Texas Legislature 2023: 6 things to know

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Lawmakers returned to Austin immediately for his or her biennial meeting to move new legal guidelines and determine how to spend the state’s cash for the subsequent two years.

Republicans maintained their almost 30-year dominance over Texas politics in final November’s midterm elections, rising their majorities in each legislative chambers and maintaining their grasp on each statewide elected workplace. That means Texans can anticipate the Legislature to proceed to swing conservative on each fiscal and social issues.

Just how conservative they go would be the predominant query, because the battle between far-right, socially conservative Republicans and business-oriented GOP legislators, who’ve tried to transfer away from fights over social points, continues inside the social gathering.

Democrats, who’ve been within the minority in each chambers of the Legislature for 20 years, may have restricted instruments to fend off Republican advances and may have to select their battles correctly.

With a record-breaking price range surplus, lawmakers will probably be placing out their fingers for funding for his or her pet tasks throughout the state, and prime leaders will not have the prepared excuse of restricted means. But with rising prices due to inflation, lawmakers may even have to think about how way more they’ll have to spend within the state price range to cowl infrastructure and staffing prices that preserve the state operating.

Texas has seen main challenges for the reason that final time lawmakers assembled in Austin in late 2021: a faculty taking pictures at an elementary college in Uvalde, greater inflation hitting Texans of their pocketbooks, a report variety of migrants trying to cross the state’s southern border, the outlawing of abortion following a U.S. Supreme Court resolution and oldsters who’ve grown more and more agitated about what public colleges are educating their kids about gender, intercourse and race.

With main points at play within the Capitol, listed below are six things we’re watching as Texas’ 88th legislative session kicks off.

How to spend the price range surplus

The greatest matter of dialog heading into immediately is how to spend the state’s $32.7 billion budget surplus, and everybody — together with prime legislative management — is chomping on the bit over how to use that money.

“It’s always easiest to spend other people’s money, so everyone is going to try to get their pet projects done,” mentioned Brian Smith, a political scientist at St. Edward’s University in Austin.

The surplus, or one-time cash that was left over from the earlier price range cycle, is historic in its enormousness. But not all of it’s up for grabs. A share of it’s reserved for freeway funds, and a few of it is going to stream into the state’s wet day fund, additionally referred to as the Economic Stabilization Fund.

Gov. Greg Abbott promised throughout his marketing campaign to ship “the largest property tax cut in the history of the state.” He mentioned he wished to use half of the price range surplus to ship on that promise. But Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, one other property tax aid hawk, has launched a word of warning, warning the Legislature couldn’t spend half of the excess with out busting its self-imposed spending cap. (The Legislature can vote to spend past the cap.)

Patrick, whose railing towards property taxes swept him into the Senate in 2007, has mentioned he’s dedicated to chopping property taxes however needs to transfer cautiously to make sure the state has sufficient cash left over in its wet day fund for emergency spending and for different state priorities.

In the House, Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, has recommended allocating among the surplus to one-time infrastructure spending. That plan carries the benefit of not having to reproduce that spending within the price range each two years, like with property tax aid, which is a recurring state price.

But there are additionally different elements to think about. A property tax minimize, for instance, would extra instantly profit householders reasonably than renters. And since a substantial chunk of the excess comes from a rise within the income generated by gross sales tax, some lawmakers have raised the query concerning the equity of rewarding solely householders when that cash has come from Texans throughout the board.

It’s additionally unclear how a lot householders would even discover a property tax minimize within the type of a homestead exemption. In 2021, lawmakers elevated the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000, which might save the common home-owner of a $300,000 dwelling about $175 a yr.

Lawmakers may even have to weigh further prices to operating the state. Because of inflation, the prices for state companies will probably be dearer, and state workers will probably be lagging behind with no cost-of-living adjustment of their salaries.

“Spending is not keeping up with inflation. So we need to do something about what we pay state workers and how we deal with the agencies,” mentioned Eva DeLuna Castro, a price range analyst at Every Texan, a liberal assume tank.

