Dan Patrick, Dade Phelan take jabs at each other’s legislative priorities

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The leaders of the 2 chambers within the Texas Legislature gave a preview in their primary sticking issues in priorities Thursday, environment an unsure tone on one of the greatest problems because the consultation begins to ramp up.

During dueling speeches to a conservative suppose tank in Austin, state House Speaker Dade Phelan and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who’ve a historical past of animus, cut up maximum starkly on one of the best ways to ship lasting assets tax aid to Texans. But there used to be additionally transparent rigidity on show when it got here to their approaches to legal justice reform and faculty selection.

Phelan is in his 2d time period as speaker, whilst Patrick is presiding over the Senate for his 5th common consultation — and together with his maximum dependable chamber ever. The two were given off to a rocky get started in 2021 because the chambers diverged on how to answer the ability grid cave in — and however as Patrick criticized Phelan’s dealing with of a concern elections invoice that Democrats attempted to forestall via leaving for Washington, D.C.

Phelan spoke to the Texas Public Policy Foundation hours earlier than debuting his precedence assets tax invoice, which would cut back the prohibit on annual appraisal will increase from 10% to five% — and make bigger it to all sorts of assets, together with companies. Phelan trumpeted it as “meaningful, real relief” in his speech, however Patrick panned the speculation in his deal with.

“I must say something, and this is not a criticism whatsoever, so please understand that, but I know the House is pitching appraisal caps,” Patrick mentioned. “Appraisal caps — lowering them now will destroy everything we just accomplished. … I think the intentions of the House are good, but that would be a disaster and undo everything we’ve done.”

Patrick used to be relating to adjustments that lawmakers made to the valuables tax machine in 2019, when Patrick mentioned they “decoupled appraisals from your tax bill.” It used to be now not instantly transparent how precisely Patrick noticed Phelan’s invoice undermining that, and Patrick himself pushed to decrease the appraisal cap when he used to be a senator over a decade in the past.

A spokesperson for Patrick didn’t instantly reply to a request for explanation.

Patrick’s precedence assets tax proposal makes a speciality of elevating the dwelling house exemption, which is the proportion of a house’s appraised price this is exempt from assets taxes. Patrick desires to take it from $40,000 to $70,000.

Phelan mentioned he used to be “not in any way shutting the door on increasing the homestead exemption.” But he wondered how that advantages small companies who’re struggling for the reason that it handiest offers with Texans’ number one apartments.

On college selection, the House has traditionally balked at efforts to redirect state tax earnings to lend a hand oldsters take their youngsters out of public colleges. With that during thoughts, Phelan has been quite muted at the push this consultation, whilst Gov. Greg Abbott places extra power into it than ever earlier than. Addressing TPPF on Wednesday, Abbott mentioned it will be the “most consequential policy victory this session.”

But Phelan didn’t deal with it in his speech rather then to ship a line that he says continuously — that he has 149 individuals and so they all have a unique definition of “school choice.” Patrick latched directly to that during his speech.

“I don’t know what his opinion is, but he’s No. 150, and if he gets on board, the other 149, I think, will follow,” Patrick mentioned.

Patrick additionally mentioned he didn’t imagine lawmakers will have to move house till they cross a faculty selection program. The common consultation, which began in January, results in past due May, and the governor will get to make a decision whether or not to name a distinct consultation.

“I don’t care how many special sessions it takes,” Patrick mentioned. “We have time. I don’t have any plans this summer.”

It is the second one precedence over which Patrick has evidently threatened to pressure a distinct consultation. He has additionally mentioned he would achieve this if lawmakers can’t be able to extend the state’s natural-gas capability, a reaction to the 2021 energy grid failure.

When it got here to legal justice reform, Phelan initiated the backward and forward Thursday with a jab at Patrick over the Senate’s blockading of a couple of House expenses at the topic two years in the past. Phelan subsidized a collection of legal justice reform proposals together with measures to slim using the loss of life penalty and reforming sentencing for minors.

“I know what to do this session when it comes to criminal justice, and it’s just pass everything that the Senate did not pass last session,” Phelan mentioned, noting TPPF subsidized his proposals. “We’re gonna pass it again. I figure if it’s good enough for TPPF, it’s good enough for Donald Trump, it should be good enough for the Texas Senate.”

Patrick rebutted that via pointing to a number of of his priorities that the similar mantra might be implemented within the House.

“School choice — I can tell you that the Senate likes it, TPPF likes it, Donald Trump likes it, so it should be good enough for the House,” Patrick mentioned.

Other priorities that Patrick discussed as being “good enough for the House” incorporated “banning children’s exposure to drag shows,” “protecting children from obscenity in libraries” and “banning critical race theory in college.”

Disclosure: Texas Public Policy Foundation has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group this is funded partly via donations from individuals, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find an entire list of them here.