Legislative Priorities

  As the 85^th Legislature session is approaching, many legislators had planned for many hopeful bills in making them into laws in 2017. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick also published his personal list of top ten legislative priorities. Couples of the issues on the list are considered to be prioritized, and some are solution seeking problems. This list is categorized into two groups by some journalists as pressing concerns and issues have been seen before.

     For the press concerns, those issues are mainly about inappropriate teacher-student relationship, property tax reform, budget proposal and spending cap; on the other hand, some other issues that have seen before are hailstorm lawsuit reform, sanctuary cities, school choice, photo voter ID, women’s privacy act, and fetal tissue or partial birth abortion. Many demands ask for more focuses on Texas child protective services and state budget spending.

    My opinion is on both sides for these two categories; I support not only children protective services, state budget spending but also school choice and women’s privacy act. Texas continues to increase in the numbers of teachers engaging in abusive and inappropriate relationship with students, and the cause of this issue is the weakness of methods of reporting and tracking teachers with history of misconduct. This is not only Texas’ issue but also nationwide issue; therefore, legislation is needed to strengthen the reporting and training requirements or even appropriate penalties.  Texas also pays one of highest property taxes in the nation, and Patrick had created a new senate committee to hope to find a statewide solution in order to assist business growth and decrease tax rates. Everyone is looking for this change as well. Furthermore, women’s privacy also needs to be prioritized because women and girls should have their privacy and safety in public restroom. Although there is not any reported case that transgender sneaking to public restroom and attacking women, it is still a yes or no question on this issue. Of course, there are many more different issues, but these ten priorities are considered to be prioritized according to Dan Patrick.

     In sum, there are lots of issues to look forward when the legislation session begin on January next year. Whatever issues that need immediate attention should be prioritized, especially children and women rights.