County Commissioner Dianne Edmondson
It certainly has been a very interesting legislative season, as the Governor called a special session immediately after the regular session specifically to provide us with property tax relief. That first special session wrapped up last month, and the legislature certainly delivered on that issue! Here in Robson Ranch, where many of us are over 65, we will get an extra $10,000 homestead exemption on top of the $100,000 appropriated for younger homeowners! These two sessions have been labeled by many as the “most conservative” Texas sessions ever.
However, we voters now must ratify the appropriate Constitutional amendment before this property tax savings will go into effect. That election is coming up on Tuesday, Nov. 7, and here at the Ranch, we will be voting in the library, which will be closed in order to accommodate those who wish to vote. Early voting is from Oct. 23 through Nov. 3. Oct. 27 is the last day to request a mail-in ballot.
There are a total of 14 amendments on the ballot dealing with everything from farmers’ rights to saving Texas parks and our property tax relief. Two of the amendments are local to specific counties (not Denton County) but must be approved by statewide voters to take effect. Our State Representative Dr. Lynn Stucky has compiled the complete list, as well as more information on these amendments, here: www.lynnstucky.com/constitution.
But wait—there’s more! Yet another special session is expected to be called in October to deal with education issues and teachers’ pay.
Our county has five State Representatives, all from the same “conservative” political party. All are considered to be conservatives, and one, who represents another part of Denton County, shared with me the following observation:
“The House took over 2,000 record votes. The votes establish that all Denton County State Representatives vote incredibly similarly. Most bills and votes are non-partisan, as the bills are neither conservative nor liberal. Interestingly, the Democrats vote with the Republicans about 70 percent of the time. As to the Denton County Representatives, we all agree 80 to 85 percent of the time. We are all consistently within four percentage points of each other. When there is a difference, many times the difference is on a technical matter or the funding mechanism. However, it seems that all the attention is given to three or four high-profile votes. From my observation, those three to four high-profile votes do not accurately indicate whether one is conservative or not. All five of us are conservative. We have a few policy differences, but gather any five conservatives, and there will be policy differences. That’s okay. The other 90 to 95 percent of the time, we are united, as we are all five Republicans. For instance, there were 13 bills that passed both the House and the Senate that advanced the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) legislative priorities. Thirteen bills is the most bills ever passed that advanced RPT legislative priorities. All five of the Denton County State Representatives voted for all 13 bills. Those bills included banning pornography in school libraries, prohibiting sexually oriented performances in the presence of minors, banning gender transitioning drugs and surgeries to children, increased the penalty for voter fraud to a felony, allowing the public inspection of ballots after 60 days of an election, designating cartels as terrorist organizations, creating an interstate compact for border security, providing for armed guards at schools, and prohibiting governmental entities, including schools, from enforcing mask mandates. Importantly, we work well together, and together we were able to accomplish many things for Denton County and the State of Texas. I look forward to working together during the upcoming special session.”
No one running for office in a district, including Robson Ranch, will fail to label himself/herself as a conservative.
May I suggest that we not use the word “conservative” lightly? And let’s define what it means to us when we do so. Perhaps we should spend more time thanking our Representatives for their conservative votes and less time trying to find reasons to criticize them.