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Week in Review, April 14

In this weekly post, we feature online articles and policy reports published recently, and other helpful research tools.
  • Track current state minimum wages. (National Conference of State Legislatures, April 4, 2016)
  • Read about nonbank mortgage servicers. (U.S. Government Accountability Office, March 2016)
  • See which cities in America are shrinking the fastest. (24/7 Wall St., April 4, 2016)
  • Search articles related to criminal justice. (The Marshall Project, accessed April 13, 2016)
 

The LRL Celebrates National Library Week

This week, the Texas Legislative Reference Library joins libraries across the U.S. in celebrating the dynamic changes that are happening in today's libraries. April 10-16 is National Library Week, a time to highlight the tools and services that modern-day libraries offer to meet the needs of the communities they serve.

During the interim, our work at the library continues full speed. Forming the backbone to much of this work is an active digitization program that puts legislative history resources online at users' fingertips.  As a result of digitization, our patrons can better access library resources, and answering patron questions has been greatly streamlined for our staff. 

Much of our digitization work has been facilitated by the acquisition of high-speed scanners and a book scanner that has enabled us to work with fragile and tightly bound items.

Legislative bill files and committee minutes:

The library is the legal custodian of legislative bill files from the 63rd Legislature (1973) to the present, and scanning these bill files, as well as older bill files in the collection of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, is one of our major ongoing projects. After bill files are scanned, they are made available online through our Legislative Archive System. This system offers basic and advanced searching, and adds value to bill files by linking related newspaper clips, interim reports, and other resources. The system currently contains bills files going back to the 33rd Legislature (1913), and scanning for earlier sessions is in progress.

In a related project, the library has been scanning legislative committee minutes. These are made available through a standalone database on our website, and have also been incorporated into the Legislative Archive System.

Newspaper clipping service:

The library's daily newspaper clipping service began in the early 1970s, and for many years was assembled by cutting articles out of newspapers and pasting them onto sheets of paper. In the last decade, "the clips" has evolved into a nearly paperless service, with articles distributed digitally, and the availability of an online, searchable database of clips. Since many Texas newspapers do not provide historical indexes, the clips database is a favorite, and often crucial, tool for background research, allowing capitol staff to search by subject, headline, or author for articles back to 1901.

For the past several years, each article in the clips has also been linked to any bills, court documents, or reports mentioned in the article. This valuable service makes it simple to locate a list of articles about a bill or to provide a copy of reports and studies referred to (often vaguely) in articles. A recently added feature groups together key court documents related to a case mentioned in a newspaper article.

House and Senate journals:

The library began scanning journals in 2006 with a goal of making the complete collection of House and Senate journals from the Republic of Texas (1836) to the present available online. Legislative journals are a rich source of information that contain the proceedings of the legislature on any given day of session, as well as speeches, gubernatorial documents, and in some cases, legislative research reports.  They are often the only source of legislative history for early bills. 

Since the start of the project, journals from the Republic of Texas (1836) through the 28th Legislature (1903) have been digitized and put online, and most journals from 1951 through the present are also available online. Future phases of the project include making the digitized journals text-searchable and integrating them into the Legislative Archive System.

Members of the Texas Legislature:

During the interim, many of our projects focus on recapturing the history of the Texas Legislature and making it available online. Not long ago, answering simple questions about a member's term of service or committee membership required consulting a card file and stacks of books, and more complicated questions might have required days or weeks of intricate research.  All that has changed since the library developed the Texas Legislators: Past and Present database, which digitized much of the information contained in our card files and stores member-related information we have compiled from journals and other sources. Today, many of the member-related questions we receive can be answered through a simple database query.

Vetoes and constitutional amendments:

Over the past several years, we have built databases to store detailed information on specialized topics such as vetoes and constitutional amendments. As part of the project, we collect and scan original documents like veto messages issued by the governor.  Having this information has enabled us to answer a variety of questions more easily and more quickly. Our vetoes system is particularly useful after the end of a legislative session, and our constitutional amendments system is heavily used leading up to an election in which proposed constitutional amendments are on the ballot.

The library has other digitization projects in addition to those mentioned here, and we are happy to answer questions about them. We aim to provide the best tools and services available for Texas legislative research.

