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The Texas Legislature’s 86th regular session was marked by school finance reforms and easing the pressure of some of the nation’s highest local property taxes.

The state’s top three leaders — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen announced that “meat and potatoes” work at the beginning of the session in January, and marked their success at the end of the session in May. It sounds simple, but it wasn’t easy. Here are some columns from this year on the work of the Texas Legislature:

At the top of Texas government, three-part harmony

The state’s top leaders have been saying for weeks that they are in sync, and here’s the surprise: Their initial proposals look like they are actually in sync.

Property taxes in Texas are high. Don’t expect the Legislature to change that.

Texas leaders are promising property tax relief during this year’s legislative session. It’s unlikely that will lower your taxes, but it might slow future increases.

The Texas comptroller’s new “pesky chart”

In a new report, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar says the state should cover 40 percent of the cost of public education — and should cover the costs of inflation, too.

The challenge of reining in property taxes at no cost to schools

A Texas Senate committee is moving rapidly to require voter approval for local property tax increases over 2.5 percent. But some want to see the Legislature’s school finance bill before they vote on property taxes.

Need money for property tax cuts? Ask voters first

More property tax bills are getting filed by Texas legislators — several of which would require approval from voters. Among other things, that could shift any blame for new taxes away from lawmakers themselves.

Can Texas Republicans raise the sales tax without suffering a backlash?

Lawmakers have proposed swapping higher sales taxes for lower property taxes — but would leave the final decision to voters. They don’t have to do that, but it could move the blame from them — to the rest of us.

Teacher pay raises and Robin Hood stall Texas lawmakers

The end of the legislative session — deal-making time — is looming, and the priorities set out by the state’s top leaders from January remain undone. In fact, those centerpiece school finance and property tax measures aren’t even teed up for the final negotiations.

When the Texas Legislature’s safest vote is no vote at all

Legislation swapping higher sales taxes for lower property taxes flopped this week, and for lawmakers, it flopped in the best way possible: They never had to cast a vote.

The latest Texas legislative session proves elections have consequences

The marked difference between the 86th Legislature and its predecessors followed an election year that changed politicians’ minds about who deserved their attention. The most conservative activists had a mediocre year, but last year’s push by education-centered voters was evident in the results.

Property tax relief in Texas, perhaps — but not right away

A new state law limits local government’s ability to raise property taxes without voter approval — but not yet. And some are rushing to get one last big increase.

Author: ROSS RAMSEY – The Texas Tribune

KATY — Beto O’Rourke said Tuesday his biggest political focus next year in Texas will be flipping the state House, offering the most detail yet on his 2020 plans since ending his presidential campaign last month.

“Everything flows up from that,” said O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman and 2018 U.S. Senate nominee. “So not only could Democrats gain control of the House and make progress on stormwater infrastructure, health care, gun violence, climate and education, but that will incidentally help the federal races — from U.S. Congress to U.S. Senate — and I also think it’s also going to lay the groundwork for whoever the presidential nominee is.”

O’Rourke pointed to his near-miss 2018 loss, when he said the work that he and state House candidates were doing “all reinforced one another and complemented the efforts and produced historic turnout, and we need something like that this time.”

O’Rourke spoke with reporters here from The Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle while in town to campaign with Eliz Markowitz, the Democratic candidate in a special election runoff next month for a Texas House seat that Democrats are trying to flip. He said it was his first time back on the campaign trail since returning to El Paso after dropping out of the presidential race on Nov. 1.

O’Rourke has remained politically active in recent weeks, re-emerging in Markowitz’s race — he first stumped with her in September — and wading into a few other down-ballot races, including picking sides in two intraparty contests. He backed Lorraine Birabil over fellow Democrat James Armstrong in the special election runoff next month to replace ex-state Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas. And he quickly endorsed Sima Ladjevardian, a former campaign adviser, after she made an 11th-hour entry last week into the primary to challenge U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston.

O’Rourke told reporters he is open to endorsing in additional competitive primaries but is “certainly going to get behind the nominee in these races once they’re settled in March.” He said he was not worried about alienating members of his own party “because we won’t be attacking other Democrats” in contested primaries.

