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TALES...LEGISLATIVE ROUNDUP - Page 13

© Coy Holley

The Austin school district has spent millions of dollars getting rid of mold in the past year. Trustees are planning to set aside as much as $7 million to deal with similar problems in the next school year. "We've got all these problems . . . and this is just Austin," Naishtat said. "We need our kids to be healthy. . . . The votes are there in committee, and (Bivins) is sitting on it." Other lawmakers expressed similar frustrations during the scramble Friday.

Bivins refused to consider Rep. Sylvester Turner's proposal for a one-year delay on the use of a test to determine whether third-grade students can advance to the next grade in 2002-03. The House approved the proposal Tuesday, but Bivins refused to let his committee consider it Friday. Turner, a Houston Democrat, is looking for another way to get the bill passed. The rush to meet Friday's midnight deadline to get bills out of Senate committees has become a legislative tradition. But House members groused that it was worse this year because the Senate moved its midnight deadline from Sunday to Friday so senators wouldn't have to work on Mother's Day. "That's fine for Mom," said Rep. Glen Maxey, D-Austin. "It didn't do much for us."

Sen. Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria, said House members knew the rules. "That turnip truck out there must be real big," Armbrister said. The House gaveled through hundreds of bills until almost 3 a.m. Friday, then returned at 10 a.m. In turn, the Senate worked into the night Friday trying to decipher the avalanche of House bills coming its way. Legislative leaders don't like late night sessions because members can get mischievous and sometimes nasty.

Hard feelings started in the wee hours in the House when Republicans killed a zoning bill for charter schools by Dallas Democrat Dale Tillery. There were tit-for-tat attempts the rest of the early morning. By 2:20 a.m. Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth, R-Burleson, offered an olive branch by suggesting the House reconsider Tillery's bill. Still angry, Tillery refused. By the end of the marathon session, however, some members threw their arms over each other's shoulders and swayed in line, singing "Kumbaya."...

GSC COULD BE SINGING "SUNRISE, SUNSET": Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, is leading a charge to carve up the General Services Commission into three parts because of what he calls 20 years of "malfeasance, misfeasance, negligence, cost overruns" and other problems. The biggest millstone around the commission's neck is the Robert Johnson State Office Building on 15th Street, which was completed last year, two years late and $25 million over budget. "The status quo is no longer good enough," Wolens snapped in an interview.

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