Try it in a contentious election year with statehouse leaders feuding, the governor and comptroller on opposite sides of just about everything, and a 30-day deadline, all while staring down the barrel of a gun.
That describes Texas as it faces a court-threatened shutdown of its public schools for violating constitutional limits on local property taxes.
The state's problem is that its schools, growing by up to 80,000 students a year, desperately need more money, but finding that money is nearly impossible with no state income tax and strict limits on how high property taxes can rise.
The court gave the state until June 1 to come up with a financing plan that would lower the taxes to discretionary levels or face an end to state financing that would shut the schools.
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