One primary that O’Rourke continues to say he will not get involved in is the one for U.S. Senate, which has drawn a dozen candidates and saw a major development Monday when the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee endorsed one of them, MJ Hegar. O’Rourke said Tuesday he was excited about the options and looking forward to hearing more from them, noting many voters have yet to tune in, but reiterated he did not plan to intervene in the nominating contest.

“I’m still making up my mind in terms of who I would vote for, much less endorse or support, but [I’m] not planning to get involved before the primary’s decided,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke acknowledged that supporters asked him to run again for U.S. Senate after he ended his White House bid, with the backers emphasizing the impact he could have up and down the ballot. But he said he was “just convinced that out of that extraordinary field we have, someone’s gonna emerge and inspire us and be an incredibly formidable opponent towards John Cornyn and help these down-ballot and other races.”

Markowitz, a Katy educator, is in a Jan. 28 runoff against Republican Gary Gates, a self-funding businessman, for the seat that was vacated earlier this year by former state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond. If Democrats take the seat, they could effectively pull within eight seats of capturing the House majority next year.

Markowitz got 39% of the vote in the November special election to 28% for Gates, who had to compete with five other Republicans. Markowitz expressed optimism Tuesday that she could overcome the vote breakdown in the first round — 39% Democratic, 61% Republican — to prevail in the runoff.

“I think that any time you have seven candidates vying off for a single race, it’s going to lead to different factions of friends and family coming out to vote for a single person, not necessarily the most representative based on party or affiliation, and so by having it just be me versus Gates in this runoff, we’ll be able to consolidate a lot of our voters in the Democratic base,” she said. “We’re also expanding our universe to make sure that we reach more Democratic-leaning individuals who we didn’t touch the first time around and make sure that they actually turn out to the polls.”

After speaking with reporters, O’Rourke and Markowitz joined area state Reps. Jon Rosenthal and Ron Reynolds for an anti-gun violence roundtable hosted by Moms Demand Action of Greater Houston. The former presidential candidate introduced himself as “Beto O’Rourke, volunteer for the Eliz Markowitz campaign.”

Author: PATRICK SVITEK – The Texas Tribune

In one week, we’ll know who’s going to have a primary. Who is going to have a fight in November. Who’s quitting. Who isn’t quitting.

The table will be set for a big 2020 election — and for a very interesting political science experiment in a state that has been unshakably reliable for Republicans since the mid-1990s.

The 2018 elections didn’t follow historical patterns. Turnout was huge: 8.4 million Texans voted in a year when 5.5 million to 6 million — based on past results — would have been considered normal.

That kind of a participation bump — 2 million or 3 million people, give or take — can change an election. And people have been talking about the results ever since: closer Republican wins, including some nail-biters, in statewide races; a Democratic gain of one in the state Senate; a Democratic gain of 12 in the state House.

The big dogs, starting with President Donald Trump, are clearly not taking Texas for granted. And judging by the candidate filings so far, neither are the incumbents and their challengers.

The Democrats and Republicans both want to find out whether the 2018 results marked a change in the political winds in Texas or were just a one-time glitch in a familiar and comfortable Republican pattern.

Republicans raising money for next year’s defense have suggested more than 30 seats in the Texas House could be in play; that is, that either party could win, depending on how things go.

The Texas maps for statehouse and congressional seats were drawn by Republican majorities to favor Republican candidates. But that baked-in bias has faded over the course of the decade. It produced as many as 98 Republican seats at one point; only 83 seats now belong to the GOP.

And because it’s time for a fresh round of redistricting, state and national political people are fighting for a Texas House majority after the 2020 elections.

But are there really that many competitive seats?

Only if you use a broad definition. In 2018, fewer than 10 percentage points separated winners from losers in statewide races — like those for governor and other top offices — in 31 Texas House districts. Of those districts, 18 are held by Republicans and 13 by Democrats.

Those districts are competitive, based on those statewide results. But not all of those House races were competitive in 2018: Those results depended more heavily on the candidates who chose to run.

And candidates are making their decisions now, looking at past results and gauging their chances. Some will look for even better climates: Only 13 districts had a partisan difference of 5 percentage points or fewer. Republicans hold seven of those and Democrats hold six.

