Substantive bills that TFA is supporting or opposing

Supporting
SB 51 by Sen. Judith Zaffirini. Relating to leave for junior college district or university system employees who are physically assaulted while on duty. This legislation was authored by the Senator after one of her constituents was stabbed at Laredo Junior College and discovered that state law did not provide for leave in such situations.

Status: Passed the Senate; has been referred to the House Higher Education Committee.*

Opposing
SCR 3 by Sen. Jeff Wentworth relating to encouraging "diversity of opinion" in the classroom and on campus. Although this disingenuous bill purports to promote academic freedom, it is cleverly designed to place the opinions of students on a level of equality with professors in the classroom.

Status: No action taken in the Senate Higher Education Subcommittee.

SB 1045 by Sen. Jeff Wentworth relating to providing that a performance evaluation of a higher education chancellor or university president is confidential. TFA does not think it is good public policy to draw a veil of secrecy around the evaluations of higher education CEOs who frequently earn salaries and benefits in excess of $500,000. TFA Executive Director Zucker testified against the bill in the Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education.

Status: The bill has passed the Senate by a vote of 22 ayes and 9 nays; it will now be sent to the House Voting against SB 1045 were Eltife, Estes, Fraser, Gallegos, Hinojosa, Janek, Patrick, Shapleigh and Watson.

SB 889 by Jeff Wentworth relating to the charges for certain public information maintained by a governmental body. This bill would dramatically increase the charges for documents requested under the Public Information Act once the requestor had received at least 100 paper records in a calendar month. The bill was filed to stop a small number of citizens who apparently have been using the Public Information Act to harass school districts by filing literally hundreds of requests. However, the bill is overreaching. TFA Executive Director Zucker testified against the bill in the House State Affairs Committee.

Status: It is currently pending in the House State Affairs Committee.

*Statuses are as of May 9, 2007.

 

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