Two weeks critical in state legislature

You get a queasy feeling watching as Texas legislators wrap up their session. The 2007 Legislature ends in two weeks, and the list of items awaiting compromises is daunting:

+Electricity ownership and rates.

+Transportation planning.

+Mandating recorded legislative votes.

+Water conservation and reservoir designations.

+The budget.

+The Children's Health Insurance Program.

Legislators need to find the sweet spot on many priorities if they expect to declare this a session that helps Texans. True, sessions always get tense about now. But even veterans of these wars admit they're nervous.

One reason is that the House resembles an airliner struggling to maintain altitude. Autocratic Speaker Tom Craddick squashed a revolt in January and since has struggled to find a middle ground between his old tight-fisted ways and laissez faire rule. For example, Craddick loyalists last week voted against him on which bills would get to the floor.

The Capitol's urban-rural divide also is complicating things. For instance, rural representatives angry about Rick Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor running through their back yards have forced a moratorium on new toll roads.

That same split is threatening the Senate proposal to designate 19 reservoir sites. Despite the fact that cities and suburbs need new water supplies, rural legislators cite property rights as their reason for holding up the reservoirs.

There's no sense waiting until the 2009 session. That's because the 2010 governor's race will force both parties to play it safe and tempt them to take up issues that rally partisans.

These next two weeks are critical to legislators' resolving urgent problems facing Texas - not to mention earning a strong report card from voters.

Lege finds time to blow smoke

The Texas House, rushing to wrap up business for the session, finds time to toy with a smoking ban bill.

Texans should be thanking their lucky stars this legislative session is almost over. The end can't come a moment too soon.

Last week yet another bill - an important one with serious implications for the health of Texas workers - becoming a political piñata in the House, as members played with it and batted it around, dislodging most of its teeth in the process.

The bill, authored by Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, sought to ban smoking in public places, including bars and restaurants. It's not a novel idea: About 30 states have adopted or are considering similar measures, and many Texas cities, including Houston, Austin and El Paso, already have smoking bans to various degrees.

Studies show that secondhand smoke kills more than 53,000 Americans a year, including more than 3,000 Texans. Polls show that a majority of Texans favor a statewide smoking ban in public places. Even the motion picture industry, not usually known to fret over health issues, has just added smoking to sex and violence as a factor in movie ratings.

"This bill does not tell anybody whether they should or should not smoke," Crownover said. "It's about not killing the employees of the state of Texas. There is no acceptable level of secondhand smoke."

But the bill was soon festooned with enough amendments and exceptions to almost bury it. The most egregious of these is an amendment by Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, that puts the decision on whether to ban smoking in the hands of the owners of an establishment.

Other amendments exempted cigar bars; bingo halls; VFW halls; private clubs and property leased by a religious group or veterans group for religious services or fundraising activities. And just in case the House hadn't spent enough time and taxpayers' money on the subject, one member, a smoker, declared herself discriminated against and jokingly proposed criminalizing both the sale of tobacco and the act of smoking in Texas. Her amendment was killed.

Sen. Rodney Ellis, DHouston, who has a companion bill in the Senate, is pragmatic about the basket-case bill, noting that it will need "a lot of work" but deeming it a significant achievement to get any kind of bill through the House. He vows to fix it in the Senate and send it to the conference committee. "No matter how ugly that puppy is, we can clean it up and send it back and it could grow up to be a Great Dane," Ellis said. Now there's an optimist.

-- The Houston Chronicle