Kyle Janek, Texas health and human services executive commissioner, speaks at Oct. 17 news conference to discuss Texas’ Ebola prevention efforts, as Gov. Rick Perry listens. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
A key lawmaker and a top appointee of Gov. Rick Perry agree with an efficiency review recommending that Texas’ five existing social services agencies should be merged into one.
Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, who also is chairwoman of the Sunset Advisory Commission, and social services czar Kyle Janek said Wednesday that they see merit in the argument of commission staff that currently, there is too much fragmentation in programs such as Medicaid, mental health and women’s health.
Nelson appointed a work group to fine-tune the proposal to consolidate the five agencies. The sunset commission, which periodically looks at whether state agencies deserve to be continued, won’t vote on a final recommendation until Dec. 10.
Still, Nelson and Janek’s comments were a boost for the plan. As I reported in this story last month, when sunset recommendations on the Health and Human Services Commission were released, a veteran Democratic lawmaker said the streamlining proposal “lends itself to more political decisions,” because it would consolidate more power under the governor.
On Wednesday, though, Janek said the proposal would clarify lines of authority and make it easier for Texas families to find the services they need without having to approach multiple departments.
“We can move some of the barriers out of the way,” he said.
Nelson, a Flower Mound Republican, also was supportive.
“Overall, sunset [staff] has made a very good case for consolidation,” she said.
Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, D-Brownsville, asked Janek if he would be around to make things go smoothly, if lawmakers buy into the consolidation plan. As Raymond noted, that depends on Gov.-elect Greg Abbott’s keeping Janek as executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission.
Janek said he hasn’t “had a conversation with Gov.-elect Abbott on this subject so far.”
But he added, “If so honored, yes, I’ll stick around in this job.”
Raymond later asked a similar question of Family and Protective Services Commissioner John Specia, whose department would be downgraded to a division if the consolidation plan is embraced.
Specia, a former Bexar County family court judge, said consolidation would reduce fragmentation — and wouldn’t run him off.
“It doesn’t matter what you call me, I’m still just called judge,” he joked.
Sen. John Whitmire, the dean of the Texas Senate (2008 AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)
Update at 4:00 p.m.: Checked tape, made minor changes to Whitmire’s and Nelson’s quotes.
Original item at 11:29 a.m.: The Texas Senate has begun its expected debate over whether to abandon a rule that for many decades has protected partisan, geographic and racial-ethnic minorities.
At a briefing on taxes for new Senate budget writers Wednesday, the chamber’s longest-serving member, Houston Democrat John Whitmire, launched a wry if somewhat backhanded defense of the “two-thirds rule.”
It can protect from attack things highly valued by rural senators, such as an exemption of agricultural equipment from the sales tax, Whitmire said at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee.
The rule requires two-thirds of senators to agree before a bill can be taken up on the Senate floor.
Earlier this year, GOP lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick promised to reduce the influence of Democratic senators by weakening the rule and reducing the number of committees they chair. Patrick is a Houston senator.
On Wednesday, Whitmire interrupted a presentation by the comptroller’s office to discuss the sales-tax agricultural exemption.
He called it the “largest, broadest exemption we have.” Whitmire said urban tradesmen could view it as unfair, given they pay tax when they buy vehicles and equipment needed in their work. But the ag exemption has worked well, he said.
Then came the caveat.
“To preserve it, we need to make sure our rural members have a place at the table,” Whitmire said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson (2009 AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)
Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, said the Legislature tightened administration of the ag exemption in recent years. Beneficiaries have to attest they are engaged in food and fiber production, he said.
Whitmire, though, said that in the next revenue crunch, it and all other exemptions could be reviewed. The state may again face “challenges to find sufficient revenue,” putting the ag exemption at risk, he warned.
“The rural members should be mindful that the Senate rules currently allow them to block any consideration of repealing that,” he said.
Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, interjected, “You talking about the two-thirds rule?”
