My state senator, Mike Jackson, nearly stopped the passage of the ill-conceived goss receipts tax on businesses in the state of texas. But then, even though he planned on voting against the legislation as bad for texas, he cast the vote to let it reach the Senate floor, where it passed and has been sent on to the governor.

The Senate voted 16-14 Tuesday to send a business tax bill to the governor, after a Houston-area senator jeopardized passage of the bill with last-minute opposition.

Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, ended up casting the key vote that allowed Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to bring the bill up for a final vote. Four hours earlier he had stalled action by voting against bringing the bill to the floor.

At issue was a Senate rule requiring two-thirds of senators present to allow a bill to be debated. The rule is designed to get bipartisan consensus on legislation being brought before the Senate.

Jackson said he has had hundreds of calls from his district and decided to vote against bringing up the tax bill for debate because he thought it would have little permanent impact on reducing property taxes while raising new taxes on businesses.

"I started looking at calculating how little people would receive from the first stage of this property tax cut," Jackson said. "If school districts were able to raise their property tax rate 6 cents without a vote and then we have appraisal creep ... you come out with a wash in the first year."

Jackson said he used his ability to block the bill to gain "concessions" from Gov. Rick Perry and Dewhurst on having language to limit growth in school district spending put into another bill.

He said the restriction should limit the growth in property taxes unless a school district holds a vote of the people.

Jackson voted against final passage of the bill.

Passage means that the state's Republican leadership may finally have come to a school finance agreement that has eluded them in four attempts over the past two years.

Unfortunately, neither Mike nor the Houston Chronicle are all that clear about the "concessions" he got out of the bill's supporters. That concerns me deeply.

And i'll be honest -- Mike Jackson probably just shot himself in the foot if he was ever serious about getting the nimination to succeed Tom DeLay. Most GOP activists found this tax plan unacceptable, and his decision to support bringing it to a vote will not please any of us.

Posted by: Greg at 10:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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