PETE SLOVER and TONY HARTZEL | The Dallas Morning News

Once again, Gov. Rick Perry’s former liaison to the Legislature is working for the Spanish company that won the rights to develop the $7 billion Trans-Texas Corridor.

Lobbyist Dan Shelley worked for the firm as a consultant just before he went to the governor’s office, a connection first revealed in 2004. State officials denied any connection between that circumstance and the decision, three months later, to award Cintra the huge highway contract. Now, Mr. Shelley has left the governor’s office, and he and his daughter have large contracts to lobby for the road builder.

This week, Mr. Shelley had planned to take four state lawmakers – including two Dallas-area senators – on a four-day, all-expense-paid trip to Canada. But the trip was abruptly postponed after The Dallas Morning News asked questions about it.

A call to Mr. Shelley seeking comment was returned by an Austin spokeswoman for Madrid-based Cintra, who said that Mr. Shelley’s contract with the company prohibits him from discussing his work with reporters.

Spokeswoman Rossanna Salazar confirmed that Mr. Shelley was helping to arrange the fact-finding trip to visit a Cintra toll road near Toronto.

“Dan Shelley was going to cover those costs” for the lawmakers’ expenses, Ms. Salazar said. “He would have had to publicly report those costs to the Texas Ethics Commission.”

Though the payment of trip expenses by Cintra would have been legal, companies stand to gain by having lawmakers’ undivided attention for several days, said Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen of Texas, a watchdog group. Lawmakers should use their campaign funds for such expenses, Mr. Smith said.

“That’s preferable from taking money from corporations that stand to make billions in the continuation of this Trans-Texas Corridor project,” he said.

Mr. Shelley resigned his state job in September and struck a lobbying deal with Cintra worth between $50,000 and $100,000 to work from March through the end of this year. In addition, his daughter and lobbying partner, Jennifer Shelley-Rodriguez, will earn between $25,000 and $50,000 from the company over the same period, state records show.

The Trans-Texas Corridor is Mr. Perry’s vision for a statewide network of toll roads, rail lines and utility lines to improve transportation for the next 50 years. Cintra won the development rights in 2004 to the first corridor section that will parallel Interstate 35E.

The corridor has become an issue in his re-election campaign, as rival Carole Keeton Strayhorn has stoked landowners’ opposition to the project.

When Mr. Shelley worked for Cintra before, he never registered as a lobbyist. Instead, he worked nine months as an unregulated “consultant” trying to generate business for the company in Texas – a role that included such functions as making introductions and attending meetings with state transportation officials.

At the time, the governor’s office said Mr. Shelley was never paid by the company, because his fees were to be based on any deals closed. They said that when he left the firm before the contract was complete, he gave up the right to such fees.

Such contingency arrangements are illegal for lobbyists, but the law does not mention consultants.

The law does not restrict former gubernatorial staffers from lobbying, but Mr. Perry has instituted his own rule for former high-level staffers: They can lobby the Legislature and state agencies but are banned from lobbying the governor’s office for a year, or until the end of the first legislative session after they’ve left, which ever is longer.

That means Mr. Shelley has voluntarily committed not to lobby the governor and his staff until after the Legislature’s session next year, said Kathy Walt, the governor’s press secretary.

“Governor Perry has the strongest ethics policy that any Texas governor has ever had,” she said.

Even with those limits, Mr. Shelley has built a healthy lobby clientele: This year, he reported to the state lobbying work worth between $550,000 and $1.1 million.

The director of a group that tracks money in politics said the case demonstrates that the policy and the laws both need tightening.

“The can’t-lobby-the-governor rule is meaningless in the real world,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice. “It’s a pie-in-the-sky policy that has absolutely no teeth: Texas needs a law to close the revolving lobby door.”

On the Toronto trip, the group would have viewed Cintra’s state-of-the-art Highway 407 Electronic Toll Road. Interviews with Ontario government officials also were scheduled.

Among the lawmakers included was Rep. Mike Krusee, the Round Rock Republican who heads the House Transportation Committee. Also invited were three members of the Senate committee that writes the state budget: Democrats Royce West of Dallas and John Whitmire of Houston, along with Republican Kim Brimer of Fort Worth.

The travel plans changed, though, about 24 hours after The News first inquired about the trip. Transportation department officials said they postponed the trip because a more pressing duty arose.

Mr. Brimer said he knew nothing about how the trip came about and if he had, he would have paid for it with campaign funds.

“I don’t need a handout,” he said.

The other lawmakers did not return calls seeking comment.

Seven top employees of the Texas Department of Transportation were also scheduled to go, though their agency was to pay their way.

“It’s to look at what they do [in Toronto] and the lessons learned there so we can come back and do it better in Texas,” said transportation department spokeswoman Gaby Garcia, who said state employees have gone to California to review toll roads. “We’re not shy about going out and seeing what others are doing.”

Pete Slover reported from Austin and Tony Hartzel from Plano.

E-mail pslover@dallasnews.com

and thartzel@dallasnews.com

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Gov. Rick Perry’s diversion last year of federal stimulus cash aimed for schools has prompted Congress to pass a measure that would prevent him from raiding education funds again. Perry says this means the federal government is trying to deprive Texas students of more cash, but his complaint is getting short shrift from educators.

The controversy surrounds rules relating to the new federal job protection measure, which will send $26 billion to the states to allow them to keep paying their workers. On July 2, Austin’s U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett and the rest of the Texas Demo­crat­ic congressional delegation added language to the Supplemental Appropriations Bill ordering Texas to ensure that this money is “used to supplement and not supplant State formula funding.” The language is meant to ensure that the $830 million intended for Texas schools will go to protect the estimated 15,400 jobs it is intended to fund. On Aug. 5, the Senate passed the language as part of the Federal Aviation Administration Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recalled Congress from its summer recess to pass the measure on Aug. 10. President Barack Obama signed it into law later that day. In a joint statement, the Demo­crat­ic delegation wrote, “This prevents any further shell games with federal education dollars at the expense of local schools districts.”

In 2009, the federal government allocated $3.2 billion of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act cash to Texas to invest in education. The sum was intended to allow school districts to inject extra cash into the local economy, over and above their normal operating budgets. Instead, Perry and the Republican legislative leadership crafted a budget that replaced regular state funding with federal cash. This shuffle included using federal cash to cover a teacher pay raise that the state’s own Legislative Budget Board had recommended come out of the state budget. The maneuver negated any stimulative effect the cash could have had, while leaving state reserves untouched and depriving school districts of extra cash in the middle of an economic meltdown. At the time, Doggett’s office calculated that Perry’s fiscal sleight of hand cost Austin Independent School District alone $78 million, equal to roughly 9% of its 2009-10 General Fund expenditures.

The measure’s passage brought howls of outrage from Texas Republicans. Predict­ably, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has threatened to sue the federal government, while Perry has said rules in the Texas Constitution that prohibit setting future spending prevent him from fulfilling this requirement. In a statement, he said, “That means Texas – the only state singled out with this mandate – might not be able to use any of these funds provided to states.”

But Doggett fired back that the measure does nothing except prevent Perry from signing a budget that makes deeper cuts to education spending than any other section of the budget. Condemning Repub­lic­an opposition as election-year posturing, he said, “They are so eager to be victims of a big Washington government lording over them, that’s why they’ve tried to make this a battle with Obama.” In reality, the White House initially opposed the measure, so, Doggett added, “This is entirely a Texas answer to a Texas problem.”