“Parental rights”

Republican leaders and lawmakers have focused “parental rights” on the middle of their agendas this session. They need to give mother and father extra say of their kids’s training, whether or not or not it’s the college they attend or the books they learn.

How precisely that objective manifests itself within the session stays to be seen. Abbott campaigned for reelection on a “parental bill of rights” that, amongst different things, seeks to enhance the transparency of faculty curricula and crack down on what he’s referred to as “pornographic” supplies in books obtainable to schoolchildren. In some methods, it’s a continuation of GOP efforts from 2021 that led to restrictions on how academics speak about race and gender in lecture rooms in an effort to ban critical race theory from being taught in colleges.

A extra divisive idea contained in the GOP could possibly be the revival of an effort for college vouchers, or redirecting tax {dollars} to let mother and father take their youngsters out of public colleges and ship them to different kinds of colleges. Abbott voiced his clearest help but for the thought throughout his marketing campaign, however it has traditionally run into opposition from rural Republicans within the House.

Patrick, who oversees the Senate and has appreciable energy over laws, has lengthy supported the idea. In a podcast interview posted Sunday, he mentioned he sees it as a part of this session’s give attention to “parental freedom.”

“Those who oppose school choice, [they say], ‘Oh, vouchers are terrible!’ No, parents deserve the freedom to decide where their kids go to school,” Patrick mentioned.

But in an indication that voucher supporters know they want to strive a unique tactic this session, Patrick has pitched “bracketing out” rural Texas in any proposal, hoping to enchantment to GOP lawmakers in these areas who’re fiercely protecting of their public colleges.

LGBTQ points and girls’s well being

Social conservatives are additionally trying to crack down on LGBTQ rights this session. Around three dozen payments focusing on LGBTQ individuals had been filed as of final week.

These payments differ from placing restrictions on drag reveals to limiting gender-affirming look after transgender kids and even criminalizing it. Such care is recommended by major medical associations to deal with gender dysphoria, however socially conservative legislators have decried gender-affirming care as “genital mutilation” and “child abuse.”

Still, main leaders like Abbott have supported the push by conservatives to launch child-abuse investigations of fogeys who present such care to their kids.

Backlash towards drag reveals has additionally grown, with far-right teams focusing on the reveals and accusing performers of “grooming children” — a trope that has traditionally been used towards LGBTQ individuals.

Lawmakers may even have to determine how to deal with entry to abortion within the state after the process was outlawed in Texas regulation following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case final summer time.

Before the November elections, some Republican candidates and lawmakers had expressed an openness to creating exceptions to the state’s abortion ban in instances of rape or incest. But after Republicans maintained their dominance in state politics on Election Day, Smith mentioned he doesn’t see a political motivation for GOP leaders to revisit the problem.

Patrick has been noncommittal about revisiting the restrictions however has recommended he doesn’t see a “groundswell” to accomplish that amongst Republicans.

“We may see them be proposed and discussed, but they won’t be moving,” Smith mentioned. “And I think the same is true about guns.”

Border safety

Last session, the Legislature allotted a report $3 billion towards border safety efforts, together with Abbott’s extremely touted border mission, Operation Lone Star, which has despatched 1000’s of state troopers and National Guard service members to the Texas-Mexico border. Some of that cash has additionally been used to construct a border wall, the primary within the nation funded by state coffers.

But with a report variety of migrants attempting to cross into the nation — U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 2.4 million makes an attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022 — the funding couldn’t sustain with the massive variety of assets despatched to sluggish the crossing of migrants.

State lawmakers had to switch one other $1 billion to preserve Abbott’s border mission going via 2022, typically taking cash from underfunded state businesses just like the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. More cash — starting from a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to one other billion — is predicted from the state to proceed the hassle till the top of the fiscal yr in August, DeLuna Castro mentioned.

Still, the variety of migrants crossing the southwest border has remained stubbornly excessive, and state lawmakers may have to determine whether or not they need to proceed spending a number of billions of {dollars} on an effort that has failed to produce a powerful success.