Whitmire replied, “That would probably be the No. 1 thing that would come to my mind.”
A few minutes later, members of the panel began raising questions about the regressive effects of higher sales tax. Democrats mentioned Patrick’s proposal to decrease local school property taxes, perhaps by adding a penny or two to the state’s 6-1/4-cent sales tax.
Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, quickly cut them off, though.
She noted that higher sales tax is just one way to pay for property tax relief.
“Many of us would like to reduce property taxes,” Nelson said. “We’re going to look at a lot of different possibilities.”
Dan Patrick answers reporters' questions after a Sept. 29 televised debate. (AP Photo/The Daily Texan, Ethan Oblak)
Republican lieutenant governor hopeful Dan Patrick is attacking Democratic opponent Leticia Van de Putte for a nearly decade-old vote she cast in the Texas Senate.
Van de Putte’s purported transgression, though, was at worst a very common one: She joined every other state senator in voting “aye” on a tax bill amendment in 2005.
Patrick’s latest TV ad hits Van de Putte for the vote, saying she “even supported a tax on employee wages, an income tax on Texas workers.”
But tax experts say that’s misleading — in part, because the tax under discussion was an existing one on businesses that was being tinkered with, not a new one on individual Texans.
Patrick’s ad also omits crucial context, such as that the amendment was offered by a Republican; it was approved, 31-0, though it never became law; and the four GOP senators remaining in the Senate who also voted “aye” are today powerful figures with whom Patrick will have to work closely if he wins on Nov. 4. They include Finance Committee chief Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, and Natural Resources Committee leader Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay.
Is he calling them liberals, I asked Patrick spokesman Alejandro Garcia.
On Thursday, Garcia did not directly respond to my question, though he stood by the ad, which the Patrick campaign titled “Liberal Leticia.”
“She is clearly a liberal in every sense of the word,” Garcia wrote in an email. He attached a spreadsheet of legislative scorecards from the past two sessions that he said prove his point.
Leticia Van de Putte, in her post-debate press gaggle. (AP Photo/The Daily Texan, Ethan Oblak)
The ratings are by the Texas Association of Business and five staunchly conservative groups, including ones underwritten, respectively, by conservative Midland oilman Tim Dunn and billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch of Wichita, Kan. Curiously, the Patrick campaign did some averaging of the 12 scores, presumably to show Van de Putte is more liberal than Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, and roughly as liberal as Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin.
Garcia said, as the ad does, that Van de Putte supported a statewide property tax in 2003 and opposed property tax relief in 2007. However, as we noted in a story in Thursday’s paper, in one of the two votes from 2007 the ad cites, Van de Putte ended up with a bipartisan majority that had business backing in killing a Patrick effort to tighten residential appraisal caps.
The 2005 “wage tax” amendment, by then-Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, came as Texas lawmakers, under GOP leadership, grappled with how to raise enough state tax money to deeply cut local school property taxes. They were racing to comply with a court order that said the state’s school finance system was unconstitutional. Brimer’s amendment didn’t become law.
It took lawmakers two special sessions in 2005 and a third in 2006 before they finally traversed a minefield of prickly business sectors and professional groups and settled on a more broadly applied business franchise tax. While the old one largely was a tax on corporations’ net income, the new one swept in liability-protected partnerships and professional associations, which had previously been exempt. And it gave employers the choice of deducting employee compensation, cost of goods sold or a flat 30-percent cut from the total revenues that are taxed.
On Thursday, I spoke with some state tax policy experts, including some who declined to be identified because they fear offending Patrick if he wins the election and becomes the Senate’s powerful presiding officer. They agreed that Brimer’s measure wasn’t an income tax on workers, because it would’ve been paid by employers. And though it would have taxed wages, wages were one of three options a business could choose: Paying a tax consisting of 0.025% of net assets, 2.5% of net income or 1.75% of wages.
