A House committee on Thursday held its first hearing in the third special session, and it voted out a transportation funding plan with minor changes from one that failed in the previous special session.
Joe Pickett
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State Government
The Brief: July 30, 2013
A major blow to a transportation plan has left the Legislature teetering on the edge of a third special session.
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Transportation
Transportation Funding Bill Fails in House
A compromise transportation funding plan failed 84-40 in the House on Monday afternoon amid bipartisan opposition. Gov. Rick Perry quickly criticized those who voted against the measure but did not say if he would call a third special session.
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State Government
House Sends Transportation Funding Plan to Senate
The House voted 108-25 for a measure that would boost funding for the Texas Department of Transportation without raising taxes or fees, but lawmakers said they expect the Senate to make changes to the proposal.
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Transportation
Senate Takes Step Toward Transportation Funding Solution
Senators on Tuesday tentatively approved a resolution that aims to solve the state’s transportation funding woes by diverting future revenue from the Rainy Day Fund.
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State Government
Southbound Checkpoints Given New Life in Senate
Legislation that would grant the state authority to erect southbound checkpoints near the Texas-Mexico border was successfully revived today after lawmakers attached it as an amendment to a bill concerning record sharing by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.
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State Government
Interactive: House Travel
Retiring state Rep. Joe Crabb, R-Atascocita, led all Texas House members in government-funded travel expenses in the last fiscal year, according to a Texas Tribune review of expense reports obtained from the state comptroller. Crabb spent $48,400, versus a per-member average of about $11,000. In all, 14 members spent more than $30,000. View a sortable table of travel totals by member.
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Transportation
Been Down This Road Before
As the Texas Department of Transportation heads into a House Transportation Committee hearing today to review a highly critical 628-page audit, the value of the $2 million report is being called into question.
Posted in
Transportation
Road Conditions
Sensible people in the Metroplex may have given up long ago on Southwest Parkway and State Highway 161, two huge projects first proposed back in the 1960s. Now they’re toll roads — one incomplete, one not yet started — and the money to build them may finally be available. There is, of course, a catch.
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State Government
A Hard Road
Lawmakers are still perturbed at TxDOT, but the state’s transportation agency is trying to do better. The first step, says one commissioner: Figure out how to meet the transportation needs of Texas citizens — which it’s not doing.