Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin
House District 50 (Austin)Capitol Office: E2.808
Capitol Phone: 512/463-0506
Dukes represents East Austin, perhaps the safest seat in the district, and she readily mentioned redrawing lines in a way that will help to Travis Co. Democrats. “I will work to help my brothers Naishtat and Maxey,” she said. (She did not mention siblings Green, Keel, or Krusee.) When legislative cartographers come looking for Democratic precincts, she suggested, “My district is the likely place to find them.” Dukes says her staff is just getting started on this session’s bills, but that she has filed a bill to provide protections for people living in mobile home parks. “They have no homestead rights, no tenant’s rights, they are not covered by the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.” Her property code bill for trailer parks is backed by the attorney general’s office, the American Association of Retired People, and Consumers Union.
Dukes has also filed a bill that would provide incentives for builders to build energy-efficient homes, and another that would define “magnet schools” housed by host neighborhood schools as separate campuses. The intent is to avoid high-performing scholastic populations of magnet schools from displacing host-school students who would win academic honors and places at the top of their classes if they were not sharing the campus with a magnet school. (Johnston and LBJ high schools, in Dukes’ district, are both minority schools that house selective magnet programs, and the student-ranking controversy has affected both schools.) Dukes has also filed a workers’ compensation reform bill that would allow workers covered by the insurance system to select their own physicians and allow doctors “rather than actuaries” to make rulings on the extent of worker injuries.
Dukes has represented East Austin since 1995 and has thus far filed two bills this session.
This article appears in January 19 • 2001.