Heads-up: This update includes some important state funding-related news for many of you.
Week in Review
Legislators have gone home to rest up—and raise money—before the senators’ inevitable return in September (for the Senate impeachment trial) and everyone else’s return in October (for school choice and teacher pay raises—if not more). But we’ve been busy while they’ve been gone!
SB 22 Update
The Comptroller’s Office (CPA) recently issued some guidance regarding the first round of grants to be awarded under the Rural Law Enforcement Assistance Grant Program created by Senate Bill 22, which applies to each prosecutor whose jurisdiction (county or single- or multi-county district) has a population of fewer than 300,000 people.
CPA is currently developing the program rules, which will involve a formal rules process and include a public comment period that could result in changes in the initial proposals based on those comments. CPA expects to publish the proposed rules for public comment in the Texas Register in September 2023, and we will notify you as soon as that is made public.
Meanwhile, CPA has decided that eligible prosecutor’s offices can apply for grant funds beginning January 1, 2024, even if their 2024 fiscal year (FY 2024) starts before that date. This will be relevant to those of you with fiscal years starting before January 1, 2024, as it means you will not have to “miss” the first round of grant funding if your fiscal year begins in the latter part of this calendar year. For example, if your FY 2024 begins October 1, 2023, and you encumber funds for salaries in FY 2024 prior to January 1, 2024, you will be able to backfill your budgeted funds over the three months leading up to January 1 using SB 22 funds when those are eventually awarded. (CPA intends to disburse SB 22 funds on a yearly rather than monthly basis).
This process of allowing all eligible prosecutor’s offices to apply on January 1, 2024, regardless of FY start date will happen only once. After the initial round of grants applications are accepted, prosecutor’s offices must apply within 30 days of the start of their future fiscal year.
Further questions can be directed to the Comptroller’s Legislative Affairs Division at 512-463-3861, or you can call or email Rob. (He is meeting with the CPA people soon to learn more details relevant to prosecutors, but we wanted to get this information out before the weekend.)
Legislative Update CLEs and books
We’ve been busy this month at TDCAA! Here are the fruits of that labor.
- Pre-order your updated TDCAA code books (which will be shipped out starting in August) at our Books webpage.
- Registration is now open for two in-person Legislative Update CLE courses:
San Antonio (September 7): LINK
Round Rock (September 19): LINK
- Registration opens next week for our online Legislative Update CLE course. Visit https://www.tdcaa.com/training/ on or after August 1 to sign up for that online course, which will be available for viewing later in the month.
In memoriam
We are saddened to report the passing last week of Judge Michael McCormick last week. Judge McCormick served as a judge (1981–1987) and the presiding judge (1989–2000) of the Court of Criminal Appeals, and we can attribute much of our state’s common-sense jurisprudence to his steady leadership of that court in tumultuous times. In addition, many of you probably don’t know that Judge McCormick served as an assistant DA in Travis County and as the executive director of TDCAA (1976–1980). Judge McCormick treated everyone as if they were special, and it endeared him to those he met. We are going to miss him!
Memorial arrangements are pending. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the Texas District and County Attorneys Foundation (www.TDCAF.org) in his memory.
Impeachment news
It seems like impeachment is the only thing cooking under the dome right now, so the capitol press corps is cranking out story after story about this historic event-to-be. Here is a sampling of their work if you need to get caught up after your summer vacation:
- “Texas Republicans divide over impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton” (Washington Post)
- “Acting as Paxton impeachment judge, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issues sweeping gag order” (Texas Tribune)
- “2021 statements about role of outside lawyer could play a part in Ken Paxton impeachment trial” (Texas Tribune)
- “Ken Paxton used to be his landlord. Now, Sen. Bryan Hughes will vote on AG’s impeachment.” (Austin American-Statesman)
- “Ken Paxton’s far-right billionaire backers are fighting hard to save him” (Texas Tribune)
- “Texas AG Ken Paxton wants Democrats off impeachment jury, citing ‘bias’” (Dallas Morning News)
- “Exclusive: Texts show lawmakers were ‘pissed off’ at Ken Paxton before impeachment” (Dallas Morning News)
Also, the State Senate’s website now has a dedicated webpage for all motions, orders, and filed documents relating to its role as the Court of Impeachment: https://senate.texas.gov/coi.php.
Scattershooting
Here are some recent (non-impeachment) stories you might’ve missed:
- “Texas Spent Billions on Border Security. It’s Not Working.” (Wall Street Journal [free link])
- “You May All Go to Hell, and I Will Go to the TexasLand Theme Park” (Texas Monthly)
- “Why the Texas Rangers are MLB’s best-suited team to trade for Shohei Ohtani” (Dallas Morning News) (oh please let this happen!)
Quotes of the Week
“The governor, the team, and our allies continue to work on this. We’re getting closer every week. When we have the [impeachment] trial and everything else behind us, then the governor will call a special session, probably in October, and we’ll get everything done.”
—Dave Carney, chief political strategist for Governor Greg Abbott, responding to a question about the governor’s school choice initiative that failed to pass the House during the regular session.
“It’s an enormous amount of money, and you want to be seeing concrete results. It’s not clear to me that the movement of people has been affected. At this point, it feels more symbolic than substantive.”
—Stephanie Leutert, director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the University of Texas, on the state funds spent to date on border security by the Abbott administration.
“The only thing worse than not being represented by Ken Paxton would have been to be represented by Ken Paxton—because we did not have full faith that he was on our side. We can understand how the attorney general, for some reason of his own choosing, might not want to represent the Ethics Commission in a district or appellate court. But to not even support the principle of a state agency, a constitutional agency, issuing subpoenas, was a particular aggravation.”
—Chase Untermeyer, former chair of the Texas Ethics Commission, describing the agency’s struggles to enforce state ethics laws after the attorney general adopted an unofficial policy of non-enforcement.
“This is just a moment where a lot of divisions that have different sources have come to a head. It’s personal, it’s institutional, it’s ideological, and it’s historical.”
—Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, as quoted in a Washington Post story explaining the division within the state Republican party over the impending impeachment trial of the attorney general.
“This is about as tumultuous a period in Texas political history as we’ve seen. Texas has certainly been here before, but this time, it’s different. It’s like one-party rule on Red Bull.”
—Brandon Rottinghaus, professor of political science at the University of Houston, as quoted in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram column about local GOP in-fighting as the political mailer season gets underway.
(Watch your inbox for our next interim update at the end of August.)
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