May 23, 2005

Revenue Estimate in Jeopardy as House
Votes to Strip Judges from Comptroller

House Members Caught Off Guard by Late-Night
Amendment that Takes Aim at Strayhorn's Shop

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is warning that she might have to slash her revenue forecast for the next two years as a result of a late-night amendment that slipped on to a bill when few Texas House members apparently had a clue what it would actually do.

The amendment by State Rep. Warren Chisum, a Pampa Republican, would remove from the Comptroller's office an entire division of administrative law judges who determine contested tax cases and other policy issues that in disputed. The legal officials would be transferred to the State Office of Administrative Hearings.

The Chisum amendment was added during the later stages of a 12-hour Sunday session to a bill designed to raise $1.7 billion through higher fees, the elimination of tax loopholes and other policy changes. House members approved the amendment on a voice vote with no debate and almost no discussion after Chisum played down its significance and said it was acceptable to the bill's author, State Rep. Jim Pitts.

The attempt to strip the division from Strayhorn's control comes less than two years after the Legislature voted in special session to shift the e-Texas program and school performance reviews from the Comptroller's office to the Legislative Budget Board. Strayhorn, who'd drawn the wrath of legislative leaders by delaying certification of the new state budget a month before, accused Republican Governor Rick Perry of orchestrating the move as payback. Strayhorn has been weighing a possible challenge to Perry in the GOP primary when he's up for re-election next year.

Strayhorn is reportedly infuriated by the latest attempt to weaken her authority and suggesting that it could lead to a reduction in the revenue estimate for the next biennium by hundreds of millions of dollars if the legislation passes with the Chisum amendment. The administrative law judges based in the Comptroller's office are currently presiding over more than 1,000 cases dealing with the myriad of taxes that the agency collects. The SOAH has no experience in this particular area, making it more difficult to predict when attempting to predict the amount of revenue its decisions would leave for state coffers. Strayhorn would have no guarantee that the division would produce as much revenue as the current operation on which the revenue estimate is based.

The House considered 46 amendments to SB 1863 before adjourning at about 1:30 a.m. Monday and postponing debate on the measure until 10 a.m. But Pitts, a Waxahachie Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, decided to wait until Wednesday before resuming discussions about the revenue bill with the amendment that has put the new state budget's certification at risk.

Some House members want to reconsider the vote on the Chisum amendment, acknowledging that they and their colleagues were tired and paying minimal attention to the events that transpired near the end of a long Sunday meeting.

Strayhorn supporters immediately speculated that Perry and Speaker Tom Craddick were the chief forces behind the Chisum amendment. But Craddick's office dismissed the accusation, saying the speaker leaves such decisions up to the will of the House.