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Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC today announced that State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) is the recipient of TLR’s Civil Justice Leadership Award for his support in leading the fight to improve medical malpractice and civil justice laws in Texas.

“Rep King’s strong commitment to lawsuit reform in Texas has helped boost our state’s economy and ensure that doctors are not forced to flee the state because of unreasonable medical liability costs,” said TLR PAC Chairman, Richard J. Trabulsi, Jr.. “With Rep. King’s critical support, we have been able to pass lawsuit reforms that are restoring fairness, balance and predictability to the Texas civil justice system.”

“Passage of important legislation to reform our civil justice system, beginning in 2003, would not have been possible without the vigorous backing of Representative King, who has served on the House Civil Practices Committee in the last three legislative sessions,” Trabulsi said.

TLR’s Civil Justice Leadership Award is presented to lawmakers who courageously stand up to personal injury trial lawyers and support a fair, honest and balanced civil justice system in Texas.

Representative King serves in the Texas House representing District 61which includes Parker and Wise counties. He serves as Chairman of the Regulated Industries Committee and co-chairs the Electric Utility Restructuring Legislative Oversight Committee. King serves on the Civil Practices and Redistricting committees. Additionally, he sits as a member of the joint House and Senate Committee on the Power of Eminent Domain.

TLR PAC is the political arm of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the state’s largest civil justice reform organization. TLR is a bipartisan, volunteer-led coalition with more than 16,000 supporters residing in 818 Texas communities and representing 1,266 different businesses, professions and trades. For more information about TLR visit www.tortreform.com.

Contact Information:
(956)821-7925

Weatherford – The Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) is proud to announce their endorsement of State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford). YCT gathered members from across the state to join King in a block walking day and to officially announce his endorsement in the March 4th Republican Primary.

“Phil King is a true conservative leader in the Texas House. He represents the people of Parker and Wise counties with honor and distinction, and we are glad to endorse his candidacy,” explained Laura Elizabeth Morales, Director of Public Relations for the Young Conservatives of Texas. “The energy and passion that he has for working for Texas and his deeply held conservative principles make him a truly outstanding leader.”

The Young Conservatives of Texas commend Representative King’s battle against government spending with innovative thinking such as abolishing the school property tax system and moving to a state-wide consumption tax.

The Young Conservatives of Texas is a non-partisan, grassroots, conservative youth organization that has been fighting for conservative values for more than a quarter century in the Lone Star State. YCT has chapters at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas Tech University, Texas A&M University, West Texas A&M University and the University of North Texas.

Contact Information:
(817) 596-8100

(Austin) State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) this week was endorsed by the Texas State Rifle Association (TSRA) in his race for re-election to House District 61. King is the only candidate in the District 61 Republican Primary to have received an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association.

Alice Tripp, Legislative Director of TSRA stated, “Phil King’s voting record and conti nued support for 2nd Amendment rights and the rights of Texas hunters is deeply appreciated.”

The Texas State Rifle Association is the affiliate state organization of the National Rifle Association and gives ratings and endorsements for candidates based on their voting records for 2nd Amendment rights.

Contact Information:
(817)596-8100

Weatherford – State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) expressed his appreciation today for the overwhelming grassroots financial support demonstrated in campaign finance reports filed today with the Texas Ethics Commission. King reported more than 180 donations from grassroots supporters in Parker and Wise counties totaling $33,295.

King said, “As we walked door to door on Saturday, I was encouraged by the positive response I received on the front porches across Weatherford. Today, I am humbled and overwhelmed by the fact that so many of my local supporters believe in me enough to make a personal contribution to our campaign. I will continue to work hard and personally ask my fellow citizens for another opportunity to work for them in Austin.”

Representative King faces a primary opponent in the March 4th Republican primary. Phil and his wife, Terry, have six children and reside in Weatherford.

Contact Information:
(817)596-8100

State Representative Phil King stands up for property owners in Parker and Wise counties on World Energy Television. In this informative panel discussion with Phil King and industry leaders, learn about your property rights along with other issues related to gas production in the Barnett Shale.

Click here to watch this video online.

Contact Information:
(817) 596-8100

Weatherford – State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford), Co-Chairman of the Huckabee Presidential Campaign in Texas, made the following statement tonight:

“I joined Mike Huckabee’s campaign because I was confident in his character and integrity, his strength of conviction on the core conservative issues of faith and family, and his ability to relate to ordinary people. Governor Huckabee’s victory in Iowa tonight is a huge breakthrough win and confirms my belief that he will earn our party nomination and win the presidency.”

Contact Information:
Peggy Venable, 512-476-5905

State Representative Phil King of Weatherford wants to shift the burden of school funding from the local property tax to the state. The concept is a good one and could save Texas homesteads, according to Americans for Prosperity state director Peggy Venable, as property taxes are an impediment to Texans enjoying the American dream of home ownership.

