Dear Neighbors and Friends,

I have had the honor of serving you in the Texas Legislature during the current 80th Legislature. Despite some bitter political disagreements last years session was highly productive. The latest budget estimates indicate we will have a $15 billion dollar surplus which is a huge turn around from the 78th Legislature where we had a $10 billion dollar short fall. The National Conference of State Legislatures indicated at least 35 states had serious budget shortfalls for the coming year which we will not have. During the session we reduced school property taxes by over $14 billion dollars, passed the budget that has led to this $15 billion dollar surplus, increased the state share of support for public education, and took action that put more funds into rehabilitation of addicts and kept us from having to spend almost $2 billion dollars on new prisons.

We are now approaching the start of the 81st Legislature in January 2009. We will have many challenges before us including the Texas economy, transportation which includes both highway construction and public transportation, water issues, immigration, voter identification, taxation and many others. This report provides a brief summary of some of the accomplishment we had during the 80th Legislature and requests your opinion on the important issues coming to the front for the upcoming 81st Legislature. I am your Representative and as such I need to know your collective opinions on these issues to better represent you. This coming year I expect to cast more than 4,000 votes as your Representative in Austin.

I will try to answer any questions you have either in person, on the phone, by mail, or over the Internet. Please contact us. Our phone and fax numbers, and our addresses are listed in this special report.

I thank you for the honor of serving you and Texas. It is a great privilege to Represent all of the citizens of District 67.

Respectfully yours,

Jerry Madden