Good morning,

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Tuesday, July 16, 2019
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• The board of regents at the University of Texas are promising free college tuition to illegal aliens along with low-income Texans. Jordan Clements has the details.
     
• Since 2001 the State of Texas has allowed those in the country illegally to nonetheless pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. Earlier this year, State Rep. Kyle Biedermann (R-Fredericksburg) introduced legislation ending that practice. Unsurprisingly, his measure never received a hearing in the Texas House.  
      
• As Texas Republicans head toward an uncertain 2020 election, one state to the West may serve as an example of what Texas should have done to prepare. Brandon Waltens provides a detailed look at Colorado’s “Taxpayer Bill of Rights.” In 1992, Republicans pushed a constitutional amendment there requiring state and local government to seek voter approval before raising taxes, limits growth in some state spending to population growth plus inflation, and requires that extra cash be returned to taxpayers.
    
• For Colorado taxpayers, that constitutional amendment has served to tie the hands of Democrats since the partisan balance shifted a couple years ago.
       
• Yet the GOP-dominated Texas House again refused to even hold hearings this year on a “spending limits” measure – which has repeatedly passed out of the state senate, thanks to the efforts of State Sen. Kelly Hancock (R-North Richland Hills).
      
• You won’t be surprised to learn those same House Republicans instead voted to irresponsibly grow the state budget well beyond the limits of population and inflation.  
      
• Cary Cheshire recently provided an “autopsy” of the House’s inaction on spending limits. Check out his written report or video presentation.
        
• While 94 percent of Texas Republican voters supported spending limits on a non-binding ballot question asked in the 2012 ballot, the GOP-run Texas House has refused to bring the measure to the floor of the chamber for a vote.
     
• Call your State Rep.  at 512-463-4630 and ask why the House Appropriations Committee did not even give a hearing to the spending limits legislation, SB 1891.

• The Texas House Appropriations Committee is chaired by Republican State Rep. John Zerwas of Richmond. The other Republicans on the committee, all appointed by Republican House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, include: Cecil Bell, Greg Bonnen, Brad Buckley, Giovanni Capriglione, Sarah Davis, Cole Hefner, Rick Miller, Matt Schaefer, J.D. Sheffield, Reggie Smith, Lynn Stucky, Steve Toth, Gary VanDeaver, and Terry Wilson. 
        
• A Dallas Democrat could be in for a tough 2020 election, if recently released campaign finance reports are any indication. Brandon Waltens reports Republican Luisa Del Rosal – a first-time candidate – raised $170,000 in her bid to defeat State Rep. John Turner, who brought in just $35,000.
      
• Texas Right to Life reports the abortion group Emily’s List is planning to spend $20 million in legislative races around the country. Besides spending money in the Lone Star State, “the abortion mob will target state and local races in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.”