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Legislative Reference Library of Texas
your partner in legislative research
Legislative Reference Library of Texas
your partner in legislative research

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LRL's Texas Governor Pages: Your Portal to Governor Information

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry's portrait was unveiled last week (whoop!), giving us the perfect opportunity to highlight our Texas governor pages. The LRL's Texas governor pages serve as a portal to a variety of information about Texas governors, including biographical information, term dates, previous offices held, and more. You can even see images of the governor portraits that hang in the Capitol Rotunda.
 
A favorite feature of the Texas governor pages is a searchable database that contains a wide range of gubernatorial documents for each Texas governor, including vetoes, executive orders, legislative messages, proclamations, speeches, and even inaugural invitation materials. In addition to our online governor materials, the library also has a large collection of hard copy materials that includes bound press memo volumes. For questions or assistance using the governor pages or governor materials in our collection, please contact the library at (512) 463-1252.
 
If you're interested in learning more about our Texas governor pages, see our previous blog posts on this topic.
 

Interim Hearings - Week of May 16, 2016

Interim Hearings - Week of May 16

Today's Committee Meetings on the LRL website is a calendar of interim committee hearings with links to agendas. Below are resources related to upcoming Interim Hearings.

May 16 Top

House Committee on County Affairs

Topic: Texas Healthcare Transformation and Quality Improvement Program 1115 Waiver

Topic: Counties involvement in Child Protective Services (CPS) cases

House Committees on County Affairs and Urban Affairs (Joint Hearing) 

Joint charge: Risk and mitigation of wildfires, floods, and other natural hazards in the wildland-urban interface; natural disasters

House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence

Charge: Asset forfeiture

Senate Committee on Higher Education

Charge: Current funding methods for both general academic institutions and community colleges, performance-based funding for community colleges

Charge: Funding for GAIs (General Academic Institutions) and HRIs (Health Related Institutions), tuition-revenue generating special items and formula and research funding for new medical schools

May 17 Top

House Committees on Corrections and Criminal Jurisprudence (Joint Hearing) 

Charge: Probation & parole - fees and revocations

House Committees on Human Services and Urban Affairs

Charge: Boarding homes

Senate Committee on Criminal Justice

Charge 3: Reentry programs provided by TDCJ and the Windham School, including inmates in administrative segregation; Certified Peer Support Services; Darrington Seminary Program   

Charge 4: Pretrial diversion and treatment programs   

Charge 5: Dissemination of bulk criminal records   

Charge 6: Costs for family members to maintain contact with incarcerated family members    

 

Senate Committee on Finance

Charge: Strengthening restriction on appropriations established in Article VIII, Section 22 of the state constitution (spending cap)

Senate Committee on Health & Human Services  

Topic: Zika virus

May 18 Top

House Committee on Appropriations

Charge 1 (partial): Dedicated accounts, budget transparency

Charge 3: Texas constitutional spending limits, comparison to other states

Joint Legislative Committee on Health & Human Services Transition, Oversight  

Invited testimony

 

May 19 Top

Topic: Cost reporting process for long term programs

House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence  

Charge 1: Trafficking

Charge 4: Jury service

Charge 6: Lemon law

House Committee on Public Health

Charge: Improving birth outcomes

Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Relations

Charge 1: Extraterritorial jurisdiction expansion and municipal annexation process

 

Week in Review, May 5

In this weekly post, we feature online articles and policy reports published recently, and other helpful research tools.
 

Answer Your Committee-Related Questions with the LRL Committee Search

In a recent blog post, we discussed committee minute availability. This week, we're continuing our focus on Texas legislative committees by taking a look at the library's Committee Search page
 
The library's Committee Search page allows users to find information like committee membership, committee charges, published interim reports, and in some cases, committee minutes. You can use our committee search page to answer questions like:
  • What were the standing and joint committees of the 69th Legislature?
  • Has there ever been a committee to look at auto theft? (Answer: yes)
  • What issues has the Senate Natural Resources Committee examined over the last 5 sessions?
  • How long did the House Cultural and Historical Resources Committee exist and who served on it?
You can also search by committee member last name or by committee member role, which allows you to answer questions such as:
  • What committees has my state senator or representative served on during their time in the legislature? 
  • Did he or she ever chair a committee?
  • Who has chaired the Senate Finance Committee during its history?
There are many more committee-related questions that can be answered using our committee search page. For assistance or questions, please contact the library at (512) 463-1252.
 
Image: Committee search page on the LRL website.
 
 

Interim Hearings - Week of May 9, 2016

Interim Hearings - Week of May 9

Today's Committee Meetings on the LRL website is a calendar of interim committee hearings with links to agendas. Below are resources related to upcoming Interim Hearings.

May 10 Top

House Committee on Higher Education

Charge 3: College affordability and accessibility with a focus on middle-class students; tuition, financial aid, student debt

Senate Select Committee on Property Tax Reform & Relief

Charge: Property tax process

Charge: Tax burden

May 11  Top

Charge 2: Contracting practices at major state agencies

House Committee on Public Education

Charge: Teacher-student relationships 

Charge: Broadband services  for schools, libraries, and institutions of higher education

 

House Committee on Public Education

Charge: Legislative oversight and monitoring (invited testimony only)

 

Cover image by pixabay user skeeze

 

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