Texas House Democratic leader Jim Dunnam today probed Gov. Rick Perry's lead appointee on workforce policy issues about the delicate subject of looming employer tax hikes. Higher rates of unemployment insurance tax would refresh the state's tapped-out unemployment compensation trust...
House Democratic Leader Jim Dunnam of Waco says changing consultants and operatives won't fix what ails the Texas GOP -- lousy stands on insurance regulation, health care and public schools. Dunnam, responding to our earlier post about the state GOP's...
Speaker Joe Straus, shoring himself up in his GOP caucus, is taking flak from the Democrats -- and planning to seek a second term as speaker in 2011. Straus, R-San Antonio, filed papers declaring candidacy for another term as speaker...
A Democratic bid to kill the voter-ID bill on technical grounds -- late filing of minutes about a committee meeting -- is failing. Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, apologized for earlier comments that buoyed Democrats' hopes that he'd uphold a...
There were some unexpected twists as House Democrats plotted how to kill voter ID, leader Jim Dunnam says. The Democrats have had to scramble, switching game plans. Last Thursday, he said, the plan was for Democrat who had bills on...
House Democratic Leader Jim Dunnam of Waco has lodged points of order recently against several bills by House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee Chairman Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi. As I suspected, it's about lawsuit limits, or "tort reform." The tiff...
The House just approved a budget provision forcing Gov. Rick Perry to risk losing his precious deal-closing money if he persists in trying to reject extra federal stimulus funds for unemployment insurance. The House approved giving the governor that Hobson's...
UPDATE: Preservationist Dealey Herndon of Austin, who is overseeing restoration of the fire-ravaged Governor's Mansion, says she doubts it would cost less to make it a museum and re-purchase another Austin mansion as the governor's residence. As reported here last...
A discussion on the House floor today captured an emerging irony of the Legislature's stimulus money discussion: Texas, while currently in the black, faces a long-run "structural deficit" because it cut school property taxes by a good deal in 2006,...
House Democratic Leader Jim Dunnam says legislative budget writers "appear to be" intent on disarming Gov. Rick Perry when it comes to Texas' use of federal stimulus money. Dunnam, D-Waco, said today that budget packaging is likely to inhibit Perry's...
The House is such a lovey-dovey place. Former flamethrower Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, just did a comedy sketch with newly elected GOP Caucus Chairman Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood (on left in DMN photo). Dunnam, wearing a black shirt, said Taylor's been swiping...
Guess who's going to Washington? Maybe. Some Texas House members, named by Speaker Joe Straus last week to a newly created Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization Funding, are mulling a possible expedition to the Potomac. The quarry: Answers about...
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