Perry has “been rebuked by the United States Congress and by Congressman Lloyd Doggett,” said Education Austin President Louis Malfaro. “Good for him and good for them, and good for the kids in Texas.” While Perry, Dewhurst, and Education Commis­sion­er Robert Scott have savaged the Texas Demo­cratic delegation for supporting this measure in the House, Malfaro said that what should be criticized is the decision of the state’s two Republican senators to vote against it. “It should have been [John] Cornyn and [Kay Bailey] Hutchison doing this, and not the two senators from Maine, because Texas is going to benefit hugely from this.”

This is far from Perry’s only example of attempting to use federal education cash as a political kickball. Earlier this year he turned his back on up to $700 million when he decided not to submit an application for Race to the Top cash (see “Fed School Funding: Texas Out of the Race,” Jan. 22). At the time, Perry claimed that the application would require the state to sign on to the federal Common Core State Standards Initiative, which he painted as the first step to a national curriculum. However, Texas Classroom Teachers Association President Brad Willingham and Texas American Federation of Teachers President Linda Bridges, who sided with Perry in rejecting those funds, have both backed the Doggett amendment. They joined with the heads of five other Texas teachers’ organizations, as well as AISD Superintendent Meria Carstarphen and 32 other superintendents, to sign a letter on June 22 backing the congressional measure. In a statement, Association of Texas Professional Educators governmental relations director Brock Gregg said, “The reality is that the pledge the governor has been asked to make is no different in effect than the pledge he made when taking $16 billion in federal stimulus dollars during the last session.”

Doggett echoed that stance: “Compliance is very easy,” he said, “unless there remains a hidden Republican agenda to avoid accountability and to engage in more of the shenanigans of last year.”

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Mike Ward | The Austin American-Statesman

The advocacy group Texas Civil Rights Project on Wednesday called for a former Texas Youth Commission official to be brought to trial quickly, almost six years after he was accused of molesting at least four teenage boys in what became a statewide abuse scandal.

Scott Medlock , an Austin attorney who represents one of the four victims in separate pending civil litigation, said at a news conference that it is unbelievable and outrageous that former West Texas State School Principal John Paul Hernandez is still awaiting trial.

“More than three years after the public learned about these disgusting assaults, Hernandez’s victims are still waiting for justice,” said Medlock, director of the organization’s Prisoners’ Rights Program. “Prosecuting these men shows that if you abuse kids in TYC, you will be held accountable. Further delay undermines creating a culture of accountability.”

In a statement, the victim — now 25 — said he wants to “stop what happened to me from being covered up.”

“I need to move on with my life, and I can’t do that until the man who violated me faces justice,” the victim said in the statement. “I’m still struggling and I need some closure.”

According to court filings, Hernandez engaged in oral sex with several boys at the state-run juvenile correctional center and was charged with sexual assault.

Ray Brookins , the lockup’s former assistant superintendent, was also charged with sexually assaulting incarcerated youths. He was convicted in April and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Hernandez was indicted in April 2007 on one count of sexual assault, a second-degree felony; nine counts of improper sexual activity with a person in his custody, a state jail felony; and nine counts of improper relationship with a student, a second-degree felony, officials said.

If convicted, Hernandez faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Neither Hernandez, who has maintained his innocence, nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

As a result of the scandal and allegations that top officials covered up the sexual abuse allegations, most of the Youth Commission’s administrators were fired or forced to retire, the agency was placed in a form of receivership, and its operations were downsized. The West Texas State School in Pyote, where the alleged attacks occurred, was closed in June.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott took over prosecution of the abuse cases after the local prosecutor did not file criminal charges for more than two years, even though a detailed investigation by the Texas Rangers confirmed the attacks.

Medlock said the case against Hernandez is pending in a state District Court. District Judge Jay Gibson could not be reached for comment Wednesday on why the case is taking so long to go, and court clerks declined to answer questions about the case.

“Judge Gibson should be ashamed this case hasn’t been heard yet,” Medlock said.

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AUSTIN — Democrat Bill White blamed Republican Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday for failing to persuade the federal government to provide enough money to secure the Texas-Mexico border and accused him of making an irresponsible statement by saying bombs are going off in El Paso.

“Rick Perry has failed — failed — in nine and a half years to get the federal resources that Texas needs. Eight of those years (Republican) George W. Bush was president,” White said after a speech to the Texas Association of Broadcasters. “There comes to be a point when the governor himself needs to be accountable.”

White acknowledged that the Mexican drug war is a “real issue” affecting Texas and said drug and human traffickers near the border need to be intercepted. But he said that despite the instability and violence in Mexico, a spillover effect hasn’t happened in the United States. He said Perry is exaggerating the impact in Texas with some of his comments, such as when he said in a television interview that bombs had exploded in El Paso.

Perry’s aides say he was referring to a car bomb that exploded in July in Juárez.

No one uninvolved in the drug or smuggling trade has been known to have been wounded or killed in the U.S., and El Paso was named by Congressional Quarterly last year as America’s second-safest city of its size.

In a separate speech to the broadcasters, Perry said it’s only a matter of time until spillover violence comes into Texas.

“The fact of the matter is a

line on a map is not going to constrain those individuals,” Perry said. “The fact is our citizens’ safety is not negotiable.”

Perry said the manpower the federal government is sending is not enough — that of 1,250 National Guard soldiers being sent to the border region, only 20 percent are heading to Texas, even though the state has most of the U.S.-Mexico border territory.

His campaign spokesman, Mark Miner, responding to White’s criticism of Perry failing to secure enough federal funding, said Perry has made border security a top priority and made sure the state provided $230 million for border security because the federal government hasn’t done enough.

“The governor is being critical of not just this (president’s) administration but previous administrations,” Miner said. “It’s a federal responsibility. They clearly don’t understand the need that Texas and other states have.”

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Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. If we let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans expire at the end of this year as scheduled, everyone still gets a tax cut. Yes, everyone.

Right now, the entire panoply of massive Bush tax cuts is set to disappear 141 days from now. Though those cuts were skewed heavily to the very wealthy, they did lower tax rates for everyone. Which means that if the all the cuts expire as scheduled, everyone’s taxes will go up. President Obama and Congressional Democrats don’t want that to happen. They have pushed to keep the tax cuts in place for everyone making less than $250,000, but to let them expire for the wealthiest two percent of Americans.

Anyone who was paying attention during the 2008 presidential election knows that Obama has been extremely consistent on this particular point. Congressional Republicans, however, don’t seem all that willing to allow the tax cuts for the middle class to stick around unless the wealthy get to keep theirs too.

The Republicans are simply wrong on the merits, but it’s important to note that rich people will still pay lower taxes under the President’s plan than they would if all the tax cuts expired. In other words, even with the expiration of the high-end Bush tax rates, the richest two percent still get to keep some of their tax breaks.

An excellent chart in the Washington Post yesterday, based on a recent analysis from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, illustrates this pretty clearly. As you can see, under the Democratic plan, millionaires will still get a tax cut of more than $6,300. That’s about six times as much as the median household.

How can this be? How is it that letting the Bush tax cuts expire on the richest two percent nevertheless results in a tax cut for those very same people? The answer can be found in our progressive income tax system.

The top income tax rate — currently 35 percent — that everyone talks about is a marginal rate, which means that someone in the top tax bracket only pays 35 percent on the top part of their income. In 2009, for example, that rate applied only to each dollar after the first $372,950 of taxable income (for married couples). For dollars earned up to that limit, rich people pay the same rates as people who make far less.

