Volume 17, Issue 9
May, 2009
MCALLEN AFT NEWS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
THE REVOLT OF THE “GUINEA PIGS”
Your grass-roots lobbying had a big impact on the response of the Texas House to SB 10, the health-insurance "guinea pig" bill by Sen. Robert Duncan, Republican of Lubbock.
This bill would make many of you "guinea pigs" in a legislative experiment to hold down state health-care costs. Thanks to your efforts, the House sponsor of Duncan's bill promised to amend it so it would not apply to any active or retired TRS members.
The bill was up for a hearing in the House Public Health Committee, with Texas AFT (backed up by the Texas AFL-CIO and allied employee organizations) testifying firmly in opposition.
Several members of the committee raised doubts and questions about the bill based directly on the many calls and e-mails they have been receiving in recent days from active and retired school employees. Rep. Jim McReynolds, Democrat of Lufkin, mentioned hearing from lots of educators in his district with concerns about SB 10's effect on them. Rep. Susan King, Republican of Abilene, said she was hearing that her constituents didn't want to be "guinea pigs," either.
Rep. Vicki Truitt, Republican of Southlake, and Rep. Chuck Hopson, Democrat of Jacksonville, also raised key questions about the serious constraints SB 10 could impose on the health-care options of participants in the experiments with "alternative payment systems" under this bill.
Even Rep. John Zerwas, the Republican from Katy who was recruited to sponsor Duncan's bill in the House, voiced reservations about this bill, which he said had come over from the Senate "like a rifle shot" without much scrutiny. And Zerwas followed that up later in the hearing with a firm statement that it was his intent to remove all provisions from the bill affecting TRS health-insurance programs. That amendment by Rep. Zerwas, while welcome would still apply the bill with all its defects to the Employees Retirement System and its members. McAllen AFT/Texas AFT remains opposed to the bill even if it is pared back to cover only ERS employees.
For one thing, many Texas AFT members employed in higher education are participants in the ERS group health-insurance program and could be adversely affected by Sen. Duncan's bill.
For another, if SB 10 comes out of the House and goes to a House-Senate conference committee, Sen. Duncan could try to put TRS and its active and retired health-care enrollees right back within the coverage of this bill. Finally, this is simply a half-baked bill that would need to be rewritten from top to bottom before any public employees or retirees could accept it.
Texas AFT will continue to press this case with House members, and we will provide you with updated advocacy tools to keep up the grass-roots pressure. The House hearing on SB 10 is proof that grass-roots lobbying works.
Social Security Fairness
We have another positive dev-elopment to report from the Texas House.
Rep. Abel Herrero's House Concurrent Resolution 61 calls on the U.S. Congress to repeal the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision under Social Security, two benefit reductions that take away earned benefits of Texas school retirees.
The vote was 143 to zero on the Corpus Christi Democrat's resolution. Now the measure will have a chance to be heard in Senate committee and, we fervently hope, passed by the full Senate as well.
The Senate author of the companion resolution, SCR 48, is Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, Democrat of San Antonio.
Meanwhile, the tally of cosponsors in Congress for the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 235 and S. 484) to repeal the GPO and WEP now has reached 277 (a substantial majority) in the U.S. House, 27 in the U.S. Senate.
Bills Affect the Safe Schools Act
HB 2280, a bill to bolster protection from employer retaliation against teachers who use their authority to remove disruptive students under the Safe Schools Act, was passed by the Texas House today and now heads for the Senate.
The bill by Rep. Senfronia Thompson, Democrat of Houston, would make it a specific, actionable violation of state law for an administrator to retaliate by taking adverse personnel action when a teacher invokes the state-granted removal power.
On Monday two other bills relating to Safe Schools Act enforcement will receive hearings. The House Public Education Committee will hear SB 2357 by Sen. Mario Gallegos, Democrat of Houston.
His bill would require that courses in core subjects offered in a disciplinary alternative education program be "equivalent in content and rigor to courses in those subjects as provided in the regular classroom setting." His bill also would require that each DAEP offer courses necessary for a student to keep pace with students in the regular classroom and to fulfill graduation requirements.
Meanwhile, a Senate committee will hear a House bill Monday to require districts to consider "mitigating factors" such as self-defense, intent, mental capacity, and disciplinary history in any decision on a DAEP placement or expulsion. HB 171 by Rep. Dora Olivo, Democrat of Missouri City, is the companion piece to a bill by Sen. Gallegos that already has passed the Senate, so the bill is likely to receive a favorable hearing.
However, Texas AFT will be there to tell senators yet again that this bill is not going to cure the problem caused by local administrators who impose excessive sanctions on students for minor or marginal infractions of the local student code of conduct. Many of the districts most notorious for such excesses already require consideration of "mitigating factors" under local policy.
However, McAllen AFT/Texas AFT will be there to tell senators yet again that this bill is not going to cure the problem caused by local administrators who impose excessive sanctions on students for minor or marginal infractions of the local student code of conduct.
Many of the districts most notorious for such excesses already require consideration of "mitigating factors" under local policy.
Furthermore, in other districts an opposite problem of insufficient enforcement exists. In those districts administrators may seize on this proposed legislative change as one more excuse for inaction when teachers seek administrative support to deal with classroom violence and disruption.
McAllen AFT/Texas AFT continues to press for better legislative solutions to the problem of local abuse of discretion, such as: strengthened Texas Education Agency monitoring and intervention powers; proper training in Safe Schools Act enforcement for administrators; and a requirement in state law that school districts actually enforce their written policies, so that failure to enforce those policies could be appealed to the commissioner of education.
GREEN ISSUES IN JUNE, 2009 MCALLEN AFT NEWS.