every other elected county official from county clerk, et cetera.
>> okay.
>> so you have those two voluminous reports that will cover everything. But I think we've tried to get some of those other ones for you, for example, the $50 you mentioned is in there. The other thing that I think we can help on as a follow-up on these, I think you were suggesting in your questions, it's not always that clear what they meanlve--mean. We can go back upstream to the lndge slative ive--legislative office or to the agency add ministering and try to find out deadlines and whatever it is. I think we are prepared to do that but we have not had the communication and coordination. Sometimes the staff, I mean, the staff will call us upen say we are having trouble here and we need this information and we can go try to get it but we do that more on a responsive basis rather than having an active program where we are trying to go out. We just don't know enough about what you all are doing on a daily basis.
>> before we lose a quorum, I move that we recess until 1:30. All in favor. That passes by unanimous vote, with Commissioner dougherty and Gomez temporarily away.. .
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, July 18, 2007, 18:30 AM