At the time of Brimer’s amendment, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and FreedomWorks leader Dick Armey foamed with indignation that Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and the Senate were leading Texas astray — with a “fancy disguise for a personal income tax,” in the Journal’s wording; or, in Armey’s, “just a clever disguise for an income tax.”
Patrick cited the Journal editorial in his ad attacking Van de Putte.
Nearly three years ago, though, the Texas Supreme Court in the Allcat case ruled that the margins tax lawmakers eventually passed in 2006 isn’t a personal income tax, but a tax on businesses, not individuals.
Almost forgotten in the fierce rhetoric is that it was passed in order to offset the state’s giving more aid to schools so they could lower their local property taxes; and as part of a tax swap package that was supposed to be close to revenue neutral, though it turned out to be something of a net tax cut.
“They were just throwing one thing after another on the wall, to see what stuck,” said tax expert Dick Lavine of the center-left think tank the Center for Public Policy Priorities, recalling the Brimer amendment.
Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson (2009 AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)
Senate budget writers largely broke along party lines Tuesday as they debated Gov. Rick Perry’s deployment of the National Guard to the Texas-Mexico border. But amid the predictable thrusts and jabs, there was at least a joke about Dallas-Fort Worth motorists.
Republicans supported Perry’s move, citing this year’s surge in crossings by unaccompanied child migrants from Central America.
“We’ve got to stop this,” said Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.
She said the federal government hasn’t done its job.
“I have great appreciation for the position of the governor. We’ve got to do something,” she said.
Democrats, though, called the deployment unwise – and unlikely to work.
Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said that when Perry last month declared an emergency, he shouldn’t have cited six years’ worth of statistics as justification.
Perry said there had been more than 200,000 unauthorized immigrants booked into county jails since 2008.
Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, left (AP Photo/The Monitor, Gabe Hernandez)
Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said drug cartels would evade soldiers, airmen and state Guard members, who are expected to be deployed in the most populous areas of South Texas, by simply going further up river. He mentioned Rio Grande City.
“I would rather give the money to [the Department of Public Safety] than to the National Guard,” said
Hinojosa, the committee’s vice chairman. “They have been there for many years, and they know the Valley.”
Texas Adjutant Gen. John Nichols said very few Guard members have arrived at the border. About 500 are undergoing training at Camp Swift near Bastrop, he said. When they complete their seven days of training, they’ll be sent to South Texas, he said. Only then will additional troops be called up, he said.
Nichols said that by staggering call ups, he has avoided paying troops as they waited for training.
He said he expects the $42.2 million provided for the mission so far to last until late October. Last week, a top Perry aide said the money would run out in early October.
Of the funds, $38.7 million is from a DPS radio purchases fund and $3.5 million is federal criminal-justice planning grant money.
Nelson, who represents part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, raised a local concern.
“People in North Texas are worried that all of a sudden, all of our state troopers are now going to be pulled down to the border,” she said.
“They say it’s a great time to speed up in my area. Everybody’s down in the Valley,” she joked.
Sen. Jane Nelson, shown with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst at a February Denton County GOP event. (Michael Ainsworth/Staff photographer)
Update at 4:03 p.m.: I’ve corrected original post to clarify that the Senate Finance Committee chief serves on, but is not co-chair, of the Legislative Budget Board. The lieutenant governor gets that plum assignment.
Original item at 2:27 p.m.:Sen. Jane Nelson on Tuesday became the first woman to preside over a budget-writing committee of the Texas Legislature.
The Senate Finance Committee, which writes a version of the two-year budget and vets all tax legislation, met to receive a briefing on state finances.
“Finance,” as it’s called, is decidedly male territory. While it has three new Republican members, all are men. As was true last session, males outnumber females, 12 to 3.
But the influential committee’s all-important gavel is now in a woman’s hand. By tradition, that will make Nelson the co-chairman of a House-Senate conference committee that at session’s end hashes out the budget’s final contours. And when the Legislature is not in session, she will serve on the Legislative Budget Board, a group of 10 key lawmakers. With the governor’s assent, it can shift money among line items.
