Legislative Issues
Isett was initially elected in House District 84 in 1996 to succeed Robert L. Duncan of Lubbock, who was elected to the Texas State Senate. Isett defeated the Democrat Don Richards in what has become a strongly Republican district. At the time, the conservative Isett was the only practicing tax accountant in the Texas House. He has placed lower taxes, reduced government, and greater personal freedom and responsibility at the core of his stated legislative goals. He has been foremost among lawmakers opposed to cities maintaining cameras at traffic lights as a means to catch traffic violations. As a freshman, his colleagues elected him to serve on the Policy Committee of the House Republican Caucus.
Isett serves on the House Appropriations Committee and chairs Budget Oversight for the Insurance Committee, headed by his Republican colleague John T. Smithee of Amarillo. He was also named to the Select Committee on School Finance and served as the chairman of the subcommittee on school finance cost adjustment. He has been president of the bipartisan Texas Conservative Coalition. Legislative colleagues elected him to the Steering Committee for the House Research Organization. He was selected in 2007 by the Speaker of the House, Tom Craddick of Midland to serve on the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, a panel which reviews state agencies over a 12-year period and recommends the elimination of useless bureaucracies. He co-chairs the Sportsman Caucus and is a board member of the Tower Institute, and a member of the Lubbock Lions Club.
Isett has successfully championed bills such as HB 1516 which increased efficiency and improved the management of information technology in state government. This legislation was the first of its kind in the nation. Isett received the "Friend of the Taxpayer" Award from the Citizens for a Sound Economy and the "Champion of Free Enterprise" Award by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Early in 2007, Isett again introduced what he calls his "Taxpayer Protection Act." It would provide for a recall election if local property taxes increase by more than 5 percent a year, similar to a new limit proposed by the Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform and endorsed by Governor Rick Perry. The measure failed to win passage in the regular legislative session.
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