Time Running Out for Texas’ Windstorm Association Bill

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Time is running out on the Texas Legislature.

Several big issues — including restoring the state’s windstorm insurance fund — were in final negotiations as the last weekend of the 140-day session turned into a mad scramble of attempts to craft compromises.

The session ends Monday, meaning any bills that aren’t passed have to wait until lawmakers return to Austin in two years — with at least one big exception.

Monday is also the official start of hurricane season, and Republican Gov. Rick Perry has threatened to call the Legislature back into special session if they don’t find a way to replenish the Texas Windstorm Association, the state-backed insurer of last resort for residents of 14 coastal counties.

The fund was hit hard in 2008 with hurricanes Ike and Dolly. House and Senate lawmakers sounded optimistic Saturday they’ll be able to meet Perry’s demand.

“I think we’re really close,” said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio.

Even Perry sounded confident a deal will be reached.

“We still have 48 hours worth of opportunity to do good,” he said Saturday. “We’re still working, talking, and that’s good.”

While sessions typically become frenzied affairs in the final days, the maelstrom swirling around the chambers Saturday was unusual in that it followed a week of slowdowns in the House, where business ground to a halt as Democrats blocked a contentious Republican-backed voter ID plan.

Once that bill died, it left lawmakers just a few days to finish other work.

House and Senate lawmakers spent the first part of Saturday in a memorial service for Texas soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, then spent the afternoon assigning negotiators to work out deals on bills.

“You can watch sausage being made,” Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said.

Saturday wasn’t all about the mad scramble.

Perry allowed to become law a bill that requires children under age 8 to be secured in a booster seat when riding in a passenger vehicle. The current age limit is 4. Perry also signed into law a measure making it easier for children of transferring military members to enroll in new schools.

As of Saturday, the governor’s office said he had signed some 252 bills, allowed three to become law without his signature and vetoed one.

And House members gave final approval to a state settlement with the federal Department of Justice to improve medical care and living conditions at the state’s large institutions for the mentally disabled.

The settlement includes hiring more than 1,000 new care workers and improving investigations into abuse and neglect claims. Dozens of people have died under questionable circumstances and hundreds of employees have been disciplined for mistreating residents.

Associated Press writers Jay Root and Kelley Shannon contributed to this report.