To understand why this system means that rich people will still get a tax cut, let’s look at a hypothetical example. Imagine a wealthy couple – let’s call them the McDucks – who will bring home half a million dollars in taxable income next year. Under the Democrats’ plan, the tax rates for all income below about $250,000 would stay the same. That would mean the McDucks will pay 10 percent on the first $17,000, 15 percent on the next $40,000, 25 percent on the next $80,000 and 28 percent on the next $100,000. Only after that would they start paying more than they did this year. Their total income tax bill under this plan, would be just over $154,000 — $6,000 lower than it would be if all the tax cuts expire.

Let’s be clear: if the GOP gets its way, the tax cuts for rich people will be much bigger than this. The McDucks, for example, would get another $10,000. But that’s precisely the point. This fight regarding the Bush tax cuts is entirely over whether or not we want to borrow $31 billion next year just so millionaires can get a bigger tax cut than the one the Democrats are already proposing.

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If Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, has his way, Texas’ Planned Parenthood clinics won’t be allowed to contract with the state to provide family planning and preventative health services to thousands of low-income and uninsured women through the successful Women’s Health Program, a Medicaid-waiver project; the move would threaten access to preventative health care for many of those women.

In a July 23 letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott, Deuell writes that 12 Planned Par­ent­hood entities have received $5 million in funding from the state’s Health and Human Services Commission to provide care as part of the Women’s Health Program. And Deuell wants to know if those contracts pass legal muster. At issue is whether a portion of the statute that bans the HHSC from contracting with entities that perform or “promote” abortions or are “affiliates” of groups that do is constitutional. More specifically, Deuell is asking Abbott to decide whether the state can exclude from government funding groups it deems affiliated with abortion providers – even if those groups aren’t legally affiliated with any abortion provider.

Confused? Let’s back up: After several years of trying to pass a program to expand health care access for poor women, lawmakers in 2005 created the Women’s Health Pro­gram, a Medicaid-waiver project that provides funding for family planning and preventative health screenings to women ages 18 to 44. These women would otherwise be ineligible for Medicaid but nonetheless lack access to health care. The program was finally passed as a five-year demonstration project after a bit of last-minute tinkering that added language preventing funding from going to any groups affiliated with abortion providers. Ostensibly, that would seem to bar the state’s Planned Parenthoods, some of which operate clinics that provide abortion services, from participating in the program. But it didn’t turn out that way. In that same year, Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, sought to ban Planned Parenthood from receiving family planning funds based on the idea that PP’s family planning clinics were affiliated with sister clinics that provide abortion care. Ogden’s attempt to defund the group led to litigation in which a federal court ruled the state could not block the group from providing government-funded family planning services, though it could refuse to fund an abortion provider. (As it stands, federal money cannot be used to fund abortions.)

The ruling caused the state’s 71 Planned Parenthood clinics to deaffiliate themselves from one another: Each now has its own branding, board of directors, and bank account. Importantly, each service provider participating in the Women’s Health Program must agree not to provide abortions or affiliate with abortion providers.

But Deuell still isn’t satisfied. In his July letter to Abbott, Deuell notes that the 2005 lawsuit concerned whether the state could bar Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X family planning funds but not whether it could block PP from receiving WHP funds, which are administered through Title XIX of the federal Social Security Act – the section that concerns Medicaid funding. According to Deuell, Title XIX “specifically authorizes restrictions on who may participate in a state Medicaid plan.” In his letter, Deuell says that when he asked former Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins about the exemption, he was told the commission had already imposed as many restrictions as would pass constitutional muster.

In essence, it appears that Deuell’s approach here is twofold: Either Title XIX could allow the state to bar Planned Parent­hood’s participation in the WHP for no stated reason, or perhaps the state could adopt a new definition of “affiliate” – one that would still define Planned Parenthood as an abortion provider despite the work the clinics have done to differentiate themselves from one another.

According to Deuell’s chief of staff, Don Forse, the senator wants Abbott to weigh in on the HHSC’s legal interpretation and determine whether the “affiliate” provision applies to Title XIX grants. “HHSC has taken the position that the same federal eligibility restrictions that apply to Title X also apply to Title XIX,” Forse said in an e-mail. “Senator Deuell does not believe that to be the case and has asked [Abbott] to clarify the matter.” (As a matter of law, it does seem that the same provisions do apply to Title XIX. Generally, an entity engaged in a legally protected practice cannot be punished just because another party disagrees with that practice.)

Deuell did not respond directly to questions for this story, but he has said he wants the state’s limited pool of women’s health funds funneled first to so-called “federally qualified health centers,” which would essentially serve as one-stop health care shops, with less emphasis on women’s reproductive health issues. “I’m trying to set up a system of family planning that’s more complex than giving birth control pills and testing for STDs, which is what Planned Parenthood does,” Deuell told a Dallas TV station.

That characterization isn’t entirely accurate: Planned Parenthood also provides screenings for cervical and breast cancers, hypertension and diabetes, among other services. According to a preliminary count reported in an internal HHSC document, Texas Planned Parenthood clinics serve nearly 300,000 clients annually and in 2009 served 41% of all clients enrolled in the Women’s Health Program, at an average cost of $99.42 per client (this preliminary count does not include numbers from San Antonio). The same year, federally qualified health centers served just 7% of WHP participants, at an average cost of $150.23 per client.

While it may be advantageous to designate federally qualified health centers as the primary health care provider for uninsured women in Texas, the reality is that in the years since Deuell’s 2005 rider took effect, the state’s FQHCs have not been able to use all the funding allocated to them, returning nearly $1.2 million to the state this year alone. Moreover, the FQHCs have spent considerably more to serve far fewer clients than the state’s public health providers.

It would likely be detrimental to the existing state structure to remove Planned Par­ent­hood as a major provider in order to steer work to the FQHCs – Deuell’s preferred provider. “It is unfortunate that one politician’s personal agenda could jeopardize our clients’ ability to continue to rely on our health centers to keep them safe and healthy,” said Sarah Wheat, vice president of community affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region, which operates three local clinics, including the Seventh Street clinic – a provider of family planning and health screenings for low-income women and a participant in the Women’s Health Program.

Deuell’s request comes on the heels of an HHSC report that touts the success of the nascent Women’s Health Program. According to the report, in 2008 the WHP reduced Medicaid-paid births by more than 10,000 (more than half of Texas’ births are paid for by Medicaid), saving the state more than $40 million – $20 for every $1 invested in the program. The program is up for renewal next year, and some advocates fear that Deuell may be trying to lay groundwork to dismantle a successful model of frontline health care for poor women. “I find it astounding that a legislator that claims to be fiscally conservative would even consider [dismantling] a program that saved Texas … $40 million last year,” says Fran Hagerty, CEO of the Women’s Health & Family Planning Association of Tex­as. “That to me is just ludicrous.”

Abbott’s decision is expected early next year.

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EL PASO — Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White released an ethics reform proposal to bring “transparency and openness in government.”

White arrived in El Paso on Wednesday afternoon from Fort Worth, where he first released his proposal for ethics reform.

White’s plan has eight points involving rules for appointments of staff and openness of campaign contributions. He said that, if elected, he would not use state positions as a “self-serving, partisan political machine.” He said his proposal for ethics reform would require the government to disclose more information than Gov. Rick Perry’s does.

“It’s important for people to know how their government works, who has influence and who may have influence,” White said.

White said Perry has appointed 42 people to various positions who each have contributed more than $100,000 to Perry’s campaign. He said their contributions total about $9.7 million. White said Perry’s finance committee has 120 members, and more than 100 have been appointed to boards and commissions.

