Gavel to Gavel 89th Legislative Session - May 9, 2025
Unpleasantries between the House and Senate bubbled up this week as several House members began to voice shared frustrations with the Senate from the floor podium. Throughout the week, members, including Reps. Jolanda Jones (D-Houston) and Vikki Goodwin (D-Austin), took the dais to show disdain for the upper chamber's slow progress in passing priority House bills, such as HB 2, providing teacher pay raises, and HB 150, establishing the Texas Cyber Command. Both bills are priority emergency items of Governor Greg Abbott that have stalled in the Senate, while, ironically, Lt. Gov. Patrick has continually taunted House leadership throughout the session for lagging behind the number of bills passed by the Senate. Additionally, Rep. Jeff Leach (R-McKinney), Chair of the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence, cancelled a committee meeting this week solely citing the listlessness of Senate committee movement.
Fueling tension and heightening urgency are looming deadlines facing both chambers of the legislature. Per the calendar of end-of-session deadlines, House committees have until Monday, May 12th, to report bills and resolutions. All House Bills must be calendered and passed on Second Reading by Thursday, May 15th.
Similarly scrambling to escape the fast-approaching deadlines, though on the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) is expected to suspend the rules for an unusual late bill filing in a last-ditch attempt to allow Texas children's hospitals to compete with national health plans for the opportunity to bid for Texas Medicaid managed care contracts. Last year, Cook Children's Health sued the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) after being removed from the procurement process in favor of national insurance entities. House bills to give local health plans a greater degree of latitude to compete with national plans for HHSC procurement are frozen in committees, leading Sen. Kolkhorst to take action in a final legislative push to solve the legal dispute.
On Thursday, the House Committee on Appropriations debated how to manage Economic Stabilization Fund, known as the “Rainy Day Fund,” being that at the end of the next fiscal year, it will reach its statutory cap. House Appropriations members discussed SJR 4 by Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown), proposing a constitutional amendment to increase the cap. Rep. Donna Howard (D-Austin) suggested the money could either be returned to general revenue or used as a concurrent tax stream for public schools or water development, Reps. Jeff Barry (R-Pearland) and Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) believed the money should be returned to the taxpayers, either in the form of severance tax breaks for oil and gas companies or increased property tax relief. Chairman and sponsor Rep. Gregg Bonnen (R-Friendswood) stressed the importance for Texas to have a resilient emergency savings account. The Senate Joint Resolution was left pending while members search for a proper equilibrium to support Texas's current public programs while ensuring the state is fully prepared for future economic risks.
On Friday, the House passed SB 17, prohibiting real estate transactions by individuals domiciled and companies based in China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, after hours of discussion the day prior. On second reading Thursday, House members held a six-hour, hotly contested debate on the bill's potential to protect land from adversarial nations, as proposed by Republicans, or to potentially discriminate against Asian American Texans, as suggested by Democrats, including Rep. Gene Wu (D-Houston), who took the podium in the most climactic showing of opposition involving several efforts to take the bill down. He attempted to amend the bill to require a greater burden of proof and a more rigorous notification process, but failed to acquire the necessary votes. Representatives did amend the bill by banning leases longer than a year and giving the Governor more latitude in expanding the list of nations deemed security threats. Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-Plano) also passed an amendment with a bipartisan vote to clarify that the bill will not apply to lawfully present residents of the United States. SB 17 now heads back to Senate, where it is likely to go to a conference committee to rectify the changes.
The statewide investigation into Superior HealthPlan for spying on legislators and Medicaid clients, now involving all three branches of government, continued as the Executive Commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission responded to Rep. Giovanni Capriglione's (R-Keller) letter from early April by noting that HHSC will be suspending enrollment and contract awards with Superior. You can view the letter from the HHSC Commissioner here. After the discovery of Superior's conduct and potential blackmail, Rep. Leach filed HB 5061, prohibiting unethical surveillance by government contractors and vendors and providing significant penalties, which was heard in the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce this Thursday.
Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) is already running to replace current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as Paxton campaigns for US Senate. On Thursday, Rep. Dennis Paul (R-Houston) announced his campaign to replace Sen. Middleton. While he is the first to enter the fray, Rep. Paul was quickly endorsed by Lt. Gov. Patrick – generally a very positive endorsement in these kinds of things.
The Senate adjourned until Monday at 11:00. The House will reconvene Monday at 10am.