Monday, August 24, 2009

Texas Constitutional Amendments

The Texas House Research Organization released their report on the amendments to the Texas Constitution that will be on the ballot in November this year.

I'm going to break down these amendments one at a time in future posts, but I want to go ahead and list the 11 propositions that Texans will have the ability to vote on in November.

Proposition 1: Allow local governments to finance the purchase of land to create buffer zones around military bases.

Proposition 2: Stipulate that appraisals of homesteads will be based on the current use of a residence homestead and not the potential value of the property if it is flipped into a commercial development.

Proposition 3: Allows the Comptroller to enforce uniform appraisal standards for property tax purposes.

Proposition 4: Establishes the National Research University Fund.

Proposition 5: Allow for the consolidation of appraisal review boards across counties.

Proposition 6: Renew the Veterans' Land Board bonding authority for home loans to veterans.

Proposition 7: Allow members of the Texas State Guard to hold civil office.

Proposition 8: Allows the state to contribute resources to build veterans hospitals.

Proposition 9: Establishes a constitutional right to access and use public beaches.

Proposition 10: Allows the elected board of directors for emergency service districts to serve 4-year terms instead of 2-year terms.

Proposition 11: Restricts the use of eminent domain by a government entity to one that is for public use.

4 comments:

Jack said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Previous comment deleted to keep this blog a spam-free zone.

Anonymous said...

It's mind boggling to me that we need/have Constitutional Amendments for programs to benefit specific universities (amendment 4). It may be a good cause, but why isnt this just a legislative appropriation?

Randy Samuelson said...

Prop 4 sets up a constitutional fund for recurring appropriations. I'll get into these deeper, but Prop 4 gives me heartburn for lots of reasons.