Texas legislators, you have been warned

Dallas Morning News | William McKenzie:

“GOP Rep. Ken Paxton of McKinney represented the views of many conservatives when he wrote in the Collin County edition of The Dallas Morning News recently that the court had given the Legislature a mandate to fix the property tax problem, but that there was no need to add more money.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

There is a powerful coalition arrayed against increased funding for Texas schools. There are the fiscal conservatives who believe government spending, all government spending, is out of control. There are the social conservatives who believe that secular, public schools are doing the work of the devil. This coalition is in firm control. Don't expect the Texas legislature to do any more than shift taxes from property to business. Whether they can work together long enough to accomplish even that is not a sure bet. Don't expect them to increase funding for education.

What can change the equation is the effort by PTA leaders, educators, and public school supporters to field candidates to run in key legislative districts in the 2006 elections. Even a modicum of success by the challengers could scare the Legislature into addressing not only the source of school funding, but the amount of school funding as well. Many of these races will be decided in the party primaries, before the Legislature meets to address school finance issues. How the primaries go in spring could determine how the Legislature acts in early summer.