 
 
 

Interim Hearings - Week of April 18, 2016

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.

April 19 Top

House Committee on Appropriations

Charge 1 (partial): Potential fiscal policy challenges or economic disruptions in the 2016-17 biennium, including impact of oil and natural gas price declines on the Texas economy

Charge 5: Accumulation of funds in the Texas Economic Stabilization Fund, particularly in light of HB 903, 84th Legislature, R.S.; accuracy of prior ESF revenue predictions, feasibility of long-term projections

Senate Committee on Education CANCELLED

Charge: Digital learning, expansion of broadband access in school districts and student homes

April 20 Top

Charge: Implementation of HB 9, 84th Legislature, R.S., and updated projections towards actuarial soundness of the Employees Retirement System; cost of living adjustments or "13th Checks" to retired state employees

House Committee on Juvenile Justice & Family Issues CANCELLED

Organizational meeting

 

Senate Committee on Health & Human Services

Charge: Higher acuity children with trauma and mental illness in the state foster care system

Charge: Disrupted foster care adoptions

Charge: Current Child Protective Services process to track recurrence of child abuse and neglect

April 21 Top

Senate Committee on Health & Human Services

Topic: Update from the Inspector General of the Health and Human Services Commission on efforts to reform the Office of the Inspector General, and on the IG Integrity Initiative

Charge: Refugees relocating to Texas, Refugee Resettlement Program

 

 

Week in Review, April 7

In this weekly post, we feature online articles and policy reports published recently, and other helpful research tools.
  • See how prescription drug costs have increased over the last decade. (Journal of the American Medical Association, April 5, 2016)
  • Read recommendations related to preventing and responding to elder financial exploitation. (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, March 2016)
  • Consider approaches to addressing child abuse and neglect fatalities. (Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, 2016)
  • Review personal accounts of pre-trial detention in Texas. (Texas Jail Project, April 1, 2016)
  • Track state spending in Texas by category. (Legislative Budget Board, accessed April 6, 2016)
 

Interim Hearings - Week of April 11, 2016

Interim Hearings - Week of April 11

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.

April 11 Top

Joint Interim Committee to Study a Coastal Barrier System

Topic: Desirability and feasibility of constructing a coastal barrier system

April 12 Top

Charge 1: Cybersecurity of financial institutions

Charge 4: Community bank consolidation

Charge 5: Investment climate and resources available to businesses

April 13 Top

House Committee on Pensions

Charge: Public pension funds

Charge: Legislative oversight and monitoring

 

Senate Committee on State Affairs

Charge: Changes made to the Employment Retirement System regarding member contributions and proposed reforms to the Teacher Retirement System of Texas

Charge: Electronic voting program for certain military members serving overseas

Joint Committee on TRS Health Benefit Plans

Topic: Health benefit plans administered by the Teacher Retirement System of Texas; TRS-ActiveCare

April 14 Top

Charge:  Improving military value at military installations

 

Week in Review, March 31

In this weekly post, we feature online articles and policy reports published recently, and other helpful research tools.
  • Review the outlook for natural and human-induced earthquakes. (U.S. Geological Survey, March 28, 2016)
  • Read about how Medicaid expansion could affect access to behavioral health services. (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, March 28, 2016)
  • Search for information related to the public water supply system. (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, accessed March 31, 2016)
  • Examine consumers' use of mobile financial services. (Federal Reserve Board, March 2016)
 
 

Interim Hearings - Week of April 4, 2016

Interim Hearings - Week of April 4

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.

April 5 Top

Charge: State cybersecurity policies and safety of personal information held by state agencies

Charge: Purchasing practices by state agencies

Charge: Commercial cloud computing by state agencies and institutions of higher education

House Committee on Public Health

Charge 2: Chronic disease in Texas; direct and indirect costs associated with obesity, tobacco, and other related chronic health conditions

House Committee on Urban Affairs

Charge: Cities' cybersecurity policies

 

April 6 Top

Charge: Local economic development programs and economic development corporations

Charge:  Economic development incentives and regulations

Charge 10: Texas Medicaid programs providing long-term services and supports to adults or children with medical, physical, or intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD)  

 

Charge 12: Historical growth of Texas Medicaid program, caseload and cost trends, Medicaid policy initiatives 

April 7 Top

Charges 10 and 12, continued

 

Charge 4: Tourism, youth education, and economic development through heritage, cultural, recreational, historical, and nature programs and preservation practices; economic impact of state parks and state and state and local historic sites, the Texas Heritage Trails Program, the Alamo Mission Complex, and rural community revitalization in promoting recreation and heritage tourism

 

Week in Review, March 24

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

Interim Hearings - Week of March 28, 2016

Interim Hearings - Week of March 28

 

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.

