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Legislative Wrap-up - Regular Session Highlights
After the conclusion of the 85th Texas Legislative Session, we are now gearing up for a Special Session called by the Governor to begin July 18th. Before we deep dive in the to issues that are on the agenda for the 30 day Special Session, we want to provide a recap of the regular session.
REGULAR SESSION RECAP
The only must pass bill of the regular session was Senate Bill 1, the $216.8 billion dollar Texas budget.
The Good News- Collin College finally passed its bill after 3 sessions.
SB 2118 – Awaits the Governor’s signature. This bill will authorize Collin College to offer nursing degrees for the first time. This is a bill that was part of our legislative agenda and that we have been heling push for the last three legislative sessions.
Senate Author: Seliger, Kel House Sponsor: Davis, Sarah
State Title: relating to authorization by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for certain public junior colleges to offer baccalaureate degree programs. (ENR)
Governor’s Priorities All Passed:- Ethics Reform
State officers and politicians who make money from government contracts must disclose those relationships.
Legislators who swing through the revolving door from legislator to lobbyists will be restricted from using campaign accounts to support themselves.
- CPS Reform
Governor Greg Abbott signed a number of key CPS reforms into law:
House Bill 4, providing additional support for family members who care for relatives who’ve been removed from their homes; House Bill 5, establishing the Department of Family and Protective Services as a standalone state agency; House Bill 7, reforming the court processes and procedures for child welfare suits; and Senate Bill 11, expanding community-based care.
Many of the ideas signed into law Wednesday came from a bipartisan House work group that was convened by Speaker Straus last year.- Convention of States- Texas is the 11 state to join a convention of states. It takes 34 to hold a convention. These are efforts to reign in spending by the federal government among other issues.
- Immigration Crackdown on Santuary Cities
Education-
Cuts to Public Education by $1.1 billion
The Senate Killed house bill 21 which would have added $1.5 Billion to education. The Senate wanted to add vouchers for private schools to the bill and the House refused to agree, so the bill died along with money for public education
Rainy Day Fund has $11 Billion Dollars sitting in it.
These Bills did not pass during the regular session, but are back on the call in the special session.
SB2 Property Tax Bill
A bill that would have imposed a property tax revenue cap of four percent on cities and counties (S.B. 2 by Bettencourt).
Instead, Patrick spent the session promoting Bettencourt's now-dead Senate Bill 2 as the solution to our state's property tax woes. There's just one problem - SB 2 wouldn't do anything to fix our state's reliance on property taxes. The bill would merely create more roll-back triggers and disclosures. No wonder that the bill's House sponsor, state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, pushed back against Bettencourt's claim that SB 2 would provide taxpayer relief.
SB 715- Annexation Bill died on the last night of the session with a filibuster in the Senate by San Antonio Senator Jose Mendenez The companion bill in the house was H.B. 424 by Huberty
The annexation bill, S.B. 715, made it all the way through the process but died in a Senate filibuster with only 24 hours to go in the session. That’s two sessions in a row that an annexation bill has progressed almost to passage. The issue is sure to be back in the near future, and the League must continue to explain the benefit that annexation laws have had on our state’s economy.
Allows unincorporated subdivisions to veto city annexation plans and freeze the boundaries of Texas cities. Cities with a population under 200 people would be required to have a petition for approval by 50 percent of voters, and those cities with more than 200 people would require elections. It would prohibit limited purpose annexation. The bill would also implement restrictions in annexation to municipalities in counties of 500,000 people or more. Yes, 500,000 would require the city to vote and the people being annexed to vote.
SB 1172
A late session amendment to an agricultural seed bill that could have preempted the application of most city ordinances to businesses operating in a city (S.B. 1172 by Perry).
