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September 22, 2009

Averitt gives locals insight into legislative process

By Bob Belcher The Corsicana Daily Sun Tue Sep 22, 2009, 08:43 PM CDT

Successes and drawbacks of this year’s legislative session in Austin were highlighted Tuesday as State Sen. Kip Averitt (R-Waco) held a Town Hall meeting at Navarro College.

Averitt, the District 22 state senator since 2002, also served almost 10 years as a state representative prior to his election to the state senate. He addressed a variety of topics during his stop in Corsicana — his eighth Town Hall meeting on a 10 day, 10 county tour through the district.

“I’ve learned something at every one of them,” Averitt said of his visits with constituents.

Averitt said the last-minute battle over the Voter ID bill in the Texas House this year was “frustrating,” citing the failure of dozens of pieces of legislation reaching a vote as a result.

“In the process of killing the (Voter ID) bill they killed a couple of hundred others ... it left us a little bit behind where we could have been.”

Averitt said the legislature has done a lot of things right for the citizens of Texas, among them a formulating a 50-year water plan for the state, although the plan still lacks necessary funding to help insure water needs for the future.

“Our population will double in the next 40 years, but we’ll still have the same amount of water,” he said, adding he plans to make fully funding the water plan a priority in the next legislative session.

Averitt said the state should change road and highway planning from a “top down to bottom up” process, having the planning for roads begin with local government and its wants and needs, rather than by bureaucrats not familiar with local infrastructure.

“There are opportunities to do things better in Texas than we do today,” he added.

Averitt also champions the idea of more funding and opportunities for career and technical education as an alternative to traditional college curriculum, saying “not everybody is going to go to college.”

Among challenges facing the legislature in 2011 — maintaining the state’s “Rainy Day Fund” in the light of declining sales tax revenues, redistricting, and the unknowns of the effect of health care legislation on the state’s budget.

He said the health care bill, as it is written today, could cost the state between $11 and $17 billion over the next four to five years.

“It could be severe and dramatic ... I have no idea,” he said.

Averitt represents Bosque, Coryell, Ellis, Falls, Hill, Hood, Johnson, McLennan, Navarro and Somervell Counties.

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