That’s a tighter target list. It doesn’t take particularly good and particularly bad candidates into account, or money or fame, any one of which can and does change the results. It’s just a starting place.

The Senate has only one district — held by Republican Pete Flores — that is truly competitive, and that’s not enough to flip the GOP’s control in the upper chamber.

The House is the place where both parties are looking for improvement. Democrats, with 67 seats, need to flip nine to get a majority (and eight to bring the House into perfect 75-75 balance). Republicans, who didn’t expect to lose 12 seats a year ago — and who suspect some of those results were one-time flukes — will be trying to reverse their losses.

And when candidate filing is complete Dec. 9, that competition will finally be underway.

Author: ROSS RAMSEY – The Texas Tribune

Editor’s note: If you’d like an email notice whenever we publish Ross Ramsey’s column, click here.

For the second time in two years, the members of the Texas House have the chance — if they so desire — to elect the first woman to serve as speaker.

Two women — Miriam “Ma” Ferguson and Ann Richards — have served as governors of Texas. But no woman has served as speaker of the Texas House, nor as the state’s lieutenant governor.

Texas has had 43 lieutenant governors, from Albert Clinton Horton to Dan Patrick. And from William Crump to Dennis Bonnen, there have been 70 speakers.

Zero women.

But Bonnen, who’s been in the job for less than a year, says now, in the wake of a scandal, that he won’t seek a second term. The scandal, in brief: A political activist recorded a meeting with Bonnen and with state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, in which a list of potential Republicans to replace was offered, along with a proposal to give the activist’s organization media passes to the House floor. In the recording, Bonnen and Burrows bragged about giving cities and counties short shrift during the last session and promised more of the same. And between the meeting and the public airing of the recording, they denied saying a lot of the things that, as it turned out, they said.

Bonnen’s pending departure puts the House back where it was two years ago when Joe Straus said he wouldn’t seek a sixth term: looking among the 150 members of the House for a new boss.

Not that it has ever been a legislative priority in the Capitol, but putting a women in the top job might be just the thing for a House looking for a change of tone and image. A bit less boys club, a bit more like the state of Texas.

If you look at either the House or the Senate, it’s not like looking at the state of Texas. The state has slightly more women than men. The Legislature has 181 members — 182 if you want to count the lieutenant governor, and only 43 are women.

Half the state’s population is represented by less than 24% of the Legislature, if gender is the measure.

That beats the historical norms in the state. Since 1846, 169 women have served in the House and the Senate, according to the state’s Legislative Reference Library. During the same period, 5,435 men have served. That’s not a typo.

In the state’s history, 3% of the state’s lawmakers have been women.

The current contingent includes six Republican women in the House and the same number in the Senate. During the session, the Democratic contingent included 28 female state representatives and three female state senators. (The list includes state Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, who resigned in September. A special election to replace her is now underway, and the field of 15 candidates includes both women and men.)

Run those numbers: Nine of the 31 senators, 29%, are women, as are 34 of the 150 House members, or about 23%.

It beats the historical numbers without being, in any way, impressive.

And the choices, if the House put a woman in charge for a change, are relatively slim — solely because the numbers are small. Republicans have the majority in the House right now, and a speaker elected to replace Bonnen today would likely be a Republican.

The six Republican women in the House represent most of the factions in the party, one way or another — probably about as well as the men do. And six candidates would be considered a robust race for speaker, so there’s that.

But Bonnen, at least for now, wants to serve through the 2020 election. The Democrats are hoping to build on the gains they made in 2018, when they flipped a dozen House seats that had been held by Republicans. If they can flip nine more, they’d have the majority. And even if they didn’t add to the number of women in their ranks, they’d have at least 27 to choose from — a huge field of candidates even if most of the female members opted out.

Putting a woman in charge of the Senate isn’t up to members — it’s up to voters. But the House has another bite at the apple, and they’re looking for something new, something different. The opposite of what they’re trying to disavow, maybe.

Maybe they’ll do something radical.

Author: ROSS RAMSEY – The Texas Tribune

Read related Tribune coverage

• Analysis: A race for speaker of the Texas House? Not so fast.
• Analysis: The best antidote for a political scandal? Sound a base note.
• Analysis: Dennis Bonnen gave Texas legislators a reason to distrust their leaders, too

When state lawmakers passed their landmark $11.6 billion school finance law in late May, school employees were eager to see how mandatory raises would affect their paychecks.

