Legislative session produces mixed results

McALLEN — In 170 days during which Rio Grande Valley groups — from hospital administrators to school teachers to immigrant advocates — trekked to Austin to play defense, Valley legislators trying to protect their border community could have adopted a slogan from March Madness:
“Survive and advance.”
Nowhere was that more evident than when Valley legislators repeatedly and resoundingly cast votes against a state budget with cuts to public education and healthcare they said could have dangerous consequences here. Valley legislators also often found themselves trying to fend off voter ID legislation, harsh anti-illegal immigration bills and redistricting maps that left the Valley’s voice in Austin and Washington, D.C., largely unchanged.
It was a session — two, actually — for small victories. Locally, legislators found solace in a final budget that cut $4 billion from education and $5 billion from Medicaid, far less than the proposals unveiled in the session’s early days. Legislators did find approval for measures that beefed up border security with high-tech equipment, more manpower and new enforcement tools, but the passage of several other bills with a local impact was blocked by Gov. Rick Perry’s veto pen.
Although conservative legislators wanting to cut the budget quickly learned that the state’s already-lean spending picture would make reductions more painful, they still refused to tap into the Rainy Day Fund beyond the $3 billion they pulled to balance the current budget, said state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville. Legislators also bypassed an opportunity to use the shortfall to address the state’s structural deficit created by the underperforming business margins tax.
“We’re going to continue to have to cut education, healthcare and other important public services in this state as we see the state continue to grow,” Lucio said. “I just don’t see how we can address the economy by cutting jobs, not investing more money into the issues that are important and use the resources that are available. We fall short of doing what’s right for the people of Texas.”
Not all border legislation was easily approved. Lucio tried twice to pass legislation to authorizes DPS to establish southbound checkpoints to search for smuggled guns and cash traveling from the United States into Mexico to further cartel operations. To trumpet the cause, he used the death of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata, who allegedly was killed by criminals in San Luis Potosí by a gun legally purchased in the Dallas area.
Lucio’s southbound checkpoints legislation cleared the Senate during the regular session but saw no action in the House. His calls for Perry to add it to the agenda during the special session went unanswered.
State Rep. Aaron Peña, R-Edinburg, who voted against his own party on the state budget because he was concerned about its negative impact here, said legislators began the session facing a record budget shortfall but unwilling to raise taxes. But from an initial budgetary assessment that was quite harsh, he said, legislators were able to soften the cuts to more acceptable levels.
“Under these adverse circumstances, much like when a hurricane passes through the Valley, when you come out and you survived, you can celebrate the fact that you endured and withstood the difficulties,” Peña said. “You survive, learn and prepare for the next storm.”