Good News On HB2

Pink Dome has the details, Holy Crap!:

Right now, every jaw in the Capitol has dropped. After some particularly underhanded moves by the leadership, Representative Scott Hochberg presented his own plan for school finance. Included in the amendment is greater property tax relief for most Texas homeowners than was included in HB 2. It also includes a full restoration of school employee health benefits, a larger teacher pay raise than in House Bill 2, and increases in compensatory education, bilingual funding, and facilities funding. After some debate it passed 76-67, a huge margin of victory.

Cross your fingers that they don't try to twist arms & motion to reconsider the vote. Craddick & Grusendorf have no idea what just hit them.

Those would be some major changes to HB 2 if they were able to make it through both houses and land on Perry's desk. That will probably never happen, at least not any time soon. But what I think this shows is that a majority in the house are fed up with the craziness that's been going on for the past few years, as far as so-called property tax relief and school finance are concerned that is. That's the problem for not just Craddick and Grusendorf but Perry and Dewhurst too. These issues may have finally come to the point where if they - the Republicans - want to get something through the legislature they will actually have to come up with a plan that fixes the problem. The House it at ease at this point so I wouldn't be surprised if some of that arm twisting is happening right now.