A month later, they’re scratching their heads, struggling to decipher complicated changes and conflicting financial estimates that might not net teachers as much money as they expected.

Before lawmakers voted nearly unanimously to approve House Bill 3, which drastically overhauled Texas’ outdated school funding system, they received estimates from the state on how much additional money each of their school districts would likely receive over the next two years. But the estimates came with a warning: They could change significantly once the calculations were performed using local data.

Ahead of the upcoming school year, districts are now redoing those calculations themselves — and some are coming up short. That could pose a problem for teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians, since under HB 3, school districts are supposed to use a portion of the new money on those employees’ raises and benefits. (School boards must approve their budgets by either a June 30 or an Aug. 31 deadline.)

Georgetown ISD, for example, is projecting $5.9 million in new money in the upcoming school year, much less than the $10.3 million state estimate. And it will shell out about $9 million in recapture payments, which the state takes from wealthier districts to subsidize poorer ones — not the $3.5 million the state estimated in May.

Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, a large suburban district in the Houston area, should’ve expected $30 million more in the upcoming school year, according to the state estimates. But school board members approved a budget in late June that projected just $14 million more, according to Karen Smith, the district’s chief financial officer.

To remain competitive as employers, both districts are going beyond the state’s requirement to use 30% of the new money to increase salaries and benefits. Georgetown ISD is including $3,000 raises for teachers, counselors, librarians and nurses with more than five years of experience. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD approved a budget millions of dollars in the red that includes $25.4 million in raises for classroom teachers, librarians, counselors and nurses and $10.8 million in raises for all other employees.

Teacher pay raises quickly became a bipartisan rallying cry during the 2019 legislative session that finished up in May. But instead of the statewide $5,000 raisemany teachers advocated for from the get-go, lawmakers approved a set of guidelines for salary bumps that would end up leaving the dollar amounts largely up to district leaders.

There is not yet an official statewide summary on what compensation packages look like across school districts, but eventually districts will be required to report that information to the Legislature. Meanwhile, the state has been providing guidance on how to interpret the new law through videos and PowerPoint presentations.

Without an across-the-board pay raise mandate from the state, teachers and other school employees have been looking left and right at neighboring school districts to judge how they’re going to fare. Some report having heard nothing from their school districts so far this summer, as they anxiously monitor the news from across the state.

Sunnyvale ISD Superintendent Doug Williams found that the state’s calculation for how much more his tiny school district would receive was pretty accurate: just under $600,000. But school districts in the vicinity, which include large, urban Dallas ISD, are getting millions more, meaning they’ll be required to offer bigger raises.

To stay competitive, Sunnyvale ISD’s school board approved larger pay raises than required by law, ranging from $1,800 for beginning teachers to $2,700 for the most experienced. “We have been blessed to be able to attract and retain great teachers,” Williams said. “We just want to make sure we are able to continue.”

In some school districts, local teachers’ unions and associations are butting heads with administrators as they advocate for higher raises and larger employer contributions to health insurance. After adopting a budget with 5% raises, Laredo ISD’s officials told frustrated teachers they are waiting for more guidance from the state before they consider raising salaries further.

In Houston ISD, the teachers union successfully threatened a no-confidence voteagainst the superintendent if trustees didn’t pass a budget with pay raises by later this month, arguing the delay would make them less competitive for hiring. After a contentious meeting, the board ultimately approved a deficit budget containing raises of 3.5% to 8%, depending on school employees’ experience levels. The budget also increased the minimum wage for school employees by $2 an hour.

For third grade writing teacher Huyenchau Vu, who watched the Legislature’s initial proposal for $5,000 raises dissolve, a 3.5% raise means a boost of less than $2,000 a year and less than $100 per paycheck. “It goes back into paying for everything, not necessarily into a savings account,” said Vu, who just finished teaching summer school at Houston ISD and will start her third year teaching in August.

She and her colleagues have been taking notes about the higher starting salaries and raises for Houston-area districts such as Aldine ISD and Alief ISD, but not necessarily because they’re trying to jump ship. While Vu would appreciate more money, she is also worried about the sustainability of the Legislature’s funding increase and is glad Houston ISD appears to be more “realistic” in its budgeting decisions than its neighbors.

