Nearly 180 years after Mexican soldiers surrounded the Alamo, state Sen. Donna Campbell worries another invading foreign force may be closing in on the historic outpost.
The tea party darling has filed a bill prohibiting Texas from allowing the Alamo to fall under foreign control. It's administered by the state, which has no plans to cede it to another entity, foreign or otherwise.
The proposal comes, however, as the Alamo and San Antonio's four other colonial Spanish missions are seeking designation from the U.N. cultural agency as World Heritages Sites. Some of Campbell's colleagues worried her bill could send UNESCO the wrong message, and it was left pending in committee Tuesday.
Campbell said it wasn't about UNESCO but conceded that "anything that starts with the 'UN' gives me cause for concern." Those jitters apparently don't extend to words simply containing the letters 'un' though, since Campbell's hometown is New Braunfels.
Here's a look at other people and issues that had a tough — or better — week in the Legislature.
WHAT'S UP
Tax cut promises
Suddenly, $4 billion feels like peanuts. That's how much in property and business tax cuts Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Senate chief budget writer Jane Nelson first promised to include in their draft 2016-2017 state budget. But after House budget gurus suggested their chamber's version would outpace that, and Gov. Greg Abbott called for $4.5 billion in tax cuts, Patrick and Nelson dug deeper. A package of Senate bills introduced Tuesday includes $4.6 billion in "tax relief" — and there may be more where that came from.
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WHAT'S DOWN
Abbott's nominees for the University of Texas System Board of Regents
The governor re-nominated current Regent Steve Hicks, and picked Houston attorney David Beck and former federal education official Sara Martinez Tucker for the board that oversees the UT system's 15 campuses. But the Republican's choices faced pushback from members of his own party, who led five hours of tough questioning in the Senate Nominations Committee on Thursday. Some Republican senators especially demanded answers on how the trio reacted to recent investigations into university admission policies. After all that, the committee left the nominations pending. All could still be forgiven if members approve Abbott's choices and pass them along to the full Senate during their next meeting, but it's yet to be scheduled.
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WHAT'S IN-BETWEEN
The House daily prayer
Back-to-back prayers to start daily House sessions managed to tweak believers on both sides of the aisle. At the invitation of Lufkin Republican Rep. Trent Ashby, Lufkin Pastor John Greene led the chamber's blessing Tuesday and raised some Democratic eyebrows by asking that lawmakers have "the resolve to withstand the onslaught of moral evil and the overreach of federal judges who ignore the will of the people of our great state." But a day later, Austin Democratic Rep. Elliott Naishtat introduced for the House prayer Rabbi Kerry Baker, who the previous week wed an Austin lesbian couple in defiance of Texas' voter-approved gay marriage ban. Baker told lawmakers, "It's not enough to do what is good for the majority, but to do what is good for all of us." That, too, felt overtly political to some.
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