Published: June 01, 2009 03:44 pm      

Lawmakers leave big issues for final day

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — They say nothing in the Texas Legislature can be declared dead until the final day. Lawmakers tested that limit Monday.

Legislators embarked on the last day of the 2009 session with big unfinished business: approval of a hurricane insurance compromise and a lingering dispute over the future of the Texas Department of Transportation and other state agencies. Failure to deal with those issues by Monday’s midnight adjournment deadline could mean a return to Austin for a special legislative session.

Neither the House nor Senate seemed in a hurry to vote on bills Monday.

“We’ve had one heck of a session this time,” said Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, as the Senate took time to honor its newly selected president pro tempore, Sen. Troy Fraser of Horseshoe Bay.

In the House, lawmakers crowded around to cheerfully greet returning Rep. Edmund Kuempel, a Seguin Republican who suffered a massive heart attack in the Capitol in May and spent extensive time hospitalized afterward.

“Seeing all of your friends, and what they’d do for you and how they feel about you ... that’s what you come back and take out of this,” Kuempel said.

One serious matter waiting to be addressed was an overhaul of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the only wind insurer for property owners in 14 coastal counties and part of Harris County. The state-chartered fund filled a gap when private insurers pulled away from the coast but was depleted last year by hurricanes Ike and Dolly.

The House approved a compromise plan for TWIA on Sunday night. The Senate was waiting until Monday to take it up.

Meanwhile, House members weighed whether to suspend their rules for the final day so they could vote on a safety net bill to keep several state agencies, including the transportation department, operating until the Legislature meets again.

A “sunset” bill that would make changes in the transportation agency and keep it running hadn’t passed the House or Senate by Monday afternoon. Sen. John Carona, a Dallas Republican, threatened to talk the bill to death if it came up because it didn’t include a local-option gas tax for road construction that he wanted.

What at first looked like rough waters for budget writers this year turned relatively benign with the influx of billions of dollars in federal economic stimulus money. Well before the final day, lawmakers approved a $182 billion two-year spending plan that contained $12.1 billion in stimulus money.

The state budget is the only bill lawmakers are constitutionally required to pass.

Partisan fighting broke out early this when the Senate passed a Republican-backed bill to require Texas voters to show more identification when casting a ballot. Democrats said that would suppress voter turnout by creating more barriers to participation.

House Democrats killed the measure by talking and talking and preventing it from coming up for debate.

On the final weekend of the 140-day session, Carona criticized the lack of direction in this year’s Legislature and what he said was “utter lack of leadership” by Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus, all fellow Republicans.

“There’s no agenda for this legislative session. It’s like a Seinfeld episode. It’s like the session without a purpose,” Carona said.

If Perry decides to, he can call an unlimited number of 30-day special sessions and force lawmakers to return to the Capitol — for specified purposes.

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Associated Press writer Jackie Stone contributed to this report.