“The people he’s appointed on his finance committee have contributed $5.3 million,” White said. “He’s made over a thousand different appointments of his donors to boards and commissions, and they all tend to be overwhelmingly of one political party.”

Catherine Frazier, spokeswoman for the Perry campaign, said it was hypocritical of White to accuse Perry of appointing people who have contributed to his campaign when White has also appointed a number

of campaign donors to positions.

“The governor appoints people based on qualifications and nothing more,” Frazier said. “People contribute to his campaign because they believe in his leadership, and it is their First Amendment right to believe him. People have a right to believe in his leadership.”

She said that White’s accusation is being used to deflect attention from a lack of policy initiatives, and that White has been accused of some questionable business ethics and has refused to release all of his tax returns.

But White says he has released more of his tax returns while in office than Perry has. White said he expects accusations to continue because Perry always runs negative campaigns.

The latest attack against White was released by Rob Johnson, Rick Perry’s campaign manager, in a statement Wednesday asking White to apologize for a statement he made Tuesday in Dallas to a group of African-American leaders. Johnson said White made “racially motivated remarks” when he said, “We need a governor who’s a servant, as opposed to Rick Perry, who wants to be treated as master.”

White said that his remark had no racial connotation, and that he uses the line in his speeches all the time. He said no one was offended or asked him to apologize.

“This is the most far-reaching ethics proposal applicable to the governor’s office that’s been proposed in the state of Texas that I have seen,” White said. “We need more transparency and openness in government.”

Caylor Ballinger may be reached at cballinger@elpasotimes.com; 546-6156.

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Less than a year ago, Texas universities and medical schools were clinging to a sliver of hope they may be able to gain ground on competitors in other states.

With other state budgets in the toilet — especially California’s — universities touted Texas’ relatively stable budget to poach high-caliber students and faculty from other states. But with an $18 billion budget shortfall looming in the upcoming legislative session, the sliver of hope is gone, said university presidents at Thursday’s meeting of the University of Texas board of regents.

Earlier this year, Gov. Rick Perry ordered a 5 percent budget cut for all state agencies and has asked them to plan for an additional 10 percent cut over the next biennium.

“There was a sense a year or so ago that we were at a competitive advantage, and I think there was some truth to that. That has changed,” said William Powers, president of the University of Texas at Austin. “I would trade my budget from all sources with UCLA’s budget, and we all know what is going on in California. We are still behind them and these cuts will put us further behind.”

As the state’s top-ranked national research university, UT Austin is competing with institutions that spend nearly double what UT does per student.

According to the Delta Cost Project, public research universities in California spent an average of $22,489 per student in 2008, compared with $12,218 in Texas.

For the state’s seven emerging research institutions, including the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Texas at Dallas, cuts will inevitably slow progress toward becoming Tier One universities.

To chop $8.8 million from its budget, UTSA has said it would forgo salary increases and hiring.

“Budget cuts make it more difficult to reach Tier One, but we have said all along this is a marathon, not a sprint,” said UTSA spokesman David Gabler. “It needs to be carefully planned and executed over time. Yes, cuts will make it slower, but we can’t take our eye off that prize.”

David Daniel, president of UT Dallas, said he sees no relief on the horizon and planned for the cuts by raising tuition and private fundraising.

“Our tuition is higher than UT Austin and we don’t apologize for that,” he said.

Robert Nelsen, president of University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, said his border-region school had little money to begin with. Further cuts will spell the death of recruiting in high schools, sustainability initiatives, increasing bandwidth on campus, faculty development, conferences and travel, to name a few.

“We are going to kill some of those scared cows because that is the only way to do it,” Nelsen said. “I can no longer keep my promise that I made when I went down there, which is no layoffs. We are at the point now where the layoffs begin.”

Despite hard times, Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa said the system cannot abandon its two-pronged mission of excellence and service. Leaders must find a way to invest in strategic hires at the top and expand medical education along the border, all while wringing more efficiency out of the operation.

For instance, regents approved $35 million for a program called STARs to attract and retain researchers. So far, UT has spent $85 million on STARs faculty, who have in turn hauled in more than $345 million in research grants and clinical trial support.

“We have no option but to be stellar in order to transcend the issues of our time,” Cigarroa said.

At the meeting, regents approved a $12.8 billion budget for the system’s nine universities and six health science centers. Overall it was an increase of 7 percent, but the portion from state coffers decreased by 4.4 percent.

The budget did not include a pay raise for Cigarroa, at his request.

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The flooding in Pakistan is an immense catastrophe and has overwhelmed the ability of the Pakistani government to respond. As the Progress Report today explains, “massive monsoonal flooding continues to ravage the country, leaving one-fifth of Pakistan underwater. After weeks of flooding, about 14 million people have already been affected by the floods — including six million children — and estimates of the dead have ranged from 1,200 to 1,600.” While the world has been slow to give, the US has been proactive, providing the most assistance thus far. Helicopters have been sent to the area and have “evacuated 3089 people and delivered 322,340 pounds of relief supplies,” with more on the way. Naval vessels have been parked off Pakistan’s coast to provide logistical assistance. Tanvir Ahmad Khan, a former Pakistani foreign secretary noted from Islamabad that:

The American assistance has been considerable, it has been prompt, and it has been effective.

Not only is helping people in desperate need a very good and moral thing to do, but as Larry Korb and I have argued previously, providing foreign assistance and humanitarian relief in the wake of a disaster is fundamentally in the US national interest. Rahm Emanuel’s statement that one “should never allow a crisis go to waste” is a reflection of the opportunity for change and transformation that a sudden crisis brings about. While this can be viewed cynically, the fact is that the same applies to the floods in Pakistan.

While working with Pakistan is vital to broader US counter-terrorism aims, the Pakistani public has an immensely negative view of the United States. Providing disaster assistance won’t automatically make everyone love us, but it will have an impact. Being on the ground providing aid and assistance in desperate situations following natural disasters, is something that is not soon forgotten. After an initially slow start following the Tsunami disaster in 2004, the US military and US aid agencies mobilized. The military essentially created a sea base, involving a flotilla of ships, of the coast off Indonesia. The US had 15,000 troops in the region and went about urgently ferrying needed supplies to the destroyed coastal regions that were unreachable by land due to the destruction of infrastructure. Following this effort, a Pew Survey found that 80 percent of the citizens of the world’s largest Muslim-majority country had a more favorable opinion of the United States after our response.

The US needs to think more strategically about how to make disaster response a core function of its foreign policy mission than an after thought. In short, the US should embrace being the world’s first responder.

Principally, the US military should make disaster response a core mission. Some may rightly worry about the militarization of aid, and there is no doubt that any disaster response would have to be a multi-agency activity with the expertise of USAID and State taking the lead roles. But no other agency, or frankly country, can provide the logistical reach and capabilities as the US military. As the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, commented during the Tsunami response, “We literally built a city at sea for no other purpose than to serve the needs of other people.” Yet disaster response remains an afterthought and is rarely taken into account in procurement decisions and in the design of new systems.

Some may see the mantle of global first responder as a distraction from “hard” security concerns. But this is nonsense. Responding to natural disasters helps promote stability, improves the image of the United States, and often improves ties and coordination with the affected country’s government. Finally, responding to natural disasters is the price of being the world’s largest superpower. As the guarantor of global security, the U.S. is looked to not just for its ability to deter threats but also for its ability to help when countries are in need. If we are going to have a global military presence, it would make sense for this presence to be seen globally in as positive a light as possible – and being seen as a global first responder is one such way to make this happen.

