End of Session—Well, the Regular Session Anyway

The Texas 88^th Legislative Session ended May 31. And the first Special Session started the next morning, so it feels like it hasn’t ended. And we’re told there will be multiple special sessions this year. So it seems never ending.

The Texas Capitol, in Austin
from a visit in 2018

The idea, I think, was to limit the legislature to part time, just January through May every other year. But someone is not clear on the concept.

I’ve been making a bill list—a list of bills to follow and do citizen lobbying on—for six sessions now. Each time my list is both larger and more focused on specific priorities. And each time I feel as though I am woefully unaware of actual good bills and what is possible to get done. Some of this is, I’m sure, my trying to have a life beyond being a citizen lobbyist. But some of it is the sheer size of the challenge.

This session there were 9,114 total bills filed: a record 5.301 by the House,  and 2,565 by the Senate.

The Bills

The bill list that I set up for our local Tea Party to follow (and lobby for) included 137 bills. These were based mainly on the list of SREC approved bills. The SREC is the State Republican Executive Committee; it is made up of two committee members (generally one man and one woman) from each senatorial district in the state. Theirs, and mine, categorized the bills according to the legislative priorities chosen by the delegates at last year’s Republican Party of Texas committee. These included:

o   Protect Our Elections.

o   Secure the Border and Protect Texans

o   Ban Gender Modification of Children.

o   Stop Sexualizing our Kids

o   Ban Democrat Chairs.

o   Abolish Abortion in Texas.

o   Defend our Gun Rights

o   Parental Rights and Educational Freedom

I also added on a sort of miscellaneous category called Platform Issues—Not Legislative Priorities. These were things that showed up in the state party platform but didn’t make it onto the list of legislative priorities. The SREC also had such a list, here, although I didn’t include all of theirs.

Of the 137 bills I tracked throughout the session, 11 passed. And we’ll spend a bit of time covering what those were. Here’s the basic list:

Election Integrity bills that passed

·        HB 1243, Hefner: criminal penalty for illegal voting. Effective 9-1-2023.

·        SB 1750, Bettencourt: return responsibility for elections to elected officials. Sent to Governor 5-29-2023.

·        SB 1933, Bettencourt: greater AG oversight of elections officials. Border Security Sent to Governor 5-29-2023.

·        SB 1403, Parker: interstate compact for border security. Effective 9-1-2023.

Ban Gender Modification of Children bills that passed

·        SB 14 Campbell: Lt. Gov. priority, ban gender modification. Effective 9-1-2023.

Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids bills that passed

·        HB 900, Patterson, Shaheen, et al: READER Act, restricts sexually explicit books in school libraries. Effective 9-1-2023.

·        SB 12 Hughes: restricting sexual performances on public property or in presence of child. New to the list. Sent to Governor 5-29-2023.

Abolish Abortion—no priority bills passed

Defend Gun Rights—no priority bills passed

Parental Rights

·        SB 17 Creighton, Kolkhorst, et al.: Limiting DEI in public education and higher education. Sent to Governor 5-29-2023.

Platform Issues—Not Legislative Priorities 

·        HB 1666, Capriglione: no commingling of funds by digital asset service providers. Effective 9-1-2023.

·        SB 15, Middleton, Bettencourt, et al: Lt. Gov. priority, protect women in college sports. Sent to Governor 5-29-2023.

·        SB 29, Birdwell: no vaccine or mask mandates, no school or business shutdowns for COVID. Effective 9-1-2023.

Rep. Tom Oliverson reviews the TX legislative session
at the Cypress Texas Tea Party, June 15, 2023
screenshot from here

 

Key Wins

Key win in Election Integrity, SB 1750, which gets rid of the position of Election Administrator in large counties. This was aimed at Harris County, which has had one botched election after another since the Commissioners’ Court invented the position, taking it away from the joint work of the County Clerk and County Tax Assessor. As it stands, those positions are currently occupied by Democrats, but at least they’re elected and answerable to the people, instead of these (purposely?) incompetent appointees.

Key win in Ban Gender Modification in Children is SB 14, which took some doing to get passed. It makes you wonder what kind of world we live in when there’s opposition to preventing mutilation of children, predictably ruining their health and their lives—while failing to address the underlying issue of gender dysphoria.

Another related key win, which I categorized as a Platform Issue, was SB 15, protecting women in college sports from having to compete with biological males. We got a similar bill through last session, but it only applied to K-12 schools. Now women in college sports are also protected. And enough other states have passed similar legislation that the NCAA can no longer discriminate against schools with this policy.