Last week, Nelson joked with reporters about breaking a glass ceiling in state budget writing.
“We’re going to do it right!” she said.
At Tuesday’s hearing, two female senators, Democrat Sylvia Garcia of Houston and Republican Donna Campbell of New Braunfels, sat on the dais with the 13 members present — even though Garcia and Campbell aren’t members. Nelson had invited all senators to attend. They heard officials from the comptroller’s office and budget board present an overview of Texas’ fiscal condition. In a word, it’s good. If it were a nation, Texas would have the world’s 12th largest economy, ranking just behind Canada and ahead of Australia, said John Heleman of the comptroller’s office.
Nelson let out a whistle.
Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, right, shown at a hearing last month in South Texas about unaccompanied child migrants. (AP Photo/The Monitor, Gabe Hernandez)
Earlier, she let senators make opening remarks.
Garcia quickly noted the obvious — Nelson’s gender and her ascent to a budget chairmanship.
“I believe you are the first woman to do so,” Garcia said. “Viva la mujer!”
The Finance Committee is “a little light on women,” said Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who has served one session on the panel.
She said Nelson earned her chops, logging 22 years in the Senate after serving two terms on the state Board of Education.
“Girlfriend, you worked your way to get this position,” Huffman said. “All those years on state board, all those years on [the Senate] Health and Human Services [Committee,] trying to get the state to do the right thing.”
Democratic Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of Brownsville joined in the celebration — with a bit of ham.
“I must say you’re the best looking chair we’ve had since then, by far,” said Lucio, 68, noting that he has served on Finance since 1991.
He hastily added he’s sure Nelson also will be the panel’s hardest-working leader of modern times.
Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, shown at a Dallas-area GOP event with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in February. (Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News)
Update at 5:43 p.m., Wednesday: I’ve corrected the original post, which erred in saying the franchise-tax rate cut would continue next year at 2.5 percent. It actually will increase to 5 percent.
Original item at 6:34 p.m. Tuesday: As expected, Texas’ coffers are flush enough for a modest business tax cut to continue for another year — and grow in size — without unbalancing the two-year state budget, officials confirmed Tuesday.
Last year, the Legislature passed a temporary business tax break. It shaved 2.5 percent from the rate all businesses pay on the franchise tax, or “margins tax.”
The typical business used to pay 1 percent of gross receipts, after deductions. With the break, that business this year paid a rate of 0.975 percent. Cumulatively, Texas businesses saved $115 million.
But lawmakers had money enough to pay for only the first year. They approved a 5-percent rate cut for fiscal 2015, which starts Sept. 1, contingent on Comptroller Susan Combs’ certifying that state tax revenues have exceeded her estimates by enough to pay for the cut.
On Tuesday, prodded by newly appointed Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, a Combs aide confirmed at a Legislative Budget Board meeting that revenue growth has been strong enough for the 5-percent reduction to go forward.
“We expect we’ll have sufficient surplus …. to go ahead and do another [rate cut] for [fiscal] 2015,” said chief revenue estimator John Heleman.
Heleman said the spectacular growth of state sales tax revenues of recent years has slowed — and should be just 5.2 percent for the year ending Aug. 31.
But Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said that rolling forward the franchise-tax cut at least should help businesses maintain their current momentum.
On other topics, Heleman also said he also sees a plateau for what have been surging receipts from state severance taxes on oil and natural gas. With the explosion of “fracking” techniques in South Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale region and a strong resurgence of drilling activity near Midland-Odessa in West Texas, state oil production has more than doubled since 2007, to about 745 million barrels in calendar 2013, Heleman said.
“The revenue growth will be at a slower pace than in recent years,” especially in the Eagle Ford Shale region, he said.
But Heleman and Rep. John Otto, R-Dayton, pointed to two potential bright spots: Pipelines may be built to carry oil from the South Texas oilfields, which would boost sales tax receipts. And fracking techniques have yet to be widely applied in West Texas’ Permian Basin field, though Heleman said “it’s my understanding the geology is there for that.”
