LegeLines
What your legislators are up to this week
By Richard Whittaker, Fri., April 10, 2009
• Missing in drafting: Lawmakers had hoped to bring House Bill 3, the new school accountability bill, back to committee on April 7, but the latest round of public input was so huge that it's pushed back to April 13 at the earliest.
• After a series of damning federal reports, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee heard two bills to reform state residential facilities for people with mental and behavioral needs, including banning psychotropic drugs and straitjackets for residents.
• Lawmakers in both chambers are working on alternative proposals for reforming the embattled Texas Youth Commission and Juvenile Probation Commission, varying from merging them to placing them under a single board to leaving them separate.
• The House State Affairs Committee took public testimony on HB 623, which would restrict all massage establishments to a 7am-10pm workday (so no throwing your shoulder out at 10:01pm) and require that doors remain unlocked during business hours (because there's nothing so relaxing as the chance of an intruder barging in on your massage).
• The House Subcommittee on Energy Efficiency and Renewables touched on the thorny issue of electricity decoupling, which would restructure bills so that utilities can still make money while encouraging customers to use less electricity.
• Big week for Rep. Diana Maldonado: The Round Rock Democrat got her first bill (HB 1332, making families responsible for replacing lost school equipment, same as they are for books) out of the House, 145-0, on April 2.
• Speaker Joe Straus made a polite request to committee chairs to finish meetings around 5pm on April 8, to allow Jewish legislators and staff to get home in time for the beginning of Passover. For breaking news and analysis, visit austinchronicle.com/legeland, or sign up to www.twitter.com/legeland.
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