A key win in Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids was HB 900, called the READER Act (Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources), which restricts sexually explicit books in school libraries. The mechanism is a requirement for publishers to identify level based on content, and only certain materials can be included in libraries. It goes into effect September 1, 2023, so it will be in place this coming school year.

The bills that pass are few. And this year, because so little got accomplished (stonewalling by the Republican-led House, backed completely by Democrats) means multiple special sessions to address the Governor’s priorities, which might occasionally happen to align with ours. And the Governor has been on a vetoing spree, aimed, it appears, mainly at my State Senator Bettencourt’s bills—bills that got through the entire legislative process and passed in both houses, but will have to now go through that all again. 

The Governor is pressuring the Senate to go along with his version of property tax relief. There are two plans, one supported by each chamber; Governor Abbott supports the House version, while Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, along with leaders like Senator Bettencourt, support the other plan. The House plan is based on lowering taxes through compression. The Senate bill aims at maintaining the Homestead Exemption. I don’t understand taxing systems well enough to explain either one, or even know which one to prefer. Both, I’m told, would indeed lower property taxes. Maybe there’s a compromise that will use both ways. I don’t know. But I resent a Governor seeming to think he has dictatorial powers, which he’s glad to use against his own party if he doesn’t get his way. (I used to think so highly of Greg Abbott.)

I looked up the bills being vetoed, and so far it looks like the ones on our list are not vetoed, although a few of ours are also not yet signed by the Governor.

Senator Paul Bettencourt review the TX legislative session
at Cypress Texas Tea Party, June 15, 2023
screenshot from here

 

Other Post-Session Reviews

There are a lot of people doing reviews of the legislative session. The thing that kind of overwhelms me is the number of really good bills I was basically unaware of—both that passed and that didn’t.

The SREC wrote their summary here. 

There’s an excellent list of “48 Conservative Bills the Texas House Killed This Session” by Luke Macias for Texas Scorecard. I only had 10 of his 48 on my list. Macias also did a podcast on the good bills that passed, here. 

We had both Representative Tom Oliverson and Senator Paul Bettencourt speak at Cypress Texas Tea Party last Thursday. I’ve posted the videos, which I’ll link below.

Rep. Oliverson did a pretty thorough review of legislation he had his eye on. Oliverson, a physician, was a key figure in the passing of SB 14 to ban gender transition surgery in minors. He had a number of bills I never had on my radar. I think you can see his presentation well enough in the video, so I won’t list them here.

A concern I’d had was that some bills might have gotten shut down because of the Paxton impeachment hearing just before end of session. But Rep. Oliverson assured me that the House had already completed their conference committees (that's where they work out differences when the second chamber makes amendments to the bill as it came out of the first chamber), so I can set aside that frustration at least.

Sen. Bettencourt is nicknamed the Taxman, from his years as Harris County Tax Assessor, where he had a reputation for helping people get the lowest rates, often by helping them challenge their property assessments. He’s also nicknamed Uncle Paul, I'm not sure why; maybe because so many think of him as their favorite “uncle.” I should add that he seems satisfied with what he’s doing in this position, without any need for political climbing. He’s influential in the legislature, and his constituency is bigger than a US congressional district. (There are 38 US congressional districts in Texas and only 31 state senatorial districts, so there are more constituents in an SD than in a CD.) He highlighted a few more bills—many of them the bills he passed that got vetoed.

In the video, after Sen. Bettencourt’s presentation, he and Rep. Oliverson both handled Q&A together. Here are both of those recordings (apologies for lighting; it’s whatever I can manage on my phone):

·        Rep. Tom Oliverson speaks at Cypress Texas Tea Party June 15, 2023 

·        Sen. Paul Bettencourt speaks at Cypress Texas Tea Party June 15, 2023 

So there’s more to be done. We’re promised that at some point this year, we’ll get school choice. I’ve been looking for that for a long time.

I’m trying not to be too discouraged. The battle must continue. What is the alternative? Succumbing to tyranny? But it is frustrating that, not only do we have to face the other party’s opposition, but a whole lot of our own party. My view might be skewed, because of the people I associate with. But from my perspective most of the grassroots are constitutional conservatives. It’s not about party or people; it’s about restoring our nation—and our state and local governments—to the limited government promised to us in our covenant, our US Constitution. It’s up to us—as Benjamin Franklin put it, “if we can keep it.”