The need for property tax reform is great. Texas has the 13th highest property taxes in the country and Texans rank 45th in the country in home ownership. Even many retired citizens whose taxes are frozen and own their homes are paying property tax bills equivalent to what their mortgage payments were.

“Our property tax system is rife with inequities,” said Venable. “It is often arbitrary and is taxing unrealized value. A consumption tax is more simple, fair and transparent.”

Shifting education funding from the local property tax to a state consumption tax would also keep school funding equity issues out of the courts.

Even before the current sub prime market problems, Texas foreclosure rates were fourth highest in the country per capita, with 1 in every 549 households in the process of foreclosure in January 2006.

The constitutional amendment passed in 1997 to place a 10% appraisal cap on homesteads has been woefully inadequate in keeping property tax increases in check. Appraisals continue to increase dramatically across the state and tax bills have grown 45% in five years. While political subdivisions have gamed the system, medium home prices grew 31% during that 5 year period and inflation grew only 14.8%.

Using constitutionally dedicating state budget surpluses — beyond the increase in population and inflation – to lowering property taxes would help address escalating property tax bills.

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Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org

Weatherford Democrat

Galen Scott

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott lavished State Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) with praise at a fundraiser in Weatherford Tuesday.

Abbott, famous for a successful U.S. Supreme Court bid to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments at the state capitol, said King’s leadership has been valuable to decision makers in Austin.

“I can assure you that we definitely need Phil King back in Austin, Texas,” Abbott said in front of a standing-room-only crowd at the Doss Heritage and Culture Center.

King has worked closely with Abbott’s office on a host of legal and constitutional issues associated with new voter security legislation.

As illegal immigration debates in Congress heated up this summer, King pushed bills in the Texas Legislature that would require proof of citizenship and photo identification before a person is allowed to register to vote.

King’s initiative failed to find enough support in the Legislature after Democrats voiced opposition, but some version of the proposal is expected to surface again.

“It is a very personal issue to me, and I can tell you, to my constituents,” King said.

Following a brief speech, Abbott said most of the illegal voting prosecutions his office has dealt with have been referred by either the Secretary of State’s office or local prosecutors.

He said cases where people are using the identity of dead people, and citizens are registering illegal immigrants and then voting in their place, have originated around the state.

When asked whether proof-of-citizenship or photo-ID voting requirements like King’s previous proposals are likely to become law, Abbott said the issue is more political than legal.

“I think that when people recognize that it is a real issue across the state, the people who stand to lose are the people across the state whose vote is being undermined by illegal votes that are being cast,” he said. “It impacts people across both parties, and across all demographic groups. As a result, hopefully it’s the kind of thing everyone across the state can support.”

King drew Republican opposition to his legislative seat for the first time ever Monday when Weatherford Mayor Joe Tison announced his candidacy.

Capitol Inside

Mike Hailey

A state House race that’s only four days old has already become a testing ground for a proposal that would dramatically change the way the public education is funded in Texas.

State Rep. Phil King of Weatherford sparked a debate that promises to produce fireworks all across Texas when he revealed that he and about 30 other state legislators had been working on a plan to replace property taxes with consumption taxes as the chief source of public school funding.

King dropped the bombshell at a fundraiser in Decatur a few days before Weatherford Mayor Joe Tison announced this week as a Republican primary candidate for the House District 61 seat that the incumbent is seeking again next year. The surprising admission on a new push to overhaul the state’s school financing system has ignited a war of words in the Tison-King race on a topic that has the potential to become a top-priority issue in all of the contested legislative contests across Texas in 2008.

Tison, a former school superintendent and high school principal, declared Thursday that a consumption tax that King favors would hit middle-class families and small business hardest. Tison asserted that property tax savings under the plan that King had floated would be more than offset by higher costs for food, drugs, medical treatment, car repairs, utility bills and other items that are currently exempt from state and local sales taxes.

Tison, who was recruited for the House race by the Texas Parent PAC and other education advocates, called the proposed school tax shift “another example of how politicians initiate something without asking their local constituents what effect it has on their schools, their government, or their living standards.” Tison challenged King to name other members of the group that’s been discussing the possibility of converting to consumption taxes for public school funding

But King upped the ante instead of backing off by proposing a constitutional amendment designed to abolish the school maintenance and operations portion of taxes that are paid on property and replenish lost revenues with a state consumption tax.

King isn’t the first state lawmaker to advocate a shift to consumption taxes as the primary funding source for public education. Republican Talmadge Heflin, who chaired the Appropriations Committee before losing his re-election bid in 2004, was a longtime proponent of higher consumption taxes for school funding in exchange for significant reductions in taxes on property. Conservative organizations such as the Texas Public Policy Foundation have argued in favor of consumption taxes as an alternative to levies on property to finance public schools in Texas.

