Corporate Influence in Texas Election Finance

It has been almost 100 years since the state of Texas banned campaign finance by corporation. Now the trend has changed as the district court has upheld the law. According to the newly passed law, corporate can spend as much as they want on advertising. It also says that corporate can spend that much money as long as they are careful not to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a particular candidate. Corporations do not have to report or disclose their spending to Texas Ethics of Commission. However, the court has assured that the new law does not violate the already established State Campaign Finance Law. Even before the law was passed, corporate finance was never been completely stopped.

When Tom Delay, a former US House Majority Leader successfully elects more Republicans to the US house, he also had to elect a Republican Majority in Texas house to withdraw the congressional district in favor of GOP candidate. At that time, lobbyists for GOP were accused of providing corporate finance. They were being fined for the breach. After the law is enacted, the Texas Association of Business cases have held that corporations and unions have free speech rights that allow them to spend money on campaigns.

Finally, giving so much of right to corporate in campaign finance is not in favor of general public. I believe, public also do not like the idea that corporate should involve so much in election. Even if the campaign financer do not talk about getting benefit or disclose any commitment, their finance definitely put more pressure on house of representative to finish corporate task, rather than public need. By involving corporate, Legislature which was already dominated by business interests will be even more business interest dominant. I think, the election should be fair enough. General public should be enough for campaign finance. If not the politics will be all about money. Whoever can afford to he or she can only run for the any level of election. The law should completely avoid this dirty game of politics.

Please refer Statesman.com to know about this issue.

Austin school district tax increase

I read this editorail in statesman.com which talks about an issue of voter's approval to raise pay rolls to Ausin's teachers. These days, many people are very much concerned about their job security beside their increase in tax. Moreover, the district is asking voters to approve well-deserved pay raises for the 12,000 teachers and other full-time employees. I like the author’s idea of mentioning the fact that pay raise to teachers is not matching the pace of inflation. Author has mention that because of the low pay for teachers, many school districts cannot employ capable teachers, so it is leading to poor quality education but surrounding districts are giving raises and are aggressively recruiting Austin's experienced teachers right out of their classrooms. It is clear that raising the salary to teacher means more or less raising the local tax. The author also brought up a good point that without approval from voters, there is no way that teachers’ pay would go up next year. In this editorial, the author has blamed to Texas School Districts for fund mismanagement and lack of proper auditing their balance sheet but, he has failed to mention the way how it can be corrected.

Recently, I red an article about Dallas School district in Dallas Morning News. Dallas District is fixing to lay off as many as 415 teachers because of extreme budget deficit. It was also started due to budget mismanagement in the beginning. In the same manner, Austin ISD is also very vulnerable in a way that voters will look at the teachers’ raise. According to the author, pay raise for teachers’ means rising of property tax. The rise in the property tax not only goes to Austin ISD, but also to the State government according to Texas School Financing law, the author mentions. It is very hard to predict how much raise is sufficient to make a decent raise in teachers’ salary. The author admits that the time of tax raise is very unfavorable during this economic downturn. It is very hard to say that voters will agree with increasing their tax when they are trying to find the way to save penny. At the same time, many Austin ISD teachers are not really encouraged by the way they are being paid. Obviously teachers’ dissatisfaction means lack of quality education for students. At the end, the author tries to become bit more political by mentioning voters would of course think about this situation when they go to the poll.

Razing Texas, raising questions

I read this editorial column which was posted on statesman.com. The author is raising the concern about living around the coastal area because of the different natural phenomena and global warming. The author begins with the example of the extent of damage that hurricane Ike left behind in Galveston. I support on his question about the financial impact that each resident who live in the coastal area has to suffer. Of course, the state of Texas comes up with the plan that can ease one time financial burden for individual but the question here is about in a long run because ocean temperature is increasing everyday due to global warming. Because of the global warming, the probability of forming major hurricanes also increases. Therefore, business and residents who live in the coastal area will definitely suffer from increase insurance premium cost and relatively less business growth than previous years. The author is concerning about how lawmakers are planning to make a rule so that people do not build business and home very close to the shore. Because of the day to day increase of water temperature, islands like Galveston are sinking. So the lawmakers are concerned about the cost someone has to suffer from damage for such properties which are very close to the cost. On the other hand, general public do not agree with the lawmakers. They believe that by setting up such rule can cost a lot to individuals who have been living there from long time. It also does not encourage the coastal businesses. I believe, rather than discouraging people to build properties and businesses, the local government should come up with the plan that encourage local businesses and individuals. Moreover, every body should be well protected by such natural disasters. According to the author, when the Legislature begins to work on this issue in January, there will be a major discussion about it.