Patrick has answered within the affirmative, saying the state should proceed its spending on border safety as a result of Democrats in Washington have deserted their accountability on the problem.

“People say, ‘Well, they’re still crossing.’ Yes, they’re still crossing because of President Biden,” Patrick mentioned at a news convention unveiling his legislative priorities. “Without our DPS, without our National Guard, without the state doing what we’re doing, the situation would be far worse … so we have to keep that up until we get a new president in the White House who hopefully will make border security No. 1 in 2024.”

The situation was additionally central to Abbott’s governing technique and his reelection marketing campaign, so he’s anticipated to additionally help continued spending on border safety.

But there is also different ramifications and questions lawmakers will try to reply to legislatively. As Abbott ramped up the mission to deploy 10,000 service members to the border within the fall of 2021, troops started complaining about poor residing situations, an absence of pay and no sense of mission. The mission has additionally seen the deaths of 10 troops tied to Operation Lone Star, together with 5 suspected suicides and the demise of Bishop Evans, a servicemember who died within the Rio Grande whereas attempting to rescue drowning migrants. The migrants survived.

“Who signs up for the Texas State Guard if you think you’re going to get sent [away for a long time] and not come home?” DeLuna Castro mentioned. “Who signs up for that?”

 The “Big Three” dynamic

Sessions all the time hinge on the connection among the many Big Three — the governor, the lieutenant governor and the House speaker. This time round, there’s ample trigger for pressure from the outset of the session.

The two chamber leaders don’t like each other, particularly after the marathon of classes in 2021. Patrick repeatedly criticized Phelan’s administration of the House after Democrats broke quorum over the GOP’s precedence elections invoice. And then Patrick (*6*) to strive to gin up major opposition to Phelan, who finally ran unopposed.

“We have to get along to do the business of the state,” Phelan mentioned in September earlier than dryly including, “and I have to tell you, our staffs get along very well.”

Phelan, talking on the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin in September, added it had “been a while” since he talked to Patrick.

Abbott and Patrick are additionally a duo to watch. Like Phelan, Abbott noticed Patrick meddle in his major and took word. And extra lately, they’re particularly at odds when it comes to the fallout from the 2021 energy grid collapse.

After Abbott declared later that yr that lawmakers had executed all they wanted to do to repair the grid, Patrick campaigned on bettering the grid and has named it a prime precedence for this session. He needs to construct extra pure gasoline capability, a subject on which Abbott has been silent.

Patrick has sought to downplay any management tensions on the problem.

The grid is “fixed for now, but we need to fix it forever,” Patrick told Spectrum News in December.

Democratic technique 

Democrats are returning to the Legislature with very related numbers — 64 members within the House and 13 within the Senate. But within the House, they’ve a brand new caucus chair, Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio, who is called extra sharp-elbowed than his predecessor, Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie.

“Trey is a much different leader,” Rep. Ron Reynolds of Missouri City, chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, mentioned in a current interview. “I anticipate there’ll be a more aggressive nature when combating Republicans on the issues.”

House Democrats already confirmed a brand new willingness to battle in 2021 after they broke quorum for weeks in protest of recent voting restrictions. Martinez Fischer has not dominated out doing that once more as a final resort for attempting to derail Republican laws.

Democrats within the House are additionally watching to see how a lot of a seat on the desk they get as Phelan faces strain to eliminate committee chairs from the minority social gathering, a longtime custom. Phelan is very unlikely to give in, as he has defended the follow as one which units the Legislature other than the gridlock in Washington. But he might take different steps to cut back Democratic affect within the House.

If there’s any ground battle over committee chairs, it might come on the second day of the session — Wednesday — when the decrease chamber sometimes considers its guidelines for the session.

House Republicans have a brand new chief, too. On Monday, their caucus elected a brand new chair, Rep. Craig Goldman of Fort Worth, beforehand the treasurer of the caucus. The chair throughout the 2021 classes, Rep. Jim Murphy of Houston, didn’t search reelection to the House.

Disclosure: Every Texan has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no function within the Tribune’s journalism. Find an entire list of them here.