Politics

AUSTIN (AP) ― Staring at a rough Republican primary battle ahead, Gov. Rick Perry declared success Tuesday in the just-completed Texas legislative session, trumpeting victories like small-business tax cuts and unspent savings money. But primary voters may see defeat in the failure to pass anti-abortion measures he vocally backed.

The specter of a special session to keep the Texas Department of Transportation and other major agencies operating could give power to GOP rival Kay Bailey Hutchison, the senator eager to point out what she sees as his failure to lead.

"We'll find a solution to keeping government going," Perry said, pledging to look at all options.

Hutchison's campaign was careful to praise legislators' work while criticizing Perry as the five-month Legislature came to a close.

Spokesman Hans Klingler said the session was "unfortunately" slowed by "the need to clean up after a governor who refused to address systemic and dangerous problems in his own state agencies."

The governor, in a post-session news conference, praised lawmakers for approving a tax cut for some 40,000 small businesses by raising the revenue exemption from $300,000 to $1 million for the state's relatively new business tax, a move he sought. He also praised the state's balanced budget and an estimated $9.1 billion in the Rainy Day Fund for the end of the coming two-year spending cycle.

His Texas Enterprise Fund and Emerging Technology Fund, two accounts Perry uses to bring jobs to the state, got restocked with money.

Perry successfully opposed a local-option gas fuel tax proposal that would have let major metro areas impose taxes to build roads. Perry said it reeked of too much taxation statewide.

Perry won the battle with lawmakers to reject $555 million in federal economic stimulus money for the unemployment fund. In a highly publicized stand against Washington, Perry said the money would force an expansion of Texas' unemployment system and require the state to pay the long-lasting tab later on.

But Perry missed his goals on issues dear to GOP primary voters' hearts: a Republican-pushed attempt to require Texas voters to show more identification and on anti-abortion activists' efforts to establish "Choose Life" license plates and require women having an abortion to view a fetus sonogram.

"Those were issues that I talked about in my State of the State address," he said of the anti-abortion measures. "They were obviously important to Texans, they were important to me. I'm looking forward to the legislative session where I get everything I ask for. This one was close."

Rep. Larry Phillips, a Sherman Republican who pushed for the "Choose Life" plates, said proponents of the measure know that it wasn't Perry's fault it didn't pass and wouldn't hold it against him in the primary. The proposal was in the major transportation department bill that failed.

"It wasn't because of him it didn't pass," Phillips said. "Those that are supporters of it know that he supported it."

In the Senate, two of Perry's appointees to state posts were blocked: Don McLeroy for chairman of the State Board of Education and Shanda Perkins for the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. Another, Will Harrell as Texas Youth Commission ombudsman, was running into opposition and resigned from the post before a vote.

Democratic leaders blamed Perry and other top Republicans for what they called a failed session.

"It would be difficult to be more disappointed in the results of this 'do nothing' legislative session," Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio and Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco said in a joint statement.

They said lawmakers and Perry should have reformed homeowners insurance, expanded access to the Children's Health Insurance Program and reined in college tuition costs.

Perry said he didn't want to expand CHIP to higher-income families when all the children from working poor families currently eligible for the health care program aren't enrolled.

As for college costs, he pointed to increases in the TEXAS Grant scholarship program; his early proposal to freeze tuition rates for four years for incoming freshmen didn't pass.

Perry also took pride in the Legislature's vote to modify the state's top 10 percent automatic college admissions law, something he supported. He said it gives the University of Texas at Austin more discretion in selecting the students it admits.

Emergency legislative items Perry declared this session were addressed, including windstorm insurance, Hurricane Ike recovery and reform in state schools for the mentally disabled.

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