Gavel to Gavel 89th Legislative Session - March 14, 2025

The bill filing deadline for the 89th Texas Legislature has officially passed. At the time of this publication, lawmakers have filed 9051 bills and resolutions since prefiling started in November, a 5.8 % increase from the 88th Session. The next major deadline in the Legislature falls on May 12th, the 119th day of session, the last day House committees can report House bills and joint resolutions to other committees or the House floor. You can view a guide to the end-of-session deadlines here.

SB 25, also known as 'Make Texas Healthy Again' by Senator Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham), which requires physical and nutritional education in Texas schools and mandates food labels display ingredients banned in other countries, was passed by the Senate unanimously on Thursday and sent to the House. The day after the passage of SB 25, a tenth of Lt. Governor Dan Patrick's priorities have progressed to the House. Gov. Patrick announced the second and final round of his 40 priority bills for the 89th legislative session in a statement available here.

The House Committee on Public Education held a hearing on HB 3, establishing education savings accounts, on Tuesday. Key differences between HB 3 and SB 2, the bill’s counterpart in the Senate, is that the House Bill prioritizes disabled students and establishes income brackets for low-income students, whereas the Senate Bill gives 80% of funds to disabled or low-income students and the rest to all other qualitied students. The meeting lasted all day Tuesday and concluded early Wednesday morning, lasting 22 hours with 308 witnesses registered to testify against the bill out of 396 total registered. The committee left HB 3 pending and will meet again on March 18th.

Senate Finance Workgroup presented their final decisions for all budget articles this week.  House Appropriation Subcommittees worked through their final decisions as well.  You can view the decision documents here.

Last Friday, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar was selected as the lone finalist to become Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, returning to his alma mater. There is a 21-day comment period before the University’s Board can finalize their selection.  Christi Craddick, current Chair of the Texas Railroad Commission, and Don Huffines, former Texas State Senator, quickly announced their candidacies for position in 2026. Governor Greg Abbott will appoint a replacement to serve until then.

The Texas Senate stands adjourned until 2:00 PM on Monday, and the Texas House until Monday at 2:00 PM.