AUSTIN — Procedural deadlines for legislation began to hit last week, ending the forward progress and the hopes of more than half of the 6,000-or-so House bills and Senate bills filed by Texas lawmakers since November 2012. And while the main state budget bill for fiscal years 2014-2015 stayed apparently motionless in a conference committee of five Senate members and five House members, a number of bills survived votes and passed through their respective originating chambers. For example, t ...

AUSTIN — As Texas roadways become increasingly crowded, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is asking drivers to Share the Road and Look Twice during National Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. The campaign is aimed at car and truck drivers who often report a lack of visibility as the reason for crashes and near-misses involving motorcyclists. Safety should be everyone’s primary concern when sharing the road with other drivers,” said Phil Wilson, TxDOT executive director.

AUSTIN — May 27 will be the last day of the 140-day regular session of the 83rd Texas Legislature. There is a mountain of work for lawmakers to pack into the remaining few days. First among lawmakers’ duties is to pass a budget for fiscal years 2014 and 2015. The task of reconciling two versions of the budget is now in the hands of a 10-member House-Senate conference committee.

AUSTIN — Legislation to amend the state elections law as to how much a person may assist others in voting was passed by the House on April 26. Committee Substitute House Bill 148, authored by Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Mesquite, received a final vote of 93-48, but not before lengthy and contentious debate on the House floor a day earlier. Opponents of the bill, who were rebuffed in multiple attempts to amend the bill, warned that its passage likely would result in a federal court challenge unde ...

AUSTIN — An explosion on April 17 at a fertilizer storage and distribution company in the city of West left at least 14 people dead and an estimated 200 injured. Counted among the dead were 10 volunteer firefighters who were called to the scene to extinguish a fire discovered there. As they fought the fire, an explosion powerful enough to knock down a nearby school and an apartment complex occurred at 7:50 p.m.

AUSTIN — Two Senate bills making the award of certain financial benefits for certain individuals contingent on drug testing were passed by the Senate last week and have now moved to the House for consideration. SB 11 by Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chair Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, would require applicants for benefits under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to submit to a screening for controlled substance use.

AUSTIN — On April 5, the Texas House of Representatives approved Committee Substitute Senate Bill 1, a proposed state budget of $194 billion for fiscal years 2014 and 2015. The Senate earlier approved a $195.5 billion budget, so the next step is for differences in the two budgets to be worked out in a House-Senate conference committee.

AUSTIN — House Bill 5, legislation proposing to change public school testing requirements, and House Bill 4, proposing to fund water infrastructure, drew spotlights at the state Capitol last week. On March 27, the 150-member Texas House debated and approved the bills, which now move on to the Senate for consideration.

AUSTIN — March 18 was day 70, midpoint of the 140-day regular session of the 83rd Texas Legislature. On March 22, the Senate approved its version of the state budget, a plan to spend $95 billion in general state revenue in 2014 and 2015. The Senate version would spend $7 billion in general revenue more than the current 2012-2013 budget.

AUSTIN — Continuing to inch closer to the Legislature’s most important act — the making of a state budget for the next fiscal biennium — the Senate Finance Committee approved CSSB 1 on March 13. Some 865 pages in length, the budget tops out at $195 billion, the sum of $94 billion in general appropriations plus federal and dedicated funds.

AUSTIN — Movement toward passing a state budget for the 2014-2015 fiscal biennium continued in committees of both chambers of the Texas Legislature last week. After two months of hearings, the Senate Finance Committee on March 7 approved workshop recommendations for a two-year budget of about $90 billion, paving the way to a final committee vote before moving to the full Senate for consideration. On March 8, the House Committee on Appropriations absorbed information on Medicaid expansion pu ...

Capital Farm Credit welcomes Jason Helfrich as vice president/ relationship manager. Helfrich offices out of the Fredericksburg Credit Office, serving the greater Hill Country area. Jason comes to Capital Farm Credit with nine years of commercial banking experience in which his primary focus was agricultural and real estate lending. He resides in Fredericksburg with his wife Jennifer and three boys, Joel, Jack and Jace.

AUSTIN — Friday, March 1, was the deadline for Congress and the White House to agree on how much to tax and how much to spend to avoid “sequestration” — automatic across-the-board cuts to federal programs in the current federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and beyond. No agreement came.

AUSTIN — Legislation proposing emergency supplemental appropriations to keep Medicaid funded for the rest of the year was approved by the Texas House on Feb. 21. House Bill 10 authored by Reps. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, and Helen Giddings, D-DeSoto, now moves to the state Senate for consideration. Medicaid serves the poor, the disabled, and older Texans.

AUSTIN — Attorney General Greg Abbott on Feb. 13 announced Texas had joined 10 other states in a legal challenge to a federal law, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The preamble to the 848-page law states its purpose: “To promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end ‘too big to fail,’ to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abu ...