The Texas Insider

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Happy Monday and Presidents Day!

Written by: Jay Williamson

President's Day Trivia: Only two U.S. presidents have been born in Texas. Who were they? (Answer at the bottom of the newsletter.)

Statewide News Round-Up

The Texas Council of Administrators of Special Education (TCASE) criticized Governor Greg Abbott's comments during his State of the State supporting State-Funded Education Savings Accounts (ESA)s. TCASE Executive Director Theresa Parsons said in a press release, "ESAs will not provide education freedom to all students because private schools do not have to follow the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that protect students with disabilities.

Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) recently accused his fellow Republicans of politicizing the border for their benefit. In a Tweet Thursday night, Gonzales said, "anyone who thinks a 3-page anti-immigration bill with 0% chance of getting signed into law is going to solve the border crisis should be buying beach front property in Arizona." (Official Tweet)

This appears to be referencing recent legislation filed by Representative Chip Roy (R-Austin). Roy's bill would, among other things, give the Secretary of Homeland Security the ability to suspend the asylee process for immigrants if done to achieve operational control over the border. In a Thursday interview with the Washington Examiner, Gonzales said, "There's a reason why we haven't gotten significant border security done and why we haven't seen significant immigration reform done. It is in the interest of many politicians to let this crisis continue to flare up." (Full interview)

In a response to the Texas Tribune about the legislation, Roy said, "It allows for asylum claims, but it puts the responsibility on the Homeland Security secretary to do his job," Roy said in an interview with the Tribune last month. "You can't come here and claim asylum when you don't have an actual asylum claim."

The Paxton whistleblowers released a statement Friday urging lawmakers not to oppose their $3.3 million settlement with the Attorney General. The attorneys for the whistleblowers said their clients "courageously reported what they believed to be corruption and put the investigation in the hands of law enforcement where it belongs.” And “No Texas legislator should oppose these whistleblowers’ hard-fought claim for compensation to which they are entitled under the Texas Whistleblower Act,” the attorneys wrote. “State employees cannot be expected to report government corruption in the future if they know the Legislature won’t back their rights under the statute it passed for the very purpose of protecting them.”

Powerful lawmakers in the House have already said they don't see it as a proper use of taxpayer dollars, and the Attorney General will need to make the case for the funds in front of the House Appropriations Committee.  (More here)

Speaker Phelan recently interviewed with CBS DFW, where he outlined some of the significant issues of the 88th session. Phelan touched on teacher pay and salaries and said in his eyes that the money is there to raise teacher pay, but it currently isn't being utilized to raise those salaries. Additionally, the Speaker said he supports proposals to allow voters to authorize sports and casino gambling. (More here)

Following last week's State of the State the Abbott released his state budget recommendations for the 88th Legislature. Some of the highlights:

• Utilize $15 billion for property taxes and further compress tax rates. Additionally, allow senior citizens to automatically be enrolled in an additional $10,000 homestead exemption on school property taxes, and freeze their county property taxes. (Official Twitter Post on the issue.)

• Establish an Education Savings Account program allowing funds to follow the student to the educational provider and/or services of the parent's choosing.

• Increase Investments in new and existing programs like the Graduate Medical Education funding, nursing shortage reduction incentives.

• Add $1 million per fiscal year to the Texas Anti-Gang Program, to establish a new TAG Center in the Midland-Odessa region.

Late Saturday Night, riots occurred in Austin, resulting in an injured police officer and damaged squad cars. The Department was responding to street racing at Barton Springs and Lamar, where police vehicles got fireworks thrown at them and chased by various rioters. This caused some state legislators to jump on social media with their thoughts about the event, and express criticism of how certain cities like Austin have treated their officers. The State is likely to pass more legislation against municipalities that enact policies they see as violating Texas values. (Learn More)

The Texas Tribune hosted a panel discussion between advocates on both sides of the school voucher discussion. The panel was between the executive director of the Texas Private Schools Association, the superintendent of Ector County ISD, the executive director of Raise Your Hand Texas, and the national school choice director for Young Americans for Liberty. The hour-long conversation does a great job of laying out the two sides for arguably the marquee issue of the 88th legislative session. (Full Video)

NASA confirmed a half-ton meteor crashed in South Texas last week. (Home Video Surveillance)

Legislative Report

Over 3,559 bills have been filed as of 2/20/23.

99 days till Sine Die (Last day of the legislative session)

18 days till bill filing deadline

State Budget

House Appropriations have broken into subcommittees to evaluate specific articles of the budget and state agencies. Senate Finance is organizing smaller workgroups to evaluate rider proposals and other considerations for their version of the state budget.

Elections

HB 2480 by Representative Ron Reynolds would, among other things, require judges to notify a defendant after being discharged and placed on community supervision that the defendant may be eligible to register to vote. Similarly would require the Department of Criminal Justice to notify an offender upon completion of their sentence that they may be eligible to register to vote.

HB 2498 by Representative Valoree Swanson would, among other things, create new rules allowing poll watchers to examine any document processed by an election official while the watcher is present. Additionally, for rejected ballots, a written notice with the reason for rejection would now be included for the voter.

Social Media

HB 2206 by Representative Jared Patterson (R-Frisco) would prevent any social media companies from operation in the state if the platform is developed by a governmental entity of China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia. Similar rules apply if the company is headquartered in those countries, directly or indirectly controlled by those countries or citizens of those nations.

The Grid

Former ERCOT interim CEO Brad Jones was recently quoted saying that the grid situation looks much different now compared to the near collapse in 2021. " “We’re much better off today,” Jones said. “So much has been done in the last few years and continues to be worked on.” He went on further to describe the level of improvement, “What we’ve seen in the last year is eight occasions where if we had not made those changes, we would have been in emergency conditions,” he said.

Education

HB 2485 by Representative Janie Lopez (Cameron) would change the term teacher to educator in the context of school districts assigning mentors.

HB 2504 by Representative Angie Chen Button (R-Fort Worth) would eliminate a standard requiring accounting students to be in their fifth year to receive scholarship money from the Texas State Board of Public. The new rules would instead allow applications for the scholarship after completing fifteen hours of appropriate upper-level accounting coursework.

Economic Development

SB 1000 by Senator Royce West (D-Dallas) would lower the state sales tax to 5.75% from 6.25%.

Health Care

SB 1026 by Senator Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) would, among other things, bar any governmental entity or court of law in Texas from requiring an individual's COVID-19 vaccination status or implementing a vaccine mandate. This would apply to elementary or secondary schools and institutions of higher education.

SB 1029 by Senator Bob Hall (R-Rockwall) defines what will be considered "gender modification surgery" and prevents health benefit plans from providing coverage for gender modification procedures or treatment. Governmental entities wouldn't be allowed to use or provide public funds for the provision of a gender modification procedure or treatment, and health issuers would be strictly liable for a patient's medical, mental health, and pharmaceutical costs, incurred for the life of the patient.

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Happy Monday!!