What do you hope the Legislature will do this year? (Topic of the day)
1:00 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009
Betsy Simnacher

We asked our Voices columnists and our Sounding Off respondents to name what they hope the Texas Legislature will accomplish this year.

Some themes emerged, from health care to job growth to enhancing education. Please read the rest of the blog entry to see the details and respond with your own push for our Lege.

Job growth was a priority for some:

Jeff Fortney Sr. of Plano: The Legislature needs to concentrate on job growth. Lay aside the petty political infighting, the agendas of each side of the aisle and spend time asking this simple question when debating any bill: Does this positively or negatively impact job growth?

Of course, others wanted the Legislature to curb illegal immigration:

Felicity Pearson of McKinney: I hope the Legislature will take a clue from the Oklahoma Legislature and enact tough employee sanctions against companies that continue to employ illegal immigrants, especially now that so many American citizens are out of work.

Tom Wilson of Grapevine: I want a serious crackdown on illegal immigrants with tall fences and mass deportation. Protect the citizens who voted you into office.


But one Teacher Voice, Katherine Palomino, took a different approach to immigration:

I hope to see the Texas Legislature enact laws that give illegal immigrants the chance to become legal and continue contributing to our economy. I visited Juarez at Christmas, and it brought home the fact that many of these immigrants were facing a worse situation than many people can even begin to fathom. They are refugees from a war. Going back to it is not an option.

Still others were concerned about education:

Carey Christenberry of Irving: I'd like to see the Legislature abolish the TAKS test immediately. No slow transition to the new end-of-course exams, but a complete, total withdrawal from an egregiously bad system.

Kirk Evans of Allen, who is a Teacher Voice: The U.S. Congress should pass a "No Child Left Inside" Act in this session. Our Texas Legislators should implement our own version of the act to get to fund programs classrooms throughout Texas to teach environmental, ecological and conservation education.

And others wished for better health care, fairer insurance rates and legalized gambling. What do you want the Legislature to do for you and for Texas? Write us a comment.

And if you want to get the weekly Sounding Off e-mail, write your full contact information in an e-mail and send it to communityopinions@dallasnews.com
Comments
Posted by Mike @ 6:27 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

I would like to see Texas politicians who are soft on illegal immigrants removed from office.
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Posted by Eric Brandler @ 7:38 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

If the Legislature could only address the TAKS testing criteria that has become the all-consuming target of public education benchmarking...

and preserve the Top 10 percent admission rule as a Top 7 percent standard (Yes, seven doesn't sound as nice as ten), rather than scrapping it as the UT bigwigs would prefer...

and lay off the hot-button social issues that rile up the wingnuts.
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Posted by Michael McGown @ 8:11 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

Passage of the bill to create a citizens' Congressional Redistricting Commission is critical in this session because the census occurs in 2010, and redistricting will be done in 2011. Senate Bill 315 is non-controversial and will save the state thousands of lost man-hours and millions of dollars. The bill requires no debate--it's been passed by the Senate several times. It just needs a willing House of Representatives. Contact your rep!
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Posted by PaulC @ 8:12 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

I don't need to say a thing. Troy has already said it for me.
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Posted by HernandezUSA @ 9:20 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

"We need the SAVE ACT and E-verify used for every business and to be sure illegals stay out of the job market to save American jobs.

E-verify does not discriminate against RACE, Religion, SEX or physically capability only your Citizenship and your LEGAL right to be and work in United States.


If we can stop Predatory business owners from hiring then the Illegal Aliens will not Stay and return to their native Countries.

This ISSUE is not about RACE, but ALL Governments Federal/State/LOCAL not doing their jobs, because big and small business owners want cheap workers and no labor laws to bother with.

Its called GREED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Both Liberals and Conservatives need to take some pride in our Country and protect it from all invading nations citizens and corporate greed. Please, NO IMMIGRANT BASHING or HATE Crimes.


HATE only feeds the single RACE agenda groups for Open Borders and the Liberal Media"
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Posted by Tamitha @ 9:30 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

One thing that needs to be fixed is the non-disclosure of commercial property values. If commercial properties were taxed at their real value, it would ease the tax burden on home owners.
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Posted by Mark Cain @ 10:03 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

We don't need any illegal freeloaders in this country!! We have enough liberal freeloaders now as it is.
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Posted by Phillip J Hubbell @ 10:07 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

I hope the legislature will simply vote to end the session without doing anything. Our livelihoods are in danger in direct relation to how long government legislative bodies are in session whether state or national.
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Posted by TieDye @ 10:44 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

I would like to see legislature remove expensive redundancy from standardized testing in Texas' public high schools. If our goals are to prepare kids for college, scrap TAKS and administer standardized college entrance/placement exams in high school. The folks in the testing business are the only ones who benefit from the current situation. The state of Texas already owns rights to administer many many college placement tests. Why pay for production of TAKS when we have better tests already available? Answer: politics.
Texas public high schools administrators can and do prevent public colleges from accepting "under age" students, even if they can pass the entrance exam. This places higher value on the interest of the ISD's administration than on the student's future or our tax dollars. The focus on "no student left behind" causes us to hold accelerated learners back and cost millions of tax dollars.
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Posted by TieDye @ 10:53 AM Thu, Jan 08, 2009

Timatha and Mark, lets not forget that Mansions are also exempt from disclosing sales prices. The wealthy, both liberals and conservatives, lie and avoid property taxes. It s common practice and supported by the real estate industry. Lets see if the Bushes are willing to disclose the actual price they paid for their new mansion, or if they take advantage of dishonesty in the real estate industry and avoid paying their fair share.
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