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WASHINGTON — Determined to show a commitment to stopping the flow of illegal immigrants, the Senate convened a special session Thursday and passed a $600 million bill to put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border.

The voice vote in the nearly empty Senate chamber sends the legislation to President Barack Obama, who planned to sign it into law today.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the chief sponsor, said the measure would provide Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano “with the boots on the ground and the resources necessary to combat the crime and violence.”

House Democrats had also called a special session, summoning lawmakers back from their summer break Tuesday to pass the border security bill and a $26 billion aid bill to keep teachers and other public workers from being laid off.

Both issues — jobs and border security — are among those expected to be on voters’ minds when they go to the polls in November.

Senate historian Donald Ritchie said it is only the second time since the August break became official policy in 1970 that the Senate had reconvened. The first time was after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The border security measure would fund the hiring of 1,000 Border Patrol agents to be deployed at crucial areas, 250 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and 250 more Customs and Border Protection officers.

It provides for new communications equipment and greater use of unmanned aerial surveillance.

Seven such drones are now deployed along the border with Mexico.

The bill will be paid for by raising fees on foreign-based personnel companies that use U.S. visa programs, including the popular H-1B program, to bring skilled workers to the United States.

“This increase in support for our border enforcement officials is a good start,” said U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. “However, we must do more to secure our borders and keep Texas communities safe.

“I introduced legislation that would have given law enforcement officials the resources and the manpower to monitor all 2,000 miles of our southern boundary every single day using [unmanned aerial vehicles] and other high-tech tools. We must take a 21st-century approach to keep our nation safe.”

Staff writer Anna M. Tinsley contributed to this report.

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I come to you this morning from the Renaissance Hotel, where both Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic challenger Bill White will address the Texas Association of Broadcasters. Separately. The program starts early, so FR will be shorter than usual.

But we’ve got an exclusive: Perry will not meet with newspaper editorial boards leading up to his faceoff with White, Perry spokesman Mark Miner said.

“We’ve made the decision that a better use of the governor’s time is to talk directly to Texans and reporters throughout the state,” Miner said, adding that the Perry campaign will also continue to use social media extensively.

Perry will field questions from reporters after his public events and in interviews. What he won’t do is go to newspapers around the state and spend an hour or more at each stop answering questions from editorial writers, editors, publishers and whoever else sits in on those meetings.

Perry did not meet with any editorial boards in the March Republican primary, and it worked out pretty well for him. He beat his chief rival, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, by 20 percentage points. The question is, will his decision to snub the top brass at the state’s newspapers make more of an impact in a general election?

The Perry camp doesn’t appear to think so. But there is some danger here in light of the fact that Perry also says he will not debate White until White meets his demands, which are that White release tax returns from his years in the U.S. Department of Energy and as chairman of the Texas Democratic Party.

White has been highly critical of Perry’s decision to skip editorial boards in the primary, suggesting that the decision shows Perry’s arrogance. And White is making a thorough effort to meet with those boards. He recently stopped for an endorsement interview at the Killeen Daily Herald, which isn’t exactly a traditional stop for gubernatorial candidates.

Miner said Perry isn’t afraid to take questions. “Governor Perry’s the most scrutinized governor in the history of Texas,” Miner said.

Perry met with editorial boards in his 2006 re-election. That year, the Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Express-News and Austin American-Statesman were among the newspapers that endorsed him.

But he’s skipping some conventional campaign practices this year. Remember, this is the guy who won the primary without any yard signs or direct mail.

• From the Statesman’s Tim Eaton: “GOP Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign on Wednesday accused Democrat Bill White of making a racially charged statement, setting off a flurry of defensive reactions from White’s supporters in the African American community. It was the first time this year that the governor’s race, the most competitive Texas has seen in 16 years, fully waded into the issue of race. White upset the Perry campaign when, according to The Dallas Morning News, he said in southern Dallas on Tuesday, ‘We need a governor who’s a servant, as opposed to Rick Perry, who wants to be treated as master.’ Perry campaign manager Rob Johnson said White’s comments to an African American audience in Dallas were ‘insensitive’ and ‘racially motivated.’”

• In my print column this morning, I discuss how a group of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s allies in Texas have assumed leadership of, and revitalized, the Associated Republicans of Texas. “By 2009, Democrats were within two Texas House seats of a majority, and the party’s two biggest Texas names — Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison — were fighting for the governorship. Many in the Republican establishment spotted ART as a good vehicle to prepare for life after the Perry-Hutchison primary and help the GOP push back against recent Democratic gains. Operatives and donors with ties to Cornyn saw this opening and assumed a larger role. Todd Olsen, who worked for Cornyn during his Senate re-election in 2008, is the group’s main consultant, while Dallas investor George Seay III, the grandson of former Gov. Bill Clements and a key member of Cornyn’s 2008 finance team, became one of ART’s key fundraisers. Karl Rove, the former adviser to George W. Bush, has also taken a renewed interest.”

• From Dave Michaels at the Dallas Morning News: “Jeb Hensarling was a career political aide when he decided it was time to leave politics for business. Fresh from eight years with Sen. Phil Gramm, Hensarling quickly landed a job with a hedge fund managed by Sam and Charles Wyly , the Dallas brothers and loyal GOP donors. The young politico hitched his financial future to the entrepreneurial duo, investing his own wealth in the hedge fund and several other Wyly-owned companies. Despite a working relationship that spanned nearly a decade, Hensarling has rarely touted his work for the Wylys. The relationship was mostly a profitable one for Hensarling, whose experience with the Wylys helped him launch a consulting business and achieve a level of corporate success that would make him an attractive candidate when he ran for Congress in 2002. But those ties may become a liability for the Dallas congressman. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused the Wylys on July 29 of insider trading and using offshore entities to hide $550 million in trading profits that should have been disclosed to investors.”

• Interesting story in the student newspaper at St. Edward’s University: “St. Edward’s University released a statement Wednesday explaining its decision to say no to a White House request to consider the campus as the venue for President Barack Obama’s speech in Austin earlier this week.”

• Houston Chronicle: “Homing in on what he sees as a potential Rick Perry weakness, Bill White unveiled an ethics-reform package on Wednesday that he said would clean up the appointments process, place a two-year prohibition on lobbying by former government employees and increase financial disclosure from the governor and his senior staff.”

• Texas Tribune: “Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White is again attacking his Republican opponent, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, for accepting campaign contributions from political appointees — but the former Houston mayor is no stranger to the practice, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of campaign and city records. White has raised nearly $2 million over his years in public life from people he appointed to boards and commissions. In numerous instances, he would have exceeded the limits his own campaign recommended in a proposal unveiled on Tuesday.”

Countdown

66 days until the first day of early voting.

82 days until Election Day.

Everything else

Austin weather from News 8 Austin’s Maureen McCann: Partly sunny, hot, and humid. Slight risk of a brief afternoon shower. High of 101.

Yankees 7, Rangers 6

Saw the first five minutes of the season premiere of “Hard Knocks,” this year starring the New York Jets. And now I get why everyone loves head coach Rex Ryan.

Send me an e-mail at jembry@statesman.com if you want a link to First Reading as soon as I post it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter for news updates around the clock.

Get more Legislative coverage inside the Virtual Capitol

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EL PASO — Healthy populations and gainful employment are the fundamental keys to protecting the nation’s borders, experts said Wednesday at the 7th Annual Border Security Conference.

