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Legislative session produces mixed results for Valley, border region

McALLEN — In 170 days during which Rio Grande Valley groups — from hospital administrators to school teachers to immigrant advocates — trekked to Austin to play defense, Valley legislators trying to protect their border communities could have adopted a slogan from March Madness:

"Survive and advance."

Nowhere was that more evident than when Valley legislators repeatedly and resoundingly cast votes against a state budget with cuts to public education and healthcare they said could have dangerous consequences here. Valley legislators also often found themselves trying to fend off voter ID legislation, harsh anti-illegal immigration bills and redistricting maps that left the Valley’s voice in Austin and Washington, D.C., largely unchanged.

It was a session — two, actually — for small victories. Locally, legislators found solace in a final budget that cut $4 billion from education and $5 billion from Medicaid, far less than the proposals unveiled in the session’s early days. Legislators did find approval for measures that beefed up border security with high-tech equipment, more manpower and new enforcement tools, but Gov. Rick Perry’s veto pen blocked the passage of several other bills with a local impact.

State Rep. Aaron Peña, R-Edinburg, who voted against his own party on the state budget because he was concerned about its negative impact here, said legislators began the session facing a record budget shortfall but unwilling to raise taxes. But from an initial budgetary assessment that was quite harsh, he said, legislators were able to soften the cuts to more acceptable levels.

"Under these adverse circumstances, much like when a hurricane passes through the Valley, when you come out and you survived, you can celebrate the fact that you endured and withstood the difficulties," Peña said. "You survive, learn and prepare for the next storm."

A budget shortfall of at least $15 billion — or $27 billion if the state’s population growth is factored in — was destined to dominate the session. From the start, the state’s Republican leaders made it clear that the constitutional requirement to address that spending gap would have to be done without raising taxes or touching the state’s Rainy Day Fund.

Legislators instead crafted a budget using a mixture of spending cuts and accounting tricks, despite Democrats’ objections that the result would cost thousands of jobs in the state. The result was a 2012-13 budget that spent $172 billion, a record $15 billion reduction from current spending levels that marked the first time in decades that the state didn’t fund enrollment growth in state schools.

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Proceedings of CIB W99 International Conference on Global Unity for Safety & Health in Construction, 28-30 June 2006, Beijing, China

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