March 29 Top

House Select Committee on Federal Environmental Regulation  

Topic: Organizational hearing on the effects that existing and proposed federal environmental regulations will have on the Texas economy

 

Charge: Texas Division of Emergency Management and the state's natural disaster preparedness planning efforts

Charge: Implementation of the "two steps, one sticker" program

Charge: Implementation of relevant legislation passed by the 84th Legislature

 

Charge 3: Elder financial abuse

Charge 6: Legislative oversight and monitoring of agencies

 

House Committee on Urban Affairs CANCELLED

Charge: Cities' cybersecurity policies

Senate Committees on Education and Higher Education (Joint Hearing)

Charge: Implementation of HB 5, 83rd R.S., and current projections for preparation of Texas high school students for postsecondary education and workforce training

 

Charge: Teacher shortage and retention, educator preparation programs

Senate Committee on State Affairs

Charge: Compensation to private property owners for property taken by eminent domain authority

Senate Committee on Transportation    

Charge: State Highway Fund grants and loans to Regional Mobility Authorities (RMA)  

Charge: Oversize and overweight vehicles 

Senate Select Committee on Transportation Planning

Topic: Transportation planning, financing, and performance

March 30 Top

House Committee on Insurance

Charge 3: Texas prompt payment law and penalty calculations

Charge 7: Implementation of HB 2929, 83rd R.S.

Charge 8: Prosecution of workers' compensation insurance fraud

House Committee on Pensions

Topic: Organizational meeting, current issues and concerns facing pension systems

House Committee on Transportation

Topic: Update on HB 2612, 84th R.S. - debt service on bonds issued for each toll project in this state, plan to eliminate all toll roads

House Select Committee on Transportation Planning

Topics: Update from TxDOT working group on project selection criteria, rules and policies for project prioritization and selection, and funding categories (TxDOT); latest revenue projections related to state and federal funds; outstanding debt and repayment schedule

Senate Committee on Business & Commerce

Charge: State cybersecurity and protection of financial and personal information

Charge: Implementation of legislation, specifically federal electronic verification of employment authorization program and consent policy for state disclosure of personal data

Topic: Updates from Public Utility Commission of Texas and Electric Reliability Council of Texas

 

Senate Committee on Criminal Justice  

Charge 2: County and municipal jails, mental health in corrections

Senate Committee on Finance

Charge: Franchise tax, Property Tax Relief Fund

Charge: Sales tax holiday

Charge:  Budget formats of other states; reduction of state liabilities; incentivize state agencies

Joint Committee on TRS Health Benefit Plans

Topic: Health benefit plans administered by the Teacher Retirement System of Texas; TRS-Care

March 31 Top

Charge: Promotion of domestic agriculture products, and strengthening international ties for exporting Texas food and fiber

Topic: Impact of an open U.S.-Cuba trading relationship on Texas

Joint Legislative Committee on Health & Human Services Transition, Oversight

Invited and public testimony

April 1 Top

Charge 3: Economic development

Charge 4: Expedited permitting

 

Charge 7: Implementation of legislation, specifically:

1) Legislation relating to Texas aerospace incentives;

2) Expedited permitting; and

3) Electric utility rate adjustments

 

Week in Review, March 17

In this weekly post, we feature online articles and policy reports published recently, and other helpful research tools.
  • Examine federal highway spending. (Congressional Budget Office, March 14, 2016)
  • Read guidelines for prescribing opioids for chronic pain. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 15, 2016)
  • Explore the origins and current status of Daylight Saving Time. (Congressional Research Service, March 9, 2016)
  • Consider what Americans think about workforce automation. (Pew Research Center, March 10, 2016)
 

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