On the recordSeptember 13, 2010
I rise to talk about a bill I introduced today with Senator Cornyn as a cosponsor. It is S. 3768. When Congress passed and the President signed the education jobs fund bill in August, every State in America had the same requirements and every State in America was treated fairly--or equally, anyway--except for one and that State is Texas. That is why Senator Cornyn and I are introducing a bill that would only allow Texas to be equal with every other State in the Federal funding opportunity in this education bill. The House of Representatives--not the Senate but the House--put in an amendment that singled out Texas in two ways. It said that Texas, unlike every other State in the bill, would have to guarantee 3 years of a commitment for education funding to be level in order to get the funds for 1 year that were allocated in the bill. Every other State in America is required to make such a commitment for 1 year. Our constitution in Texas, similar to many State constitutions, does not allow one legislature to pass legislation that will require acts of another legislature, so appropriations cannot go over a 3-year period. Our legislature can only appropriate and spend Texas money for itself. It cannot obligate future legislatures. So the House provision would require Texas to violate its Constitution in order to receive the Federal money that every other State has as an allocation.