Conservatives have made the same basic case for consumption taxes at the national level as a way to reduce or to even put an end to the federal government’s reliance on income taxes. But the push for such as shift in Austin has stalled in times past after opponents have branded consumption taxes as regressive and argued that exemptions on food and medicine would have to be eliminated before a sufficient amount of revenue could be generated. Despite past resistance, conservatives such as Grover Norquist of the Americans for Tax Reform at the national level and Michael Quinn Sullivan of the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility here in the state have stepped up their efforts as taxes on income and property seem to become more unpopular with many of the people who pay them each year.

But the meetings that King referred to at the fundraiser are the first sign of a concerted effort among lawmakers being under way at the Capitol on a major school finance proposal since the Legislature approved a public education funding plan that revolved on a new state business tax in a special session in early 2006.

Sullivan praised King for “jump-starting” the discussion about a shift from property to consumption taxes to fund Texas schools. “Texans know the time is long overdue to rip the poisonous weed of property taxes out of the state’s economic garden,” Sullivan said.

But King’s critics contend that a major expansion of the sales tax base – even without exemptions on food and medicine – would not bring in enough additional revenue to make up for the funds that would be lost if M&O taxes were eliminated. The state raised more than $17 billion for school maintenance and operations from property taxes in 2005. Property taxes accounted for about 44 percent of the total state and local tax bite in Texas that year while 30 percent came from sales taxes. While conservatives contend that consumption taxes are a funding source that’s more stable, transparent and fair, some Democrats see the push to increase them as a step in the direction of a school vouchers plan.

With Tison expecting some degree of crossover support from Democrats and independent voters in the GOP primary election next year, King might see the tax shift plan as an issue to help energize the support he has among more conservative Republican voters in his bid for a sixth term.

While King and Tison battle for the GOP nomination in HD 61, Democrat Chuck Randolph of Decatur is considering a campaign for the seat as well. No other Democrats are in the running so far in the race for King’s seat in a district that covers Parker Wise counties west of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Weatherford Democrat

Galen Scott

State Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) wants a constitutional ban on the use of property taxes to fund public schools in Texas.

“I am absolutely convinced that my constituents, and frankly, the voters across Texas would rather pay a sales tax when they purchase something than a property tax for the rest of their life,” King said speaking by phone Wednesday.

King actually let the cat out of the bag at a fundraiser in Weatherford Tuesday. He told supporters a special House committee has been formed and charged with studying how to abolish the use of property taxes to fund public schools.

King said he was asked to chair the committee, but because he drew an opponent in the March primary election, may simply serve as a member instead.

The committee will probably consist of between nine and 15 representatives, to be named by House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) in January, according to King.

In addition to targeting current sales tax exemptions, King said the committee will be looking at the possibility of taxing electronic transactions.

“But the heart of it is going to be a retail sales tax,” King said.

The plan only applies to the maintenance and operation side of public school tax rates, which King said would bring about an average 56.1 percent reduction in everyone’s property tax bill in the state of Texas.

In addition to killing the Robin Hood debate, King said sales tax could alleviate problems in the housing market by decreasing mortgage payments. He noted the state budget is funded by sales tax, and said the move would represent a dependable source of funding for public schools.

“School property taxes might have worked 40 or 50 years ago, but it doesn’t work today and it’s never going to work again,” he said.

Weatherford Mayor Joe Tison, King’s opponent in the Republican primary election, was interested in hearing more specifics about King’s plan Wednesday.

“Who is he going to tax?” Tison asked. “Is it going to include doctors, realtors, restaurants? Is it going to be an assault on small business and middle class families?”

Tison said sales tax is known as a regressive tax.

“If you’re going to put the sales tax on goods and services, and replace the property tax with that, well, we’re not in the best of economies right now, and if our economy goes south, then there is going to be a decrease in spending and ultimately less revenue coming to public schools,” Tison added.

Tison also expressed concerns about what affect the change might have on things like medical care, housing, food and essential services.

King’s answer to critics concerned a sales tax would put a disproportionate burden on lower income families involves a rebate.

“The way you avoid a negative impact on the poor, is that at the end of the year, you make sure sales tax is rebated to them based on what the poverty level is for that year,” he said.

Once the committee members are announced, King said the group will begin holding a series of hearings across the state.

In order to abolish property-tax funded schools in Texas, the state constitution would have to be amended, a move which requires the support of two-thirds of the Legislature just to get on the ballot.

King said he expects vehement opposition from Democratic members of the Legislature, but is convinced, “by the time we get into the legislative session, that Republican House members and members of the Senate all across the state of Texas are going to want to do this.”

After testing the water at every service club and chamber of commerce in Parker and Wise Counties last summer, King said he finally decided sales taxes are the way to go.

“It’s a give me liberty or give me death kind of thing,” he said. “The citizens of the state of Texas are saying, ‘give me sales tax instead of property tax.’”