Texas Constitutional Amendments Election (Explanatory Ballot Statements)

Texas SOS ^ | 11/03/2009

[BuckeyeTexan]

As I understand the PUF, it accounts for a small percentage of the eligible universities’ budgets. This amendment allows the legislature to define which universities would be eligible.

As long as the legislature is held by conservatives, that’s a good thing. If it’s held by liberals, then this fund could become a reward system for votes. I’m concerned about it, but you can twist my arm with more information. :) I’m open to outside influence on this one.

I hate the wiki, but here’s a link for those unfamiliar with PUF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_University_Fund

[TWfromTEXAS]

From Dan Patrick, Senate District 7

Dear Friends,

In the coming weeks, Texans will be asked to approve several amendments to our state constitution. If you are like me, you may have begun to wonder how long our constitution can get, but that train left the station long ago. Although our constitution may be growing, the amendments that we will vote on this November, will actually reduce the scope of state government and improve its operation. Passing these amendments will do nothing less than help our service men and women, protect our military bases from encroachment, make property tax appraisals fairer and preserve the sanctity of private property rights.

There has been a lot of misinformation circulating about Propositions 2, 3, and 5. I want to clarify that these amendments will NOT create a new state property tax. I would not support a state property tax and the Texas Constitution still prohibits a state property tax. Please take the time to review the analysis below and be sure to vote. Early voting is available from October 19 through 30 and Election Day is November 3. Voting locations in Harris County can be found at this link: http://www.harrisvotes.org.

May God Bless,

[BuckeyeTexan]

You convinced me. I’ll vote yes.

[Nervous Tick]

>> You convinced me. I’ll vote yes.

Excellent. IMHO #11 is the most important question on the ballot.

Mrs. Tick and I just got back from voting. Turnout was light; that’s disappointing. The silver lining in that bad news, I suppose, is that each vote has higher value.

The other good news is the Missus and I didn’t cancel each other out on anything, and we drew up our positions independently.

[SeeSharp]

The legislature has been dominated by graduates of the UT law school and that is why the Puff has been closed off to other universities all these years. This is yet another attempt to break that monopoly.

By the way, whenever you hear legislative language that sounds like "research university this research that blah blah reaserach blah major research national research" and so on, what you are hearing is the University of Houston's lobbying team. UH has been at the forefront of efforts to open up the puff. They get a huge percentage of their funding from research grants (mostly Federal) and it's like this huge manic identity trait for them.

[boxlunch]

http://www.christianvoterguide.com/

If you click on Texas, you will get a list of links to several different conservative organizations with their recommendations, such as David Barton with Wallbuilders, Heritage Alliance, Free Market Foundation (they actuallyjust show pro & con, not a recommendation), etc.

I looked them up and compared their recommendations. David Barton and Heritage were very similar except for 2 of the amendments where they differed. They each gave reasoning on why they advocated one or the other position for the conservative or more strict constitutional reasoning. It helped me to understand them and make my decision.

[Professional Engineer]

Prop 4 should be a yes.

A big fat HELL NO.

I was at Tech when it became a "research" school. The faculty became, and continues to be, indifferent to the students. You know them little people the damn school was created to serve.

[BuckeyeTexan]

Thanks very much for posting that information. The more info we have to consider the better our choices become. :)

[BuckeyeTexan]

With 90% of precincts reporting at 9:30 PM local time, the results are as follows for the Texas constitutional amendment proposals.

Prop 1: Passed
Prop 2: Passed
Prop 3: Passed
Prop 4: Passed
Prop 5: Passed
Prop 6: Passed
Prop 7: Passed
Prop 8: Passed
Prop 9: Passed
Prop 10: Passed
Prop 11: Passed

[BuckeyeTexan]

Crud! I left out the important fact that these numbers are from Tarrant County.

[BuckeyeTexan]

Those numbers reflect the statewide results also. All of the proposals will pass.

[bgill]

Sadly, I knew everything would pass. What looked good at first told a different tale once you actually read the bills in full. But nooooo, idiots can’t be bothered, or can’t read English or spanish (last I heard, you had to learn English for citizenship, not that that citizenship matters either). If we can’t save ourselves at the local level, we might as well hand everything over to Dear Leader and be done with it now.

[Dawgreg]

Yee Haw........:)

[al_c]

Goodness! Didn’t the voters study up on these?! My guess is “no.”

[SwinneySwitch]

“We have people who were born here, who can’t read English.” ~ per DOJ lawyer

[SwinneySwitch]

All the bonds passed in the last bond election too. It’s like pissin’ into the friggin’ wind!

[BuckeyeTexan]

It sure does seem like the average voter didn’t make any effort to review the actual amendments to inform themselves about that which they voted. It’s frustrating.

I should have posted this weeks ago and attempted to get the word out, but didn’t. I am guilty of being a slacker too, I guess.

The wording on the ballots doesn’t make it easy to understand what the amendments are really about. I think most assumed that a Republican-controlled state legislature wouldn’t propose amendments that weren’t good for Texas. What a mistake that philosophy is.