Lawmakers in the Texas House and Senate filed more than a thousand pieces of legislation Tuesday, offering an early look at the issues they hope to prioritize when they gavel in for the 89th legislative session in January.
Tuesday marked the first day lawmakers could file bills they hope to pass when the Texas Legislature reconvenes next year. Republicans control both chambers and expanded their majority in the House and Senate after flipping a handful of seats during this year’s elections. The ouster of many Republicans by challengers further to their right during this year’s primaries means that the Texas GOP’s far-right wing will have unprecedented sway over the upcoming legislative session. Few of those lawmakers filed bills on Tuesday, however.
Lawmakers typically file thousands of bills in the course of a legislative session, and most never make it to the governor’s desk. The lowest bill numbers are reserved for the highest priority bills set by the House speaker and lieutenant governor, who leads the Senate. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced last week that his top policy priority will be Senate Bill 2, which is expected to propose a program that lets families use tax dollars to pay for their children’s private schooling. Other priorities have yet to be announced.
Texas is expected to have plenty of cash to fund any new mandates. State Comptroller Glenn Hegar projected the state will have a $20 billion surplus at the start of the 2025 session on Jan. 14.
Here’s a look at some of the notable bills filed Tuesday.
Property taxes
Republican lawmakers for years have been pushing to bring down the state’s property taxes, which are among the highest in the nation. Last year, legislators approved a $12.7 billion package that included tax breaks for homeowners and money for school districts to lower how much they collect in property taxes. A Texas Tribune analysis showed many residents have seen significant tax reductions as a result of the last several years of property tax cuts. The amount of taxes school districts collected from property owners fell by nearly 10% between 2022 and 2023, according to figures provided by the Texas Comptroller’s office. Lawmakers filed dozens of bills Tuesday seeking to further lower Texans’ property taxes. Rep. Cody Vasut, R-Angleton, filed a bill that would eliminate property taxes altogether and create a committee to study “alternative methods of taxation” to replace them. Eliminating all local property taxes would cost the state an estimated $81.5 billion, based on figures presented by the Legislative Budget Board. Spending that much on tax cuts would likely require a significant increase in the sales tax, lawmakers have said. Several proposed bills would use the state’s surplus revenue to offset property taxes. For example, House Bill 264, filed by Rep. Keith Bell, R-Forney, would dedicate half of any budget surplus every two years to tax relief. House Bill 275, filed by Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, would use the surplus to further reduce the amount of money that school districts collect in property taxes. House Bill 378, filed by Rep. Christina Morales, D-Houston, would increase the homestead exemption — the portion of a home’s value that is exempted from taxation — from $100,000 to $200,000. The state would make up the school district’s loss in revenue. Several lawmakers filed bills that would limit increases in a property’s appraised value. Such caps could create inequities between taxpayers, experts have warned. New homeowners could end up paying significantly more than those who have owned homes for a long time. And the cap could also disrupt the housing market by enticing people to stay in their homes for longer in order to obtain the tax benefit, thus reducing the number of homes that become available each year.
— Pooja Salhotra
Abortion
State Rep. Donna Howard, an Austin Democrat and one of the chamber’s loudest voices in support of abortion access, filed two bills that would expand when a health care provider can legally perform an abortion. The current law allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy when, in their “reasonable medical judgment,” it is necessary to save the life of the patient. While Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion activists say the law is clear, dozens of women have come forward with stories of delayed or denied medical care. At least two women died after doctors hesitated to treat them because of worries about the law’s strict penalties. Last week, more than 100 Texas OB/GYNs signed a letter saying the near-total ban has restricted them from providing high-quality, evidence-based care to their patients. Under HB 257, physicians would be able to rely on their “best medical judgment,” which could not be overruled by an external review process. It would additionally allow abortions to preserve a patient’s mental health or future fertility, and in cases where the fetus is either not going to survive after birth or is “incompatible with life without extraordinary medical interventions.” HB 395, also filed by Howard, would allow abortions in cases of rape or incest. Six Democrats filed a companion bill for each of these proposals in the Senate. Howard and other Democratic lawmakers filed a slew of similar bills last session. None received a hearing. On the other side of the issue, state Rep. Steve Toth filed HB 1004, which would empower the Texas Attorney General to unilaterally prosecute certain crimes, including election and abortion-related offenses. A similar measure did not pass last session.
— Eleanor Klibanoff
Criminal justice
Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, filed a bill that would require the Criminal Court of Appeals to issue a written response in cases where it denies a writ of habeus corpus. The bill also revises the junk science law, a 2013 law that allows defendants to obtain new trials in cases that rely on flawed scientific evidence. No one on death row has successfully used the law to obtain a new trial. Moody’s bill would change the standard of proof required to merit a new trial. Currently, a defendant must prove that the likelihood of them being found innocent would have been higher had accurate scientific evidence been presented at trial. The proposed bill only requires a “reasonable likelihood” that the scientific evidence could have affected the person’s conviction or punishment. Moody’s proposal comes after he and other state lawmakers on the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence launched an extraordinary effort to halt the execution of death row inmate Robert Roberson, who was convicted of murdering his 2-year-old daughter. Lawmakers have argued that new medical evidence that emerged after Roberson’s 2003 conviction point to Roberson’s innocence. Rep. John Bucy, an Austin Democrat, also filed a bill seeking to abolish the death penalty. Texas is one of just a handful of states that impose death sentences. Democratic lawmakers have previously put forth bills seeking to abolish the death penalty, but they have never garnered bipartisan support.
— Pooja Salhotra
Workers’ wages
Several Democratic lawmakers filed bills related to workers’ wages.Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, filed a bill that calls for increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Rep. Terry Meza, D-Irving, proposed a more targeted bill to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour for Texas' school bus drivers.Texas uses the national minimum wage rate, which is $7.25 an hour and has been since 2009 — the longest time workers have gone without an increase since the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938. Other states have approved minimum salaries above the federal threshold, like the Republican-dominated Florida in 2020.Rep. Mary E. González, D-Clint, proposed creating a public online database of employers that have been penalized for wage theft. A similar bill was filed during the last session by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, but failed to receive a hearing.Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin, filed a bill that would increase longevity pay for state employees from $20 to $50 a month. Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, filed a bill proposing paid sick leave. It would allow employers to carry over unused paid time off for their employees to the next calendar year or pay them out if they choose not to roll it over. Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, proposed a bill allowing workers to sue for back pay and damages for discrimination in compensation.State Democrats have tried to raise Texas’ minimum wage above the federal minimum for years. Their attempts have gained virtually no traction at the Legislature.
— Juan Salinas II
Robert Downen contributed to this story. This is a developing story; check back for details.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/12/texas-legislature-bills-filing/.
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