Finally, that took forever

The Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling today finding the statewide property-tax cap unconstitutional.

The decision was reached 7-1 and they upheld district judge Dietz's ruling that this created a de facto statewide property tax, which the constitution forbids. The high court, however, did not agree with Dietz on the question of equity or on the total amount of money school receive.

In other words, once this is sorted out by the new June 1 deadline, schools will receive no new money and in all liklihood, poor Texans will pay more in taxes and rich Texans will pay less. That's what all the proposals before the Lege this previous session would have done when they addressed only this issue.

The ruling is simply meant to give local school districts more control over their tax rate.

This will be one of those times when we'll see what leadership means to the Republican-led Lege. Will it be do as little work as possible and only comply with the ruling, or will they go above an beyond to ensure that poor and working class Texans don't pay higher taxes while giving Texas schoolchildren the best possible education?

You know which one I think.