Health care, especially with the expected U.S. reforms, can provide an engine to boost economic activity and create jobs on both sides of the border, they said, which will reduce the need for illegal crossings. The subject was discussed on the first day of the conference, which continues today at the University of Texas at El Paso.

“Instead of building walls and defenses, build bridges,” said Eva Moya, a UTEP assistant professor with the College of Health Sciences. “Health is not a private good. Instead it should be referred to as a public good.”

Obstacles include poverty, illness, drug-cartel violence, crime, pollution and personal loss, Moya said.

“We seem to have families who are losing hope,” she said. “In health there is hope.”

Mexican health-care providers offer less expensive options, some that match U.S. quality, and create jobs, said members of a morning panel. Medical schools and teaching hospitals on both sides of the border inject money into the local economies and provide trained workers, they said. And U.S. health-care reform will significantly increase demand for health-care workers, said Dr. Jose Manuel de la Rosa, the founding dean of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine.

“There will not be sufficient physicians to attend the

newly insured,” he said.

The recently created four-year medical school in El Paso, at about 30 percent capacity, already has injected hundreds of millions of dollars into the region’s economy, de la Rosa said.

Across from El Paso, the Universidad Autónomo de Ciudad Juárez is also training medical personnel, said Dr. Hugo Staines-Orozco, director of the university’s Biomedical Sciences Institute.

“We are in continuous growth,” Staines said. Even with the drug-cartel related violence in Juárez, the number of students and faculty has been growing, Staines said. Many of the 4,791 students studying at the institute are rising out of poverty. About 60 percent of the students receive some type of financial scholarship, he said.

Most of the students at a Juárez nursing school run by the Mexican Federation of Private Health and Community Development, or FEMAP, are also on partial scholarships, said Dr. Enrique Suárez, FEMAP’s executive director for Juárez programs. And the school is turning out graduates whose scores are among the best in Chihuahua state, he said. The school has produced 850 nurses in 17 years, he said, and 500 students are enrolled for the 2010 academic year.

However, a lack of resources forced the school to turn away 200 qualified applicants for lack of space, he said.

More skilled Juárez medical workers also will boost medical tourism, Suárez said. Many El Paso residents cross the border for dental and medical care and to buy prescription drugs, all of which are generally cheaper there.

But violence is discouraging that activity.

Dr. Juan S. Rios has a dental practice in Juárez that caters to U.S. customers. He has seen a 70 percent drop in U.S. customers, he said.

“I’m only one block from the bridge. There haven’t been any problems around the bridge,” Rios said in a phone interview.

Bad economic times are bringing some back. “My prices are quite a bit lower,” he said.

Prescription drugs typically cost less in Juárez, according to a recent study co-written by Thomas M. Fullerton, a UTEP professor of economics and finance. In 2006, according to the report, U.S. consumers bought nearly $285 billion in pharmaceutical products. Escalating prices pushed people into Canada and Mexico where the “savings are frequently quite large,” the report states.

There too, cartel-related violence has changed people’s habits, Fullerton said.

“Anecdotal evidence suggests that fewer trips are being made to (Juárez) pharmacies,” Fullerton said in a phone interview. “What is not clear is whether those trips are translating into larger purchases.”

Although no hard data exist, he said, the recent closings of several Juárez pharmacies that catered to international customers indicate that people are buying less.

Despite the obstacles, some are finding binational solutions.

Sistemas Médicos Nacionales provides health-care coverage for Mexican citizens who live in Mexico and work legally in the United States, said Chief Executive Officer Francisco Carrillo, a panel member.

California allows such cross-border ventures, but Texas, New Mexico and Arizona do not, he said. The care is provided in Mexico, which creates jobs, and premiums are, on average, 50 percent to 60 percent lower for equivalent coverage, he said.

“Employers can save millions of dollars,” Carrillo said. “For many California employers, it is the only way to provide benefits for all their employees.”

Quality is monitored both by the state of California and the insurance companies, he said.

“Our care is comparable to care in any system in the United States and anywhere in the world,” Carrillo said.

And allowing U.S. retirees living in Mexico to use their Medicare at qualified facilities would provide a significant economic boost, he said.

“Mexico will no longer be a poor country,” Carrillo said. “It will no longer require aid from the United States. We will no longer have illegal crossings.”

Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.

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Ralph K.M. Haurwitz | The Austin American-Statesman

Six hundred staff and faculty jobs would have to be eliminated during the next two years or so and the quality of the educational experience would decline if the state Legislature cuts funding for the University of Texas by 10 percent, the school’s president warned Thursday.

The job losses would be in addition to positions already being shed as a result of a previously imposed 5 percent cut in state funding. Layoffs in the current budget year, which ends Aug. 31, total 288 so far.

Legislative leaders have directed public universities and agencies to submit budget plans incorporating an additional 10 percent reduction, but lawmakers won’t settle the matter until they meet next year in Austin.

UT President William Powers Jr. told the UT System Board of Regents that a 10 percent cut in appropriations of state tax dollars would erode the university’s ability to hire and retain faculty members, to attract top graduate students and to sustain its student-faculty ratio, now at 18 to 1.

“These cuts are not coming off excessive budgets in any way,” Powers said. “At the end of the day, we will have larger classes. We will have fewer sections of required and basic courses. It will slow our increase in advising in undergraduate studies. Ultimately, it will have an impact on the quality of the educational experience.”

Powers said he didn’t know how many of the 600 positions would be eliminated by layoffs and how many would be taken off the books through retirements and other forms of attrition. Some tenured faculty members could be offered buyouts to retire, an approach already under way in UT’s largest academic unit, the College of Liberal Arts.

Tenured and tenure-track faculty members have been spared in the current round of layoffs, with most of the pink slips going to staff members. Some teaching slots held by lecturers and graduate students also have been eliminated.

“It would be hard to imagine a 10 percent cut without some actual layoffs,” Powers said.

The university has about 25,000 employees.

The grim projections for the UT System’s flagship campus came on the second day of a two-day Board of Regents meeting at which officials sought to emphasize the economic value to the state of a robust higher education system. The message was somewhat similar to that delivered earlier in the week at UT by President Barack Obama, who declared education to be “the economic issue of our time.”

UT System officials said they have spent $85 million in six years to recruit and retain top faculty members at the system’s academic and health campuses, with those faculty members obtaining $345 million in research grants and clinical trial funding, primarily from the federal government.

Officials said they would carry the message that higher education is a wise investment to the Legislature. Colleen McHugh , who leads the Board of Regents, said she would be active in representing the UT campuses’ interests before lawmakers.

Regent James Dannenbaum said it might be time to break out bumper stickers with the following message: “If you think education’s expensive, try the cost of ignorance.”

Other UT Board of Regents action

The University of Texas System regents also:

Reinstated a provision of the ethics code for their investment unit that had been dropped two years ago. Under the tightened rule, the University of Texas Investment Management Co. and members of its board of directors are barred from putting money into the same private equity and hedge funds.

Approved a $12.8 billion operating budget for the 15-campus system for the budget year starting Sept. 1. That amounts to an increase of 6.9 percent, or $829 million, over the current budget. Revenue sources include state appropriations, tuition and fees, research grants and health care.

Authorized spending $17.7 million to build athletic department offices in vacant space at the north end zone of UT-Austin’s Royal-Memorial Stadium. Debt from bonds issued to pay for the work will be paid back with athletic revenues. Space at Bellmont Hall currently used for athletic offices will be used for academic programs.

rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604

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AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry’s appointee as chairman of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is soliciting contributions for the governor’s re-election campaign from the owners of bars and restaurants he regulates.

