Governor and Texas Lege tussle over vetoes

[Winehole23]

The Legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott are in a tug-of-war over some state spending that the governor cut last month through line-item vetoes.

Ursula Parks, director of the 10-lawmaker Legislative Budget Board, said in a letter to Comptroller Glenn Hegar on Tuesday that Abbott strayed into the lawmakers’ turf, erasing their directions to agencies when he legally can only topple dollar amounts known as “items of appropriation.”


An Abbott spokesman shot back that Parks and “unelected bureaucrats” at the Legislative Budget Board were “legally wrong.” The Republican governor was in the right, said John Wittman, Abbott’s deputy press secretary.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/state-politics/20150722-inside-the-dispute-about-gov.-greg-abbotts-budget-power.ece

[boutons_deux]

Repug solidarity!

[boutons_deux]

Repug solidarity!

Abbott thinks the TX Constitution doesn't apply to him as elected dictator.

[Blake]

The Republican governor was in the right, said John Wittman, Abbott’s deputy press secretary.


Lol boot licker

[Blake]

Abbott thinks the TX Constitution doesn't apply to him as elected dictator.

how does he not know that governor is a weak position in Texas

[boutons_deux]

how does he not know that governor is a weak position in Texas

Atty Genl has the power, and Patrick supports Abbott.

[FromWayDowntown]

Atty Genl has the power, and Patrick supports Abbott.

This confuses me, since Patrick isn't the Attorney General.

[boutons_deux]

This confuses me, since Patrick isn't the Attorney General.

correct, Lt gov has the power.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Texas dems have been winning in the courts a lot. Redistricting they won. That coercion of a public official thing with Perry still has legs. They got an injunction on the women's clinic act.

They have not done a good job in the polls.

Perry and now Abbott are intent on expanding the powers of the Governorship. I hope they keep pushing back.

[Winehole23]

how does he not know that governor is a weak position in TexasIn the new budget process at the Texas Lege, line item budgeting and way more power for the governor:



The heady days of the Texas Legislature's superiority in state budget writing seem to have come to a close in favor of giving the governor an unprecedented amount of power over how the state spends its money.

On April 14, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson sent out a piece of correspondence that portends major changes for how the budget is written and how bills get passed next session — and probably forever:


"The Senate Finance Committee will be incorporating the principles of zero-based budgeting when drafting our state budget and for transparency purposes will be requesting supplemental programmatic level budget information."



This means that the Senate will file a bill in January 2017 with zeroes for all state agencies and that it will report a committee substitute in approximately April 2017 with line-item program budgets, not the broad — and largely veto-proof — strategy budgets of the last 25 years. This is the next step, technocratic as it is, in a major power change at the Capitol.



The governor never had it so good.

https://www.tribtalk.org/2016/04/22/new-budget-process-means-unprecedented-power-for-governor/