Landowner Compensation Becomes Law
Friday, June 24th 2011
Landowner Compensation Becomes Law--A Legislative Miracle?
Setting the stage
This legislative session, there were many high profile and contentious bills. The consensus was that very little would be considered other that the Governor’s emergency items, the budget (still being decided in the special session), and redistricting.
Hope for a miracle
The definition of a miracle is certainly in the “eye of the beholder”, but some (especially here on staff) would probably say that passing HB 3422 (to allow compensation for landowners from sheriffs’ seizure funds for bailout damages) would be nothing short of a minor legislative miracle this session.
For starters, any time somebody starts messing with designated funds from public agencies, people start getting a little protective. We ran into this challenge last session when we had no choice but to participate in getting a weak bill passed that allowed landowners to be compensated for bail-out damages, but only under limited circumstances.
Improving a weak law
Under the bill we helped pass last session, a landowner could only be compensated for damages from a bail-out if the abandoned vehicle could be sold at auction--and only up to the amount that particular vehicle brought at the sale. We thought that allowing any kind of compensation was a step in the right direction, but that it was not fair or adequate to tie the level of compensation to the value of the vehicle involved in a specific occurrence. What if the vehicle had no value? What if the vehicle was stolen? What if the vehicle was rented? Under any of these scenarios, the landowner could receive absolutely nothing!
Other problems with last session’s bill were that a landowner could only be compensated up to his/her insurance deductible and only up to $1,000 if more than one property suffered damages in the incident. Both provisions were obviously unacceptable. Why should the landowner be required to file a claim in the first place—thereby raising his/her premium? And why should there be a limit placed on multi-property damages per incident—aren’t damages “damages” , regardless of whether or not more than one property suffered greater losses?
Those were the political challenges we sought to overcome and the weaknesses in the legislation we sought to remedy this session.
Overcoming obstacles
Understandably and thankfully, Sen. Hinojosa, who sits on the Finance Committee, gave us the heads-up at the end of January that he had discovered that his plate was too full to carry more than our liability protection bill (which he did successfully, as reported earlier). That news threw us into a great quandary, however. Should we find another Senate sponsor, with only two days before the filing deadline, or just hope that our House author, JM Lozano (who also successfully carried our liability protection bill), could save the day?
First step toward success
Well, happily, the latter happened, with Rep. Lozano’s getting us a hearing in the House. With one day’s notice, Butch Thompson of the King Ranch and our own Susan and Lavoyger Durham beat a path to Austin to bring the legislature a dose of reality.
At the House hearing, after Rep. Lozano made an eloquent appeal to the committee, both Butch and Susan graphically described the every-day situations that our members face in the world of “border wars”. Apparently they made a good case! The committee voted our bill out immediately and placed it on the “Local and Consent” calendar, which greatly speeds up the process.
Time is still the enemy
Despite our success in the House, time was running out for us. Legislative rules dictate the latest date that House bills can be heard in a Senate committee before the end of the session. We were at the deadline. Remarkably, however, Sen. Hinojosa’s office informed us on a Thursday that the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee was going to have a meeting on the following Saturday—the last possible day our bill could be heard. Apparently, we were to be the last bill of the session heard in the Senate!
Taking advantage of an opportunity
With our bill on life support, but with a chance in the Senate, we decided to try to bring in the biggest guns possible. Sure enough, T. Michael O’Connor, sheriff of Victoria County, and Norman Garza, with the Farm Bureau, more than rose to the occasion! After their remarkable testimony, the Senate committee also felt compelled to put our bill on the fast track to passage.
Unbelievably, we made it under the wire!
Despite all the hurdles, most, but not all of which have been described here, we passed HB 3422! Like all of our victories, it was the result of our high-profile, grass-roots membership. There is strength in numbers. Thanks to you, STPRA has become, and will continue to be, a leading voice for the future of our region!
The challenges beyond
We have learned the hard way that just because a bill becomes law does not mean that it will be adequately implemented. We are already discussing with T.Michael how the word can be spread to sheriffs, whom can now legally and fairly compensate landowners for damages, if they so choose.
Butch Thompson, King Ranch; Lavoyger Durham, STPRA Board Member; Susan Durham, STPRA Executive Director;
J.M. Lozano, State Rep.; Robert Howard, STPRA Consultant