REPORT BY SUSAN RIDGEWAY OF Anti-Corridor/Rail Expansion (ACRE):
GROUPS ATTACKING CORRIDOR FROM DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS,
FLURRY OF LEGISLATION FILED
Report on
Road to Texas Independence Confab, featuring Paul Burka of Texas MonthlyThe Road to Texas Independence Confab, organized and hosted by Linda Curtis, Independent Texans, was held Sunday, January 21, in Austin. The meeting room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel was filled with over 200 attendees, including, as Linda says, “a very wide variety of people, from farmers and bikers, to urbanites from Dallas and San Antonio to horse ranchers from
Gainesville, including leaders and activists of ALL political stripes!”
Attendees from our area included Sylvia Summers and me, from Coupland, Jody Krankel, of Blackland Prairie Concerned Citizens, Jane Van Praag from Bartlett, who is active in several anti-Corridor endeavors, Dan and Margaret Byfield, Texas Landowners organization, and Blackland Coalition members Ralph and Marcia Snyder and Judith Renker.
The event was covered by Austin’s KVUE-TV and KXAN-TV, KLBJ-AM radio, and the influential political site Quorum Report.
Linda presented a panel of very diverse speakers, who discussed many Corridor aspects from various viewpoints.
The first speaker was Gina Parker Ford, from the Eagle Forum. Her presentation dealt mainly with the efforts to combine our country with Mexico and Canada into one North American union, which she called the “underlying force moving the Trans-Texas Corridor and the NAFTA
superhighway.” She spoke about the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (spp.gov) and the Supercorridor. (See North America SuperCorridor Coalition, nascocorridor.com).
Next to speak was David Stall, who Linda Curtis introduced as the “undisputed opposition expert on the Corridor.” David, who with his wife Linda Stall, founded the first and largest anti-Corridor organization, Corridor Watch, said, “The TTC represents a dramatic shift in public policy. It’s about revenue, NOT transportation.” David reported the first bills
that have been filed that can help us against the Corridor are:
SB 149, by Sen. Carona, the new Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, which seeks to prohibit non-compete clauses from being put in toll road contracts with private corporations, such as Cintra. A non-compete clause in the contract means that governmental entities are
forbidden from repairing, maintaining, or building a public road that might compete (provide a free route) with the private toll road. This bill will remove the non-compete clauses, and allow free, public routes to be continued. SB 245, by Sen. Carona, giving first option to local toll entities. This means that if a toll road is to be built in a certain area, a local entity that builds roads, such as a county, would be given the first option to build the toll road, in preference to a private corporation.
HB 154, filed by Representative Pickett, which abolishes the appointed Transportation Commission and mandates that the office that is now the Chairman of the Transportation Commission be a state-wide elective office.
The latest anti-Corridor legislation was just filed by Representative Leibowitz on January 25. It is HB 857, “Relating to repeal of authority for the establishment and operation of the Trans-Texas Corridor.”
You can read and follow this legislation at Texas Legislature Online, capitol.state.tx.us. You can sign up to receive email alerts when there is any action taken on a bill.
Also speaking was Sal Costello, founder of Texas Toll Party, who critics call “abrasive” but “effective.” Sal said that the Corridor/toll issue “is about corruption and accountability,” involving among other things campaign contributions and contracts. Sal has succeeded in stopping some Austin toll projects and has been involved in election campaigns that have replaced pro-toll officials with anti-toll officials. On Monday, January 22, an effort in which Sal played a large roll saw a major success, when the CAMPO board voted to table the Austin Phase 2 toll roads, pending further study.
Hank Gilbert also spoke. Hank lost his bid to become Texas Agriculture Commissioner, but did win the most votes in November of any state-wide Democratic candidate. He will be hosting a Texas Independence Day Rally on March 2 on the Capitol grounds, against the Corridor and the National Animal Identification System.
Pointing out the negative environmental impacts of the Corridor and other area toll road projects were Annalisa Peace, executive director of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance, and Colin Clark, communications director of Save Our Springs.
Paul Burka, senior executive editor of Texas Monthly, has covered 20 of the 80 Texas legislative sessions, one-fourth of all the sessions in the history of the state, making him indeed an expert on the background, the personalities, and the maneuverings of the legislature. He began with some anecdotes, including the recent joke, “What do Rick Perry and Tony Sanchez have in common?” Answer: “39 percent of the vote.” Getting only 39 percent of the vote has led to the perception that Perry will be a weak governor, but Burka thinks that Perry will probably do what he wants to do.
Regarding the Senate, Burka said that in the last session on a couple of occasions Dewhurst lost control of the Senate. He predicts that in this session, “We will see a lot of tension, not on a partisan basis.” Burka interviewed Carona, the new Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, who said, “The Corridor system will be the ruination of the free roads of
the state.”
After the unsuccessful effort by Pitts to replace Craddick as Speaker of the House, there might not be smooth sailing in the House. There are two issues that Burka is watching this session. One is higher-education tuition, related to past tuition de-regulation. The second important issue is highways. HB 3588, the legislation that created the Corridor, “came up late in the ‘03 session. Nobody had any idea what was in it.” Now, legislators have become concerned about it.
Burka pointed out that parts of the Corridor contract with Cintra still are not public. He speculates that Perry was not pleased when Attorney General Abbott ruled that the contract was public record.
The recent report from the Texas Transportation Institute showed that “TxDOT exaggerated, to put it politely, their needs and costs. The TTI label is so strong that it called into question all of TxDOT’s claims.”
Burka mentioned the special session that was supposed to strengthen the rights of property owners against condemnation, but that exempted the Corridor from the legislation. “We had a special session on eminent domain which allowed that very thing.”
Regarding the Corridor/toll issue, he said, “This meeting is the tip of the iceberg. A huge constituency has built up, and the legislators are aware of it. They voted for 3588, and they’re worried about it. This session will not end without a hearing on this.”
Following Burka’s talk, attendees discussed “How to lobby your legislator,” including letter writing, phoning, and taking community groups to visit the legislator or his or her aides. Linda Curtis, founder of Independent Texans, discussed how attendees could start local groups—“Starting an Indy ‘Fusion’ Club in your community.”
Below, please find links to the sites of many of the organizations that were represented at this meeting. Burka’s blog is:
texasmonthly.com/community/blog/paulburka
Other sites to keep you informed are:
CorridorWatch.org
IndyTexans.org
TexasTollParty.com, which includes Sal Costello’s blog with continuous
coverage and analysis, or go directly to
salcostello.blogspot.com.
Linda Curtis, Indy Texans, and David Stall, Corridor Watch, have both issued reports on this meeting, including legislation to support, and I will forward these to you over the next few days.
