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insights Archive for: June 2007
Trans-Texas Corridor Sellout
posted by snarko2 on June 26 2007
If you read SB 792, the bill that the legislature passed and Rick Perry signed into law, you will read in vain for any moratorium on the Trans-Texas Corridor. There is none. The bill does not impose any moratorium. It does not slow down in any conceivable way the planned rip-off of Texas farms and homes through the largest forcible eminent domain project ever conceived.
After the Senate passed the bill unanimously and sent it to the House, several House members tried to amend it to revive the moratorium. Rick Perry and his henchmen beat down all such attempted amendments with the threat of a special session. Too many House members and Senators decided their vacation plans were more important than protecting the people and lands of Texas from the great toll robbery.
Rick Perry got everything he wanted in SB 792. The new legislation does not merely preserve the TTC status quo. It worsens the situation for the people. Thanks to an insidious new concept called "market valuation", public entities will now be able to build toll roads and charge toll fees based not on the costs of construction and maintenance, but on the "market value" of the road as if it were a marketable asset.
This previously unheard-of concept will enable government bureaucrats to charge toll fees higher than ever seen before. Never mind that government is not supposed to be a profit-making business at the public's expense. Never mind that the people are the government. Never mind that public roads are a necessity for the average working Texan's survival. Never mind that the average working Texan already pays taxes for highway construction on every gallon of gasoline he purchases. Say more goodbyes to vanishing middle-class living standards.
Did the public have an opportunity to comment on "market valuation" in legislative hearings? NO. Just like the bills in previous sessions that opened the door to the Trans-Texas Corridor, "market valuation" was inserted on Slick Rick's demand in the final week of the legislative session when no more public hearings were taking place. It became the law through a legislative midnight raid when it was too late for the public to be heard. Democracy, where art thou?
Not a single Texas Senator opposed SB 792. For every Senator and 131 of the 150 House members, promises made from January to April to slow down the TTC turned out to be empty words. In the final vote on the House floor, only 19 House members stood with the people and voted against SB 792.
Don't let the 31 Senators and 131 House reps who voted for passage of SB 792 get away with telling you they constructed a moratorium against the Trans-Texas Corridor. Ask them to show it to you in the legislation. They cannot, because they didn't.
Don't let them tell you there was no alternative. HB 1892 would have imposed a two-year moratorium on the TTC, as breathing room to educate every Texan about the great toll robbery and gather momentum in opposition to it. HB 1892 passed both the Senate and House overwhelmingly earlier in May, but Slick Rick vetoed it. What it finally came down to was that the legislators caved in to Perry's threat to call a special session if they didn't give him what he wanted. Their summer vacation plans were more important than the future of Texas and the Texans who count on them for representation.
The 19 House members who voted against the passage of SB 792 deserve a salute and a thank-you. They are Lon Burnam, Joaquin Castro, Garnet Coleman, David Leibowitz, Joe Farias, Jessica Farrar, Stephen Frost, Ana Hernandez, Jodie Laudenberg, Nathan Macias, Trey Martinez Fischer, Ruth McClendon, Sid Miller, Ken Paxton, Robert Puente, Joe Straus, Senfronia Thompson, Marc Veasey, and Mike Villarreal.
The fight for a democratic Texas continues. Fight 'em on the ice!
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