While there are exceptions to every rule, the main deadline requiring all bills to be filed in the 82nd Legislature expired yesterday and 40 bills were filed to address some problem with HOAs in the Lone Star State.  For a list of bills and the last action on each, see list here.  Senator West (Dallas) has filed no less than seven himself and is leading the charge to make many reforms to the worst abuses that HOAs inflict on their homeowners.  Meanwhile HOA management companies and their attorneys (some of the highest paid government bureaucrats in the state) sound the alarm to mobilize their boards and activists by claiming these bills attack their way of life.  Of course these bills on the whole attempt to institutionalize good government practices — open meetings, open records, fair elections, court approved foreclosures.  While the bureaucrats and their lobbyists try to get their hypnotized board members and members of the Legislature to focus on the cries of a few pushing the total elimination of HOAs, this fight is about reforming abuse of power.   Eventually this will become clear and the answers to these questions obvious.  HOAs are another form of government that must be checked.