Kacal said he thinks the state is in a "good spot," since the most recent session was able to balance the budget and the state continues to experience economic growth. Schwertner said he's not for raising taxes and stated that the state's economic success can be attributed to its tax policy and tort reform.

The first three surgeries of Duntsch's trial took place on three consecutive days in July 2012, a month after the first complaint against him with the Texas Medical Board. The first surgery went fine. In the second, while doing a cervical fusion on a woman named Floella Brown, Duntsch "removed a bone from an area that was not required by any clinical or anatomical standards, resulting in injury to the vertebral artery," according to Texas Medical Board records. Brown was later found unresponsive in her hospital room and staff couldn't contact Duntsch for 90 minutes, according to those records. Brown had suffered excessive blood loss and a stroke, according to the agency. By the time she was transferred to UT Southwestern Medical Center later that day, she was brain dead. As she lay dying, Duntsch performed his third surgery, on a woman named Mary Efurd. Another spinal fusion; another routine procedure. Efurd woke up after surgery in horrible pain, barely able to move her legs."