One of the many bills targeting the State Board of Education this session (see “McLeroy Gets a Dressing Down“) is House Joint Resolution 77, by Austin Rep. Donna Howard. The measure, calling for a constitutional amendment to strip management of the Permanent School Fund from the board to an appointed council of financial professionals, passed the House after a bit of parliamentary drama Tuesday. The first vote garnered support of 99 reps, one short of the number needed to skip third reading. Waco’s Jim Dunnam called for a verification vote, and some Democrats with “malfunctioning voting machines” (a code-phrase for “absent from the floor”) made their way into the chamber and bumped the total to 104. The resolution now goes to the Senate, but the hard part could be getting past Gov. Rick Perry‘s veto; Perry, who appears to be veering hard right in his pending re-election battle with Kay Bailey Hutchison, may want to appease supporters of the SBOE’s fundamentalist block. Howard told the Chronicle that it only makes sense to have qualified people managing the fund. Asked if there were any SBOE members who were qualified to make education policy, she said, “I’m not going there.”
This article appears in May 1 • 2009.