Oil and gas revenues collected in excess of the amount the state received in a year in the late 1980s go into the state’s rainy day fund. Heleman said that at the end of the next fiscal year, the fund should have $8.4 billion, even assuming voters this November approve a constitutional amendment that would shift $1.7 billion of the fund’s growth into highway spending.
The elevation of Texas Sen. Jane Nelson to be the Senate’s chief budget writer is imminent, according to a well-placed Capitol source.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is telling people he’s decided to name Nelson, R-Flower Mound, to be chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, the source said. The appointment should occur any day now, the source added.
Sen. Dan Patrick, the Houston Republican who defeated Dewhurst in the GOP runoff for lieutenant governor, has hinted for months that he would name Nelson to be the head of the chamber’s Finance Committee. The powerful panel writes the Senate’s version of the two-year state budget and decides on tax policy as well.
Sen. Tommy Williams, a Republican from The Woodlands who headed the committee last session, stepped down earlier this year to become a lobbyist for the Texas A&M University System.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst greets a supporter after he conceded defeat at Dan Patrick's hands in May (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Kern Warren)
Nelson has served on the Finance Committee for more than a decade. She is the current chairwoman of the Sunset Advisory Commission. Next session, she presumably will have to give up her current post as chairwoman of the Health and Human Services Committee.
Since his defeat at Patrick’s hands, Dewhurst has said he wants to help senators draft a raft of conservative bills in advance of the 2015 session, even though he will be handing the gavel off to Patrick.
Among the fiscal topics that Dewhurst has said he wants to help promote are a tighter cap on property tax appraisal growth and another effort by the state to buy down local school property tax rates.
The Legislature did that as part of a tax-swap bill in 2006 that responded to a Texas Supreme Court ruling in a school-finance case. Another such lawsuit is in the works.
Sen. Tommy Williams, shown accepting an award from abused children's courtroom advocates last month, may become his alma mater Texas A&M's cheerleader in the Legislature. (AP Photo/ The Courier, Ana Ramirez)
Sen. Tommy Williams, the Senate’s chief budget writer, announced Thursday he’s leaving office to concentrate on his family and new career possibilities.
Williams, R-The Woodlands, didn’t announce a date when he’ll step down. He said it would be before the 2015 legislative session.
Earlier this year, in the once a decade aftermath of redistricting, Williams drew a four year term. He didn’t have to decide on his future by the candidate filing deadline in December, as half of senators do. They drew two year terms.
“Marsha and I are looking forward to concentrating on new opportunities and spending more time with our families and grandkids during this next chapter,” Williams said in a statement.
He was first elected to the Senate in 2002, after serving three terms in the House.
For several sessions, he has been a major player in budget wrangling. Heading into this year’s session, though, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst tapped Williams to be chairman of the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee. Williams thanked Dewhurst and praised his “strong, conservative leadership.”
Dewhurst returned the compliments.
“I’ll always recall the relentless persistence he showed in working with me and our senators in crafting a nuanced, conservative budget this year,” Dewhurst said.
The two-year budget increased spending by a rate less than inflation plus state population growth, the lieutenant governor noted. It also left more than $7 billion in the rainy day fund, even after assuming voters approve constitutional amendments on water projects and highways over the next 13 months.
Dewhurst offered no hint, though, about who will succeed Williams as Finance’s chief.
Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston, who is among three prominent Republicans running against Dewhurst for lieutenant governor, promptly issued a statement saying Williams’ exit “will leave a big hole in the leadership team in the Senate.” Patrick urged Dewhurst to swiftly name a replacment. Patrick suggested he tap Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, for the job.
Williams and Patrick clashed in this year’s session. Patrick, a Finance Committee member, voted against the budget. Williams then sought to have Patrick stripped of his Education Committee chairmanship, as we reported here. The move went nowhere. Williams considered but then rejected running for comptroller next year, as we also duly noted here.