In an e-mail to hundreds of restaurants that serve alcohol, José Cuevas seeks donations of $1,000 to $5,000 for a Perry fundraiser next month at an Austin steakhouse.

Cuevas, a Midland restaurateur, was appointed by Perry to the commission in 2004 and was named chairman last year. The agency regulates all phases of the alcoholic beverage business in Texas, including the restaurants whose owners he asked to give money.

Cuevas was not identified as chairman of the commission, but he acknowledged that those receiving the e-mail would have known who he was. Both he and the governor’s campaign defended the solicitation as coming from a fellow restaurant owner, not as someone who regulates restaurants.

“In this case, you have a letter from someone who is a longtime restaurant owner who is soliciting money from people in the same business,” said Perry spokesman Mark Miner.

The solicitation violates no laws, as it came from Cuevas personally and not under the official auspices of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Members of state boards and commissions receive ethics training, but Miner declined to say whether the Republican governor has a policy on political activity by his appointees.

Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice, which tracks campaign contributions, said the notion that Cuevas was acting solely as a businessman isn’t good enough.

“The people receiving this letter, the restaurant and bar owners, can live or die by his actions,” McDonald said. “The recipient thinks, ‘Do I have to give or do I not have to give?’ This is totally a conflict of interest.”

The fundraising e-mail went to more than 200 people in the restaurant business, including owners, suppliers and attorneys. It included a reply form for donors to e-mail the Perry campaign with their pledge.

The solicitation, signed by Cuevas and three other Perry supporters, touts the governor’s stewardship of the state as “good for business, plain and simple.”

In a veiled reference to Perry’s challenger, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the fundraising appeal denounces “Washington politicians” and repeats a campaign theme that Perry is responsible for job creation and economic development.

“The only thought I gave is that these are the guys who are usually politically involved in restaurant issues,” Cuevas said. “They understand politics and are always involved.”

The fundraising appeal raised eyebrows among several lobbyists and restaurant owners, who said they could not recall a similar solicitation.

“It’s certainly a little odd. It’d be like the racing commissioner sending out a fundraising letter to all the tracks,” said one Austin lobbyist, a Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concern his clients might be punished.

Said a Democratic lobbyist, who also asked not to be identified: “It’s the only letter I’ve ever seen from a regulator to a group of people [he regulates] asking for this kind of support.”

Ralph Sheffield, a restaurant owner from Temple who is a Republican member of the Texas House, said Cuevas probably signed the fundraising e-mail out of loyalty to Perry.

“He wears a couple of hats,” Sheffield said. “Probably José is wearing the restaurant hat, not the regulator hat, when he signed that letter.”

Miner said that although Perry has no problem with Cuevas’ solicitation – “None at all” – he would not say whether the governor has a general policy on state regulators soliciting those they regulate.

“I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals,” Miner said.

The Texas Restaurant Association has supported Perry in the past, although the trade group has not chosen sides between Perry and Hutchison, who will face each other in the March Republican primary.

Campaign records show that Perry has received more than $400,000 from restaurant interests since he became governor in 2000. In addition, he has raised nearly $800,000 from beer and liquor interests regulated by the TABC.

As a candidate seeking statewide office for the first time in 1990, Perry called for an investigation of his Democratic opponent, Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, because a grain and seed regulator under Hightower was soliciting campaign contributions from those he regulated.

Perry’s campaign manager denounced “the shakedown of people regulated by the Texas Department of Agriculture” and said that “this kind of political strong-arming is reprehensible.”

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Two major teachers’ unions in Texas released comments yesterday about the $813 million appropriated for our schools, thanks to the hard work of Congressman Lloyd Doggett.

Linda Bridges, president of the 65,000-member Texas AFT (the statewide affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers), released the following statement, urging Rick Perry to accept the money without delay (emphasis mine):

“With a new school year beginning this month for our budget-squeezed school districts and with more education job losses looming, Texas Gov. Rick Perry should do nothing to imperil the $830 million in federal aid for Texas public schools that won final passage in the U.S. House today.“Misplaced partisanship and unfounded concerns about state prerogatives cannot be allowed to put this urgently needed assistance at risk. Our schoolchildren need to be the priority, and they need their teachers and school support staff in their classrooms, not on the unemployment lines.

“There is no excuse for rejecting this help for our schools, as Gov. Perry has threatened to do. Texas teachers and educational support employees call on the governor to rethink his stance on this issue and make sure that the aid flows to Texas school districts without delay.”

A statement from Texas State Teachers Association President Rita Haecker praised Representative Lloyd Doggett and Congressional Democrats for doing right by Texas teachers:

“Texas educators say, ‘Thank you!’ With Texas’ public schools already under-funded, and the Texas Legislature facing an $18 billion revenue shortfall next year, this extra money couldn’t have come at a better time.”Some teachers are losing their jobs. Others are faced with higher health care premiums to help school districts balance their budgets. It is time for Governor Perry and other Republican leaders, who have been hyperventilating over political hyperboles, to quit playing political games with Texas teachers and school kids.

“What the Doggett amendment is attempting to do is make it clear that Texas will use the federal funds in the way the bill intends them to be used – maintaining current programs, retaining current staff and, where possible, hiring additional staff to handle the still-growing Texas student population.”

An estimated 1,000 to 2,000 Texas teachers lost their employment contracts this year. An additional, unknown number of teacher positions were lost to attrition amid a flurry of school district budget cuts throughout the state.

This funding will help prevent further job losses by educators, and help protect our kids’ education. The children of Texas need to be our priority, to make sure we have a workforce able to innovate and compete for good jobs now and in the future. Education is the bedrock of our society, the foundation of the American dream.

The children of Texas–the future of Texas–are depending on our government to accept and utilize these funds as intended immediately. A quality education can’t wait.

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Yesterday, the U.S. House approved legislation that will reduce the budget shortfall in Texas by $850 million. Now, granted, that’s a fraction of the $18 Billion dollar deficit created by Rick Perry’s decade of failed leadership. Specifically, Texas will receive $850 million for its Medicaid program. An additional $813 million will go directly to Texas school districts for teachers and education staff support. But it’s a great start, especially since the Texas funds are allocated towards education and Medicaid, where they can do the most good for those who need the help most.

Seems like a no-brainer, right? Who doesn’t like lowering deficits? Who’s against investing the money in education and public health, where it will pay dividends in human capital for generations? Who would deny our schools and teachers the funding needed to educate the next generation of Texas leaders?

Texas Republicans, that’s who.

That’s why they all voted against it. Every single one of them. They voted against every teacher in their district, every hospital worker. They voted against putting more cops on the streets and more firemen in the firehouse all across America. Texas Republicans are so against helping average Americans, they voted against closing corporate tax loopholes for folks who ship jobs overseas, voted against helping to fund education for all Texas children.

(By the by, two Republicans did vote for the package–Rep. Cao of Louisiana, the sole Republican vote for health reform, and Mike Castle of Delaware, stuck in a tight race for Senate in a traditionally Blue State.)

It’s disgusting and callous to see Republican partisanship rear up and oppose such basic good government measures such as this. Thankfully the Democratic Congress was able to pass the package, and make sure that states have the funding they need to keep the lights on.

