Vicki Truitt’s Classic Hits to the Texas Taxpayer

Posted December 1st, 2011 by Fred

A Summary of Vicki Truitt’s Legislative Career

80th Session (and prior)

  • Vicki Truitt voted for HB 3588, the 310-page bill with 95 amendments which created the underlying legal framework for the Trans Texas Corridor. (78th Session)
  • Vicki Truitt voted for HB 109. This legislation changed eligibility requirements for receiving the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and essentially unraveled the 2003 welfare reforms. The Legislature approved $2 billion in funding for the program, a $1 billion increase. This bill allowed people who are 200% above the federal poverty level to be eligible for coverage under the state-funded CHIP program.
  • Vicki Truitt voted to table the Howard Amendment to HB 109, an amendment to prevent the loosening of asset eligibility calculations. The amendment was tabled, meaning it will be easier for those not truly needy to qualify for taxpayer-funded assistance.
  • Vicki Truitt voted for HB 2237. This High School Completion and Success Initiative dedicates $120 million to dropout prevention. The 79th Legislature allocated $1 billion to the same purpose and the Texas Center for Education Policy and LULAC played an important part in the passage of this bill.
  • Vicki Truitt voted for HB 3778. This bill levied a “Granny Tax” on nursing home residents. The “granny tax” or quality assurance fee, which was $5 per bed per day, was justified in that it would be matched by the federal government ($300 million) and returned to the State. “This is a tax on the people that could least afford it,” Senator Jane Nelson said of the bill. “It’s a tax on elderly people who are using their life savings to keep their loved one in a nursing home.”
  • Vicki Truitt co-authored HB 2084. This bill would have used a sales tax increase to fund the Regional Rail Corridor (mass transit) while doing nothing to end the current gasoline tax diversions.

81st Session

  • Vicki Truitt voted to table Amendment 35 to HB 300, TxDOT reauthorization. This amendment would have saved taxpayers money by requiring the state to select the best value. She also voted against a motion to instruct House conferees on HB 300 to oppose the local option gas tax. The motion carried and gasoline taxes and transportation fees were not raised in spite of this tax-hike scheme.
  • Vicki Truitt voted for HJR 112, creating new taxing jurisdictions for existing services that should be funded through general revenues. This amendment would have allowed county commissioners with voter approval to raise property taxes $.05 per $100.
  • Vicki Truitt sponsored SB 968. This bill would give cities authority over privately-owned water features, and could also give the state or county authority over any city-owned water feature.
  • Vicki Truitt authored HB 9. This bill would have created new gasoline taxes and transportation fees. North Central Texas Council of Governments has estimated that the tax increase would raise about $370 million a year from North Texans. This bill would have allowed county commissioners in metropolitan areas of Texas to call elections asking voters to create a local gas tax or raise any of five parking and vehicle fees.  Terri Hall of Texas TURF said it “takes away the state’s responsibility to properly fund, build and maintain state highways, and thrusts it down to the local level.”
  • Vicki Truitt voted for HB 1935. The bill establishes a “green jobs” skills development fund to promote job training and job creation for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and green building for $3.5 million.
  • Vicki Truitt voted for HJR 77. This bill would have replaced the authority of the ELECTED State Board of Education with a new Permanent School Fund Management Council. This bill was one of 15 anti-SBOE bills filed by Democrat Donna Howard, one of the most radical leftists in the Texas Legislature.

