Senate: No Time To Kill

Kirk Watson (Photo by John Anderson)

On the Senate side of the Travis delegation, the most noteworthy news has been headlining failures rather than successes, but both senators have moved several bills over to the House, so there's still a little time to change that before the clock runs out. The bills will need to move soon, though – only a few of them have landed in committee.

Kirk Watson, Senate District 14

Watson has had too many bills make it to the House to list here, but more noteworthy is what didn't make it. Before the session, the Austin senator touted Senate Bills 695 through 708, crafted to increase budget transparency and end the "toxic mix of debt, diversions, and deception" that he says helped get the state in its current financial mess. Thus far, SB 701 is the only one to even get out of committee, and is waiting in the House for referral. The bill would require state agencies to post "high-value data sets" (data that "is critical to the financial and programmatic function" of the agency) online in a raw format that the public can download.

Otherwise, most of the bills that have gotten farthest down the road are either low-profile or bills on which he's one of multiple authors. An example of the former would be SB 1187, which made it out of House committee. It would make lis pendens – legal notices signifying that a piece of property is the subject of a lawsuit – immediately available for public access; they currently are not. An example of the latter would be SB 24 – strengthening laws against human trafficking – which has already been signed by the governor. One of Watson's highest-profile bills, SB 407, which would create criminal penalties against "sexting" – sending sexually explicit text messages – is waiting for House committee referral.

Jeff Wentworth, SD 25

Although a San Antonian, Wentworth represents a large chunk of South Austin. As with Watson, his highest-profile legislation got shot down, so to speak, before ever getting to the House – including SB 354, which would have allowed licensed, concealed handguns on college and university campuses – and instead got stuck on the Senate floor. And as always, his bill to take congressional redistricting out of the hands of the Legis­lature (SB 196 this time) got nowhere.

The Wentworth bill closest to becoming law is SB 914, currently in the House Local & Consent Calendars Committee (a step away from a House floor vote and almost certain passage). The bill would clarify that "certain multi-county districts with the power of a river authority" are exempt from having to apply to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for engineering review and bond approval for financing regional wastewater projects, on the assumption that such agencies are usually experienced in such projects.