Moving Forward With the Recovery Act

Some Texas legislators are going ahead with efforts to implement provisions of the ARRA, despite Gov. Rick Perry's objections to certain portions of the federal bill.  At least one state legislator, Representative Sylvester Turner, has filed a resolution that would effectively circumvent the governor and allow the legislature to accept and allocate ARRA money.  The resolution takes advantage of a provision in the law that allows state legislatures to accept any and all ARRA funds in the event that they are rejected by the governor, as is now the case here in Texas. (To read the relevant provision, see the highlighted section attached to this post.)  Texas legislators are moving forward in other ways, too.

Rep. Turner's resolution came on the heels of a similar motion passed through the Mississippi House of Representatives, and other states are now considering comparable measures.  A major sticking point for Gov. Perry and other governors who have considered rejecting ARRA funds is the requirement that states adopt certain minimum regulations with regard to citizens' eligibility for unemployment benefits.  For his part, the Governor asserted that an increased burden would have to be shouldered by Texas employers, and that the state would have to take on extra expenses once the $555 million in federal money was exhausted. The announcement came at a time when many Texans are hurting, as more than 75,000 jobs were lost in January of this year, and the outlook for employment in the state is certainly not encouraging.

Legislators in Texas have filed at least ten bills that deal with some or all of the changes that are necessary to draw down the full allotment of ARRA unemployment funds. Four of those bills - Rep. Deshotel's HB 2623, Rep. Parker's HB 3153, Sen. Lucio's SB 1421, and Sen. Eltife's SB 1569 - propose modernizing Texas' unemployment guidelines to fit with the federal regulations. So, if the legislature decides to override the governor's decision to reject $555 million in unemployment benefits, and if it then enacts these changes to current regulations on the state level, then the state could receive the full sum to which it is entitled under the ARRA.

Rep. Turner also filed a bill on March 13th that would establish a "Texas Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board", with the purpose of providing a way to thoroughly track the usage of ARRA funds and measure the results of expenditures. Rep. Jim Dunnam has filed legislation that would give the State Auditor extra oversight and enforcement authority to improve ARRA implementation transparency.