State Representative Garnet Coleman released a statement in support of the state aid package:

I’m thankful to the Democratic congressional delegation from Texas for securing these funds for our state. It’s sad that not a single Republican from our state’s congressional delegation was concerned about the budget shortfall in Texas.Governor Perry, who last year accepted $12 billion in federal stimulus dollars to help balance our state budget, did not lift a finger to help Texas get these funds.

In case you’re following along at home, Rick Perry didn’t try to get these funds because Rick Perry’s only in it for himself. He doesn’t give a damn about the schoolchildren of Texas. And neither, apparently, does any Texas Republican in Congress.

I guess the Republican Party has expanded their platform on this one to include no support for our schools and teachers, no funding for cops and firemen, and no common sense that reducing the deficit in Texas might actually be a good thing. But from the Party of No, that’s no surprise.

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Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a state aid package that will help 160,000 teachers keep their jobs, and also provide funds for more cops and firemen. Despite strong Republican objection, our Democratic Congress passed aid to help protect the jobs of these professionals who do so much to uphold the fabric of our society.

In this package is a Texas-specific amendment that will force our state to spend education aid on schools and teachers, preventing Rick Perry from using it to plug budget gaps elsewhere. Kudos to Lloyd Doggett for making sure this money goes where it’s intended–into our local schools and classrooms, making education better for all Texans.

Video of Representative Doggett’s comments below, with full text (emphasis mine) following:

“Listening to the concerns of parents, the hopes of students, and the needs of our local Texas school leaders, today we are responding with essential federal aid to education, fully paid for by closing international corporate tax loopholes that should never had been there in the first place.“Because we believe in local control of education, we require that the State of Texas, specifically, forward this new federal aid to our local school districts, not divert it or spend it on something else. The Texas Association of School Boards, Texas teachers, principals, and school administrators support this legislation and this approach.

“Now those, who have never wanted Texas or any other place in this country to receive a dime of additional federal aid to education, they complain that because we are holding Texas Governor Rick Perry accountable for proper use of these taxpayer dollars.

“There is absolutely no Constitutional limitation on doing right by our Texas schoolchildren.  Instead of concocting phony legalistic arguments Governor Perry and his cohorts here in Congress ought to be joining us in supporting quality public education.

“You can be sure that Texas is singled out by this legislation-it was singled out by the Governor who grabbed $3.2 billion of federal aid to education to bailout a mismanaged state government-that’s the bailout that occurred. It occurred last year in the State of Texas.  We didn’t send that federal aid for education to Texas to plug a mismanaged state budget; we sent it to help our schoolchildren.

“Today, in order to avoid history from repeating itself, we demand accountability, we demand support for quality public education and local control of education and not more mismanagement and interference from the State of Texas.”

Any Republicans have problems with this? Using education money on education, not to cover up fiscal mismanagement? Actually funding our schools and teachers, in order to provide our children–all of our children–with the best education possible? What about closing the tax loophole that benefited corporations shipping American jobs overseas? Anything?

You go, Lloyd Doggett! You may only represent a portion of our state, but your amendment has ensured a brighter day for schoolchildren all across Texas.

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Houston trial lawyer Steve Mostyn will open a new front in his election-year war against Gov. Rick Perry today by launching a television commercial that criticizes Perry’s pursuit of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Mostyn is fast becoming the pre-eminent donor in Texas Democratic politics and a key player in the race for governor. He has put more than $2 million into Democratic causes and campaigns in this election cycle and appears poised to spend several million more.

Much of that money has gone to the Back to Basics Political Action Committee, which has already aired two statewide television commercials critical of the governor.

In the group’s third ad, which will launch statewide today, a rancher says Perry “would bulldoze half a million acres of private land — and give it to a Spanish company to build toll roads and let the company set the tolls. When lawmakers tried to stop him, Perry vetoed the law.”

The 500,000-acre figure is a reference to early plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor, a long-range plan for 4,000 miles of cross-state tollways, passenger and freight rail lines, and utilities that Perry first laid out in 2002.

The corridor ran into considerable criticism in rural Texas, and members of Perry’s administration long ago, even while they were actively developing an Interstate 35 corridor plan, admitted that nothing close to that 4,000 miles would ever be built.

Later, in January 2009, transportation officials declared that the corridor concept was dead.

A few legal remnants of the plan are still on the books, and the state is still working on Interstate 69 from the Rio Grande Valley to Texarkana, which was a key part of the corridor. But the current plans for I-69 are vastly different from what the corridor plan envisioned, Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Chris Lippincott said.

“We’re not going to develop Trans-Texas Corridor projects,” Lippincott said.

Cintra , a Spanish company, never had a contract to build every road in the corridor, Lippincott said. Also, he said a private company would never have been able to set tolls because the state Transportation Commission would have had final say.

Back to Basics director Clifton Walker said Perry could try to revive portions of the corridor if voters re-elect him.

“Our land, homes and family farms just aren’t safe with Rick Perry as governor,” Walker said.

Back to Basics has relied heavily on Mostyn’s money to pay for statewide television ads knocking Perry for taxpayer spending on his western Travis County rental home and on his 2007 attempt to require schools to offer a human papillomavirus vaccine.

The group’s latest ad buy cost about $900,000.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White said recently that he isn’t coordinating with Back to Basics. But if the group’s ads are effective, they could prove a tremendous benefit to White: The spots would bruise Perry without costing White any of his own campaign money.

Perry spokesman Mark Miner dismissed the ad.

“Baseless attacks from Bill White’s front groups aren’t going to solve problems,” Miner said.

jembry@statesman.com; 445-3572

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WASHINGTON – Texas would have to preserve its current education spending levels through 2013 to qualify for more than $830 million in federal aid under a Texas-specific provision signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama.

The mandate passed the House on Tuesday afternoon as part of a $26 billion jobs protection bill, despite strong opposition from Texas Republicans. Several said the amendment unfairly singled out the state and jeopardized its ability to receive the funds.

“This is another example of President Obama and the Democratic leadership messing with Texas,” said Rep. Joe Barton , R-Arlington.

Gov. Rick Perry said the provision, which applies only to Texas, is unconstitutional because state officials can’t guarantee future spending. And only days after Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst threatened legal action over the requirements, Perry promised to “fight this injustice.”

“It is unfortunate that Washington continues to play partisan games with Texans’ tax dollars and the very future of our children,” Perry said.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who authored the mandate, said he was trying to prevent a repeat of last year, when the Texas Legislature diverted nearly $3.2 billion in federal stimulus money from education spending to shore up the state’s budget.

“We have good reason to include in this legislation Texas-specific safeguards to prevent more such shenanigans,” said the Austin Democrat.

The political jousting might all be for naught, depending on how strictly the Obama administration interprets the provision. Scott McCown, a former Democratic state judge, said a “reasonable” reading would allow Perry to simply give assurances similar to those he made last year to receive stimulus money.

“All the governor has to do is promise in good faith that he’s going to aim for this target and that he thinks Texas can hit it,” McCown said. “If he does that, we get the money.”

U.S. Education Department officials said that they would follow the law but that they would work closely with Texas to ensure that the state receives the funds.

The law, which aims to ease budget crises in several states and prevent the layoffs of government employees, includes more than $830 million to help save about 14,500 jobs in Texas schools, according to Education Department estimates.

Dozens of Texas school superintendents, including Michael Hinojosa of Dallas ISD, and several groups representing school boards, school administrators and teachers have voiced their support for the legislation.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, pointed to those organizations in explaining his support of the bill, and he blasted those decrying the Texas provision.

“The fundamental principle at stake is whether federal education funds should be used for Texas schoolchildren or state slush funds,” he said.

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