Legislators delivered mixed bag of results for Perry

May 29, 2007

By KELLEY SHANNON Associated Press Writer

AUSTIN — If anyone knows you can't always get what you want from the Texas Legislature, it's Gov. Rick Perry.

The Republican governor got batted down on his attempt to require cervical cancer vaccinations and on his proposal to sell the state lottery, in part to fund cancer research.

But he scored when legislators offered to let voters decide in November whether the state can borrow up to $3 billion to pay for his $3 billion cancer research goal. Perry said he'll campaign for the measure, even though the deal didn't go down exactly as he'd hoped.

"We will look back at this session as the linchpin in the fight against cancer," Perry said at the Capitol on Tuesday, assessing the legislative session that ended at midnight Monday.

Perry couldn't get the House or Senate to go along with his proposal for tougher local government spending caps or his pleas for property appraisal limits, additional tax relief and what he calls truth-in-budgeting.

On the other hand, he got a long-sought victory in landing the $100 million he requested from the Legislature for border security.

Overall, the nearly five-month legislative session was a mixed bag for Perry.

"The last 140 days reminded me of watching an old Clint Eastwood movie. It was a session that featured 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,' " Perry said.

While he said he had some disappointments and there was unfinished business for the future, he stopped short of saying there was any dangling item that would lead him to call a 30-day special session. The next regular session is in January 2009.

He praised lawmakers for delivering the money he wanted for border security; making good on school property tax reductions promised last year; creating a health insurance opportunity pool; increasing college financial aid; implementing higher education performance incentives; and dedicating more money for state parks.

He criticized legislators for the conflict that engulfed the Legislature.

"If Texans had a bad taste in their mouth from the session, I would say I couldn't blame them," Perry said. "There was way too much acrimony. ... I'm glad legislators are leaving town so that there is time for the wounds to heal."

House business stalled several times over the past weekend as critics of Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick tried unsuccessfully to unseat him.

In the Senate, work time was lost this month because of a standoff over Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's unsuccessful attempts to push a voter identification bill, despite Senate Democrats' solid bloc of opposition.

Waiting until the final weekend, the Legislature approved a $153 billion two-year budget, the state's largest ever. Woven into that budget, Perry said, were billions of dollars in "funding diversions and other gimmicks."

The budget process continues to erode the governor's line-item budget veto authority, Perry said. He particularly criticized "special item earmarks" in higher education that he called pork added to the budget in the session's final days.

He said he would look carefully at each project and talk to people knowledgeable about them at the colleges and universities before deciding whether to leave them in the budget or not.

After lawmakers rebuffed Perry by blocking his order requiring sixth-grade girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, which protects against strains that cause most cervical cancer, Perry let the bill become law and avoided a rare veto override fight.

He saved his political clout for transportation, a leading issue in his administration.

An initial version of a transportation bill that placed a two-year toll road moratorium would have severely hampered the state's road-building ability, Perry contended.

Instead, he got lawmakers to work up another piece of legislation that addressed his concerns. It left in place a more limited moratorium on toll projects, so some legislators can point out that they've banned them in their part of the state.