Texas Grassroots Bear Fruit

From the Dan Patrick for Texas Senate campaign site:

This past weekend, the sixty-two member State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) passed a resolution calling for an end to the so called “blocker bill.” This action is one of the cornerstones of the “Patrick Pact” as Dan Patrick’s Senate District 7 campaign declared months ago to fight to end the blocker bill.

The resolution “calls upon the Texas Senate to end the practice” of requiring a 2/3 vote prior to legislation advancing in the senate. Upon entering the Republican Primary for Senate District 7, Dan Patrick released his “Patrick Pact with Texas” in which item #6 calls for an end to the “blocker bill.” Prior to the release of the “Pact,” no other candidate had made a public statement concerning the demise of the parliamentary procedure.

And yet it is now a major plank in the state Republican platform for the 2006 election cycle.

“I applaud the State Republican Executive Committee for taking the steps necessary to ensure majority rules in the Texas Senate,” Patrick said. “The ‘blocker bill’ thwarts democracy by requiring a super-majority for passage of any legislation in the state senate,” Patrick remarked. “The grassroots of our Party have worked far too hard to elect a majority in the Texas Senate, only to see their agenda hijacked by a small minority of senators,” Patrick concluded.

In March of 2003, Dan Patrick led a group of taxpayers to Austin to fight for a lowering of the property tax appraisal caps from a maximum annual increase of 10% to 5% or less. Through those efforts, the Texas House voted 134-0 to support the lowering of the caps, but the measure died in the Senate when supporters were unable to get the 2/3 vote necessary to satisfy the parliamentary requirements established by the “blocker bill.”

Yet another victory for Dan, and for Texas homeowners, as it is being reported that a referendum (albeit non-binding) will be added to the Republican primary ballot allowing voters to show their support for a lowering of the property tax appraisal caps.