Cities were against SB 1004, as one of the top three priorities, but it passed with heaving lobbying from AT&T
SB 1004
A bill giving cell phone companies nearly free access to city rights-of-way and vertical structures, S.B. 1004 by Senator Kelly Hancock (R – North Richland Hills), passed in a somewhat improved form than the originally filed version. The bill improved in the House with regard to city control over location and permitting. The bad news: the $250 right-of-way rental fee is still much too low, probably unconstitutionally so. The League will work closely with the city attorneys of affected cities to explore how to address the bill’s unconstitutional donation of public property for use by private entities.
Economic Development and Business
To be sure, myriad business interests around the state logged plenty of wins this session. Successes included a measure to rein in lawsuits against property insurers in the wake of natural disasters, new legislation usurping local municipal ordinances regulating ride-hailing companies, such as Uber and Lyft, in favor of a statewide framework, and an effort backed by the construction industry to ban Austin and other cities from charging certain fees on new developments to address housing affordability.
Some conservative lawmakers also came close to eliminating money in the state budget for the Texas Enterprise Fund — a deal-closing fund the governor uses as the final carrot to lure important corporate relocations or expansions to the state — and for an incentive fund that helps bring in movie, television and video game productions.
Meanwhile, a last-minute intervention by Abbott managed to secure some funding in the state budget for both the enterprise fund and the film and video game incentives — although at levels well below the governor’s original requests. A total of $86 million has been earmarked for the enterprise fund over the upcoming two-year budget cycle, down from his original request of $108 million, while $22 million has been earmarked for the film and video game incentives, below the governor’s original $72 million request.
Business Groups spoke out about how the tenor of the legislative session is bad for the economy and business.
Chris Wallace, President of the Texas Association for Business
“Both of these funds allow us to kind of stay in the game and be competitive,” he said. “They bring in more jobs to Texans — that’s what it’s all about.”
Wallace said the money allocated for the incentive funds “is not enough” but better than nothing.
Tony Bennet- Texas Association of Manufacturers
Serious but ultimately unsuccessful efforts were made during the session to ax the Texas Economic Development Act, a 16-year-old law that allows school districts to waive a portion of a company’s property tax bill for a decade in exchange for a deal to move significant operations within their boundaries.
“We are very concerned after this session about what the next session is going to look like, if this is any indication,” said Bennett, president of the Texas Association of Manufacturers. “We spent so much time protecting what we have that we were left with little time” to work on anything else.
Regardless, Bennett said he fears the tenor of the debate on business-related issues during the just-ended legislative session will hurt the state’s economy.
“It’s already impacting investment here,” Bennett said. “There’s no doubt that the actions and rhetoric that we have seen out of some of our more conservative legislators (this session) are very concerning to some of our member companies.”
“Key economic incentives were attacked this session that we never thought would be attacked,” Bennett said, attributing that to “a combination of ideology and ignorance of how (incentives) fit in with the scheme of things and why we have to have them.”
He said his group spent substantial time and resources fighting the effort to abolish the tax abatement law, to the detriment of its other priorities. The ability to abate taxes is considered important to luring new business investment because Texas has a high property tax rate compared with many other states.
The effort to abolish the property tax abatement law garnered a hearing in a Senate committee but never came up for a vote in the full chamber.
Bullet Train- Dallas to Houston
Still on track. Bills to try and kill it did not pass. It will be built with private dollars.
H.B. 3045 (Dale/Schwertner) – Economic Development Corporations: authorizes a city to hold an election to reduce or increase the sales tax rate for a Type B economic development sales tax. (Effective immediately.)
Uber/Lyft Statewide Regulations
H.B. 100 by Representative Chris Paddie (R – Marshall), that preempts city ordinances relating to transportation network companies (Uber and Lyft for instance). The so- called sanctuary city bill, S.B. 4 by Senator Charles Perry (R – Lubbock), was amended in the House with a provision that makes it more difficult for police chiefs to supervise their subordinates (though the League was neutral on the underlying bill). A bill passed, S.B. 1248 by Senator Dawn Buckingham (R – Lakeway), that limits city authority over manufactured homes in designated manufactured home parks, but it would not limit zoning of such homes as legislation in previous sessions would have done.
