'If We're Back Anyway ...'

For all the talk, until Gov. Rick Perry issues the official call, no-one really knows what will be up for debate in the promised special session. In fact, until he signs the proclamation, the session itself remains a theoretical. But lawmakers are already maneuvering and petitioning to get their bills and issues back before the Legislature.

It's pretty much a done deal that the lost Sunset bills and the Texas Department of Transportation bonds will be in there, but it's up to Perry to define the terms and topics of any special. Unsurprisingly, the political haymaking has begun.

Rep. Linda Harper Brown, R-Dallas, wrote on Facebook that "TxDot, the Insurance Department and Voter ID are all likely issues that [Perry] may call us back to work on." But House Democratic Caucus Leader Jim Dunnam has already said that if voter ID does come back, Democrats will have their own language ready to roll, and will start asking conservative Republicans some awkward questions (like why they pushed back against tougher penalties for in-person voter fraud).

If voter ID turns out to be too toxic for Perry to touch, there's still a vast number of big bills that lawmakers are offering up like supplicants.

In his latest Watson Wire, Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, proposes bringing back two of the most controversial measures from last session (Children’s Health Insurance Program expansion and the local funding transportation option), but he's also got his eye on getting some solar energy bills back on the slate. Since it's likely to be a summery special session, he quipped, "Can’t we take advantage of this sun?"

That could have some bipartisan backing. Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, became a surprise hero of the enviro-movement when he authored the session's biggest renewable energy and solar incentive reforms. He's already petitioned Perry for another shot at transferring the state away from a hydrocarbon economy.

Speaking of greentechnophiles, Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, said on the floor that he wants unemployment insurance compliance back on the agenda. Perry killed that during his anti-stimulus grandstanding, so he could look like the big conservative by rejecting $555 million out of $16 billion he accepted. But Strama already has some Republican and business support for the changes, and that will possibly grow when people get their bills for the automatic tax increase to top up the UI fund.

On grimmer issues, Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, sent out a press release with a specific list of bills he wants reconsidered, all relating to judicial process reforms that almost made it through the last session: The mandatory recording of custodial interrogations in Senate Bill 116; The eyewitness identification reforms in SB 117; Improved access to post-conviction DNA testing in SB 1864; Habeas Corpus writ reforms in SB 1976; And a brand-new posthumous pardons resolution. Somehow it would be fitting if what came out of a second-chance session would be a second chance at life for exhonorees.