Perry's Stupidity May Lead to Sam Causes Being Rejuvenated

Well, Governor Perry is set to announce line-item vetoes today in Austin that would lead to a special session. Unfortunately for education, both higher education and public education budgets may be vetoed. What would this mean? No one would have a clue, both universities and public schools, of what piece of the "pie" they would be recieving from the state, just weeks or even days before school starts. Yes, the budget kicks in September 1st, but seriously now, who knows what the Legislature will do?

How does this impact Sam Houston State? Well, if Governor Perry vetoes higher education spending, this means that higher education is one of the items that the Governor will be forced to put on the agenda for the special session. Two major issues backed by the Student Government ran into roadblocks in the Legislature could be brought back to the table as ammendments to a larger higher education spending bill.

First, the credit card issue sponsored by student Senators Evan Dierlam, Chris Whitaker and Armando Lopez by SGA and in the Texas Legislature by Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) and Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas). This bill would change how credit card institutions would be able to come on campus. During the regular session, the bill was replaced by a commitee substitute, that did not reach the floor in time. With second life, this bill could pass.

Secondly, the Name Protection ammendment sought by student Senators Chris Whitaker and myself, which would protect the names of Sam Houston State, Lamar and Sul Ross was not added to a bill protecting the name of Prairie View A&M during the last session. This bill would add to the Texas Education Code section on the Texas State University System, that it would take an act by the Legislature to change the name, somewhat complicating the process a little more in case that the name change of SHSU, Lamar and Sul Ross ever came out. We have lacked a sponsor who was 100% gung-ho about this, though Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) had talked about sponsoring similar legislation or getting an ammendment to the Prairie View A&M bill in the House.

Interestingly enough, former SHSU student Dallas Jones helped author the Prairie View A&M bill, which served as the model for my draft of what SGA is looking for our legislators to do.

So, we'll see what happens. As I've noted before, SHSU had no funding withheld related to tuition-revenue bonds like other universities have. All of this is of course dependent on Governor Perry putting higher education back on table, which he seems to be threatening to do, along with school finance. SHSU has strong allies in Reps. Turner and Kolkhorst, as well as Sen. West. We just need to get some of the "old guard" of allies from previous legislative battles back on board.

** UPDATE **

Check that. Unfortunately, Perry only vetoed the public education budget and not that of higher education. He has not said higher education is a potential area of discussion at this special session.

That effectively means two things:

1) The causes of Sam Houston State are delayed - as in name change and credit card institution reform
2) The money of the universities looking to captalize on tuition revenue bonds will not occur via the state legislature.