After that decision, Williams’ future prospects of wielding Capitol clout looked somewhat iffy. He might remain Finance chairman. However, Dewhurst doesn’t have a lock on the lieutenant governor’s office, after his defeat by Ted Cruz in last year’s U.S. Senate race. So it was unclear whether Williams could remain the chamber’s budget czar. Two former senators, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, are also running against Dewhurst. They might have retained Williams; or, they might have tried to make their mark with someone else.
Williams, a certified public accountant, is president of Woodforest Financial Services. It bought out his former, freestanding financial services company, and is a division of Woodforest Bank, the bank that is in most Walmart stores.
In a post late Wednesday, Texas Tribune cited sources as saying the Texas A&M University System had approached Williams about working in its government relations shop.
Williams spokesman Gary Scharrer said Thursday afternoon that Williams “is a proud Aggie” and might jump at any such opportunity. However, Scharrer said, “There’s no formal, official offer from A&M or anyone else.”
Also, Williams was vague about when he’ll step down.
“A final decision will be made after meetings with Gov. Rick Perry and … Dewhurst, and will be based on an appropriate transition time for Southeast Texans, who make up Senate District 4,” he said.
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake (left), speaks with Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands (right), and another state rep on the Texas House floor in late April. (Charlie L. Harper III/Special Contributor)
The House on Thursday afternoon rejected an attempt to put an exclamation point on members’ recent demand that the Legislature be involved in any decision to expand Medicaid in Texas.
The House defeated a motion by Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, to instruct House-Senate negotiators to keep language the House added Monday night to an unrelated Medicaid bill. The new language effectively would require the Legislature to approve any enlargement of Medicaid. The vote against the motion to instruct was 71-68. Seventeen Republicans joined 54 of the chamber’s 55 Democrats in rejecting Capriglione’s move.
The Republicans’ “nay” votes might provide fodder to a GOP primary challenger next year, GOP consultants said Thursday. The situation, though, was muddied by statements by the amendment’s author, Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano. He was reported as saying he didn’t need the House’s non-binding vote to instruct conferees, though he voted for it, because chief Senate negotiator Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, is working to improve his language.
Reps. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, and John Zerwas, R-Richmond, have said Leach’s language could have unintended consequences.
They describe Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor, as constantly changing because federal and state officials dicker over program revisions proposed by states and new rules proposed by the feds. Dukes and Zerwas, both House budget writers, have warned that Leach’s amendment might inflict collateral damage on efforts under way to redirect special Medicaid payments for hospitals to new locally run experiments in Texas. Some of the new regional health partnerships could use the money to expand who is covered or what services are provided, such as mental health treatments.
Nelson, the Senate’s chief health policy writer, is also worried.
The House on Tuesday sent back to the Senate a bill carrying an amendment by a freshman state representative from Collin County that would require a rubber stamp from the Legislature before any expansion of Medicaid could occur.
The long term care bill, which would expand use of managed care in Medicaid, received final House approval. The vote was 139-5.
Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, added the provision late Monday to the measure by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.
Leach’s amendment would effectively bar the Texas Health and Human Services Commission from accepting anyone into Medicaid who was not eligible under this year’s rules as of Dec. 31.
He said lawmakers need assurances that Gov. Rick Perry, an outspoken critic of Obamacare, won’t change his mind on Medicaid expansion and seek a deal with federal officials on drawing down federal money to help cover more uninsured Texans.
Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, was one of the five House members who voted against the bill on final passage. He said he was protesting the Leach amendment.
“We tie the hands of the executive branch in perpetuity,” Anchia said.
If hospitals in other states benefit from reducing their charity care burdens and health insurance exchanges in other states flourish as cost shifting is reduced, Anchia said, Texas should have the chance to try to negotiate a compromise with President Barack Obama’s administration.
“We should leave the door open to doing a Texas solution,” he said.
