Gavel to Gavel 89th Legislative Session - May 16, 2025
Deadlines have finally hit the 89th Legislative Session, signaling the death knell for legislation: Monday was the final day for House committees to report House bills and resolutions to the chamber at large, Thursday was the final day for the House to consider House bills and resolutions on 2nd reading, and Friday was the final day for the House to consider all 3rd reading House bills and resolutions placed on the supplemental calendar. While the long floor sessions and tightened scope of committee hearings may create the image of a session slowing to the end, legislators still have plenty of time to enact major changes on keystone laws and push those bills through the legislative process. No measure is truly dead until Sine Die.
After nearly a month of stalling, House Bill 2, the largest investment into Texas public schools in state history, was finally considered by the Senate Committee on Education K-16. After the House passed HB 2 on April 17 following hours of debate and seven floor amendments, the bill sat untouched until this Thursday, when Chairman Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) laid out a heavily revised version in his committee.
House and Senate leadership had been meeting regularly in closed-door sessions to craft an extensive committee substitute, unveiled on Thursday morning, that balloons the bill by almost 100 pages. With the blessings of both Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Speaker Dustin Burrows, HB 2 has become an omnibus public school bill, incorporating several of Sen. Creighton's bills (including priorities of the Lt. Gov.) in the latest version, such as:
SB 26, increasing teacher pay
SB 2253, reforming teacher certification
SB 12, increasing parental rights and banning school DEI hiring
SB 27, the Teacher's Bill of Rights
SB 2252, support for early learning
SB 1826, Career & Technical Education (CTE) reform, and
SB 568, special education reform.
The committee substitute establishes a permanent fund for teacher pay, a funding stream that Sen. Creighton believes will better provide direct support for teacher salaries but redirects money from the basic allotment given to every school district per student. The House engrossed version would have raised the allotment by $395 per student, while Sen. Creighton's version comes in at a much more modest increase of $55, spurring concerns that districts will have far less flexibility on how to spend the incoming appropriations.
In another historic vote for Texas public schools, the House voted to completely overhaul the state's standardized testing structure for public school students by passing HB 4 by a nearly unanimous vote on Tuesday. Representatives voted to abolish STAAR testing for grades 3-12, replace the end-of-year testing with 3 stages of exams throughout the academic year, and enact new accountability standards for school districts. Senate legislation that would have enacted similar provisions but with more stringent accountability measures and Texas Education Agency oversight on school districts suggests that HB 4 is certainly subject to change as it heads to the smaller chamber.
On Friday, the Senate passed HB 5061, prohibiting surveillance, manipulative, blackmail, and coercive activities by contractors and vendors of state government agencies, by a unanimous vote. While threshold votes in both chambers were reached that would allow the bill to take immediate effect, legislators have opted to proceed with the default effect date of September 1 for all state contractors to comply with the bill's provisions or face the substantial penalties within. Superior HealthPlan, the Medicaid provider whose use of private investigators sparked HB 5061, was barred from present and future enrollment and contract awards, subsequent to the ousting of CEO Mark Sanders, who was intensely questioned by the House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency earlier in the session. One of the few bills without a single nay vote on record, HB 5061 is now headed to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott.
Meanwhile, SB 29, codifying the Business Judgement Rule and amending the state's Business Code to create a more business-friendly environment protected from frivolous lawsuits, was signed into law by the governor on Wednesday. Another priority of Lt. Gov. Patrick, SB 5, establishing the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, is also headed to the governor's office for final passage. Most priority bills have been languishing in their respective House committees but are likely to begin to trickle in across the House floor during the final days of session.
The Senate will reconvene on Monday at 11:00am, and the House at 10:00am.