My immediate guess is that the Texas Republicans are building up a distraction so the Corporate-Owned Media (COM, my new term because Eric Alterman a NeoLiberal racist and establishmentarian can kiss my Leftist ass!) will not see how the Lege will piss away the budget surplus. With the bingo-card choices via their bullshit Culture Wars, I’m going with their usual…subsidizing billionaires/megacorporations in order to “create” shit-wage jerbs! When in reality, it’s destroying thousands of better-paying jerbs from other states, preferably Yankee ones and sticking Texans with the bill. Past examples, the PBA (Pro Bowlers Association), Toyota and Caterpillar. Man, Dallas, what a hub of high culture The City of Hate is; it’s why many former Toyota employees went back to Cali as soon as their obligations on relocation were finished.
Anyhow, the plan is to widen punishing entities with consciences from landing state contracts; in short, if the contractor/whatever divested from fossil fuels, firearms or decided Israel shouldn’t continue drifting into an apartheid state…well, that’s violating those three’s “Freedom of Speech,” as how the Republicans see it. I love how there’s a loophole allowed for the accused to prove any withdrawals were based upon poor profits. Given how the US is a major exporter of oil now (thanks Obama) and Latin America’s best source for guns, there should be a high hurdle for the GOPs’ buddies to clear. The immediate hope we have for Israel to turn it around and rejoin the liberal democracies of the EU (Amerika too) is to have Netanyahu arrested and put in prison. He’s corrupt and dirty; the majority of Israel deserves a better prime minister. So, I’m guessing building for-profit prisons and settlements in the occupied territories gets a better return than what my 401K is pulling.
You can read more about it here. All part of why the Republicans will fight to the end to prevent Texas from a professional full-time lege like California, New York and Illinois. It’s going so great having a legislature composed of mainly rich assholes who can afford the staggering cost of campaigning given the paltry compensation in return.