- A bill that would’ve banned minors from using social media in Texas has likely died after missing a key deadline at the legislature last night. As the Texas Newsroom’s Lucio Vasquez reports, the measure would have created one of the nation’s strictest efforts to limit minors’ access to social media.
House Bill 186 would have required age verification for all users and forced platforms like Instagram and TikTok to remove accounts at a parent’s request. The bill passed the House last month, but stalled in the Senate — effectively killing it. Lawmakers could still try to revive the proposal by tacking its language onto another bill. But that’s unlikely. Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a similar measure into law that’ll require app stores to implement age checks and parental controls for minors. That law takes effect next year. The legislative session wraps up on Monday. I’m Lucio Vasquez in Houston.
- A bill to make it easier for landlords and homeowners to evict squatters is set to become law. Houston Public Media’s Andrew Schneider says the final version of the bill strikes a balance between protecting property rights and due process for tenants.
The House amended Senate Bill 38 to provide additional protections for tenants in the eviction process compared to the original Senate version. Ben Martin is the research director for Texas Housers.
“What we really saw in the House of Representatives was that there was a bipartisan effort to address concerns about this bill being written too broadly. The final form restricts some of those most harmful changes to the eviction process to only squatting cases.”
The bills now head to Governor Abbott for signature. I’m Andrew Schneider in Houston.