82nd Session

  • Despite much pleading from grassroot groups Vicki Truitt voted for Joe Straus to be the Speaker of the House.  One of the most coveted positions in state government, the Speaker makes committee chair appointments and decides what legislation is ultimately brought to the floor for consideration. Though Republicans enjoyed a super-majority, few fiscal reforms were attempted by his leadership team and the 82nd Session was considered by conservatives to be a wasted opportunity .
  • Vicki Truitt authored HB 1481, the Respectful Language Bill. This bill requires state agencies not to refer to people as retarded but rather as “persons with developmental disabilities”; “persons with mental illness”; and “persons with intellectual disabilities.” This bill is only mentioned because it was passed while tax and spending reforms, transparency in government, and pension reforms failed in a session with a Republican super-majority.
  • HB 2506, a major pension reform bill, would have frozen defined benefit plans for current state employees and created a defined contribution system for new employees.” Public employee defined benefit plans forced Illinois, California, and New York into bankruptcy,” said Rep. Wayne Chisum, the sponsor of HB 2506, “and therefore, need to be phased out.” The measure did not make it out of the Pensions, Investments, and Financial Services committee chaired by Vicki Truitt.
  • Vicki Truitt was first recorded as voting with the conservatives to protect the state’s Economic Stabilization Fund (the so-called rainy day fund) in the SB 2, House Record Vote 58.  However, shortly thereafter she inserted statements in the official record, saying she actually meant to side with the liberals and raid the fund.

  • Vicki Truitt voted in the special session to tap the rainy day fund further. During debate of SB 2, an amendment was added to the bill that would have siphoned off up to $2 billion in rainy day funds. Governor Perry said he would veto the bill.
  • Vicki Truitt authored HB 2460, a bill to ostensibly prohibit municipal pension funds from denying access to financial information about retirement benefits and financial obligations. However, a judge ruled that the bill takes authority away from the Texas Attorney General and the courts to determine what records regarding members of municipal pension funds are open to public scrutiny and left the decisions to the funds themselves. “To give pension funds the right to be their own judge and jury in deciding what records should be released is ludicrous. It totally subverts our system of checks and balances”, said Jim Witt, executive editor of the Star-Telegram. Joseph Larsen, a board member of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said of Truitt’s bill, “The Legislature ought to be ashamed of itself for passing something like this. They need to turn around and get rid of it as fast as they can. I just don’t think you can give any agency sole discretion to decide what should be public.”
  • Vicki Truitt voted against an amendment by Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, to shift $3.5 million from the Texas Commission on the Arts to a state agency that cares for the elderly and for people with developmental and physical disabilities.
  • Vicki Truitt voted against the Solomons amendment to HB 1. This would have moved money from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) bureaucracy in Austin directly into the funding formulas that go to school districts. Solomans said of his amendment, which passed,” The TEA has become a beast of bureaucracy, and their money should go to classroom instruction.”
  • Vicki Truitt voted for HB 3036. This would have allowed cities to levy a street maintenance tax for 10 years instead of 4.
  • Vicki Truitt voted against the Cain Amendment to SB 1811.  “There is a real problem when it takes a cart full of documents, a team of analysts, and days of inquiry before simple questions are answered about where the state spends taxpayer money. My amendment begins to change the way we do business in Austin,” Representative Cain said of his budget transparency measure.
  • Vicki Truitt voted against the Sheffield amendment to SB18. This would have required that before property can be taken, it must also be “necessary.” SB18 limited the use of eminent domain to a “public use.”
  • Vicki Truitt voted against the Simpson amendment to SB 1. This would have saved businesses from a proposed pre-payment of their estimated sales taxes. Representative Simpson said of his amendment “… this is a ticking time bomb…Don’t ask your businesses in your district to prepay 25 percent of their taxes ahead of time. We are shifting blame to the next legislature. We’re putting this after we are going to be voted on in the next primary. I urge you, let’s be honest with our numbers and with our businesses in our district.”
  • Vicki Truitt voted for HB 397. This bill would have set up new bureaucracy, the Bureau of Economic Development of the Border Region. This bill, vetoed by Gov. Perry, “is an unfunded mandate on institutions of higher education and duplicates the work several other organizations already perform.”
  • Vicki Truitt voted against the Larson amendment on SB 1811. The amendment, known as the EPA push-back bill, would allow Texas to take back control of managing our own environment from the federal government and was adopted by a vote of 76-67.

Vicki Truitt’s career score from the Young Conservatives of Texas is a failing 75.8%.

Vicki Truitt’s average score since 2005 from the Texas Eagle Forum is a failing 63.5%.

Vicki Truitt’s average score since 2001 from the Heritage Alliance is a failing 74.33%.

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