“They’re paying their teachers a lot more knowing it’s just over the next two years that we’re receiving money from the state of Texas to put into these teacher salaries,” she said. “After that, no one’s sure what’s going to happen.”

Read related Tribune coverage

• Can pay raises help rural Texas districts like Buffalo retain teachers?
• Many Texas teachers have second jobs or live paycheck to paycheck. They’re anxiously watching the teacher pay debate.
• Texas teachers often spend their own money on supplies. This year, lawmakers are pondering giving them raises.

Author: ALIYYA SWABY – The Texas Tribune

Texas’ top three political leaders declared Thursday that the Legislature had reached agreements on its top three 2019 priorities: A two-year state budget, a comprehensive reform of school finance and legislation designed to slow the growth of rising property taxes.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott broke the news on the lawn of the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, just a few days before the Legislature is scheduled to gavel out. Both chambers will need to sign off on the three negotiated bills — House Bill 1, the proposed budget; Senate Bill 2, the property tax bill; and House Bill 3, the school finance bill — before the regular session ends Monday. Language for the compromised legislation, much of which was worked behind the scenes between lawmakers from the two chambers, had not yet been made public as of Thursday afternoon.

“We would not be here today, making the announcement we are about to make, without the tireless efforts of the members of the Texas House and Senate,” said Abbott, flanked by Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, and other House and Senate members who played key roles in negotiating the three pieces of legislation. Almost five months beforehand, as state lawmakers began tackling the issues before them, Abbott, Patrick and Bonnen had pledged from that same spot in front of the Governor’s Mansion to work together and deliver on meaningful school finance and property tax reform.

“Frankly, we’re more together than we’ve ever been,” Bonnen said. “The people of Texas are those who win.”

Thursday’s presser maintained the “kumbaya” theme that the three leaders have worked hard to set this session as the Legislature tackled reforms on some of the state’s most complicated and thorny policy issues. And, though the conference was light on policy specifics, Bonnen told reporters that the House would vote on the trio of updated legislation “as soon as it’s available.”

According to a flyer detailing some of the components of the compromise reached Wednesday night, the school finance bill will include funding for full-day pre-K and an increase in the base funding per student, which hasn’t changed in four years. It also pumps in $5.5 billion to lower school district taxes up to 13 cents per $100 valuation on average by 2021 — though leaders dodged questions Thursday on exactly how and where the extra money would come from.

The compromise bill, Bonnen said, would reduce recapture payments that wealthier districts pay to shore up poorer districts by $3.6 billion, about 47%. But he also said the state could not afford to completely eliminate recapture, also known as “Robin Hood,” because it would cost too much to completely reimburse school districts from state coffers alone.

The bill will include funding for districts that want to create a merit pay program, giving more to their higher-rated teachers. Though the House decided to nix this from its initial version of the bill, the Senate put it back in and apparently won the fight to keep it in.

Authors: CASSANDRA POLLOCK AND ALIYYA SWABY – The Texas Tribune

Texas Legislature 2019

The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial legislative session.

MORE IN THIS SERIES 

Here at the beginning of a week in which most bills in the Texas Legislature will die, the big priorities set out at the beginning, in January, are still alive: school finance, property tax reform, school safety and responses to Hurricane Harvey.

Lots of other proposals are fading fast.

As of Friday, just over 5% of the 7,324 bills filed in the House and Senate this session had made it all the way to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. That tells you a bit about what will happen in the next few days. When this is over, when lawmakers have gaveled out on Memorial Day, that percentage will have jumped considerably. Two years ago, 18% of the filed bills made it to the governor. Four years ago, it was 21%. And in 2013, it was 24.4%.

But don’t just look at success; that won’t explain the dramatic tension of the next few days. Look instead at the overwhelming failure rate. Only about 1 bill in 5 — 1 in 4 in a good year — makes it out of a regular session alive. Everything else (that hasn’t found new life as an amendment to other legislation) meets its final end in the final week — when procedural deadlines form a bottleneck that most of the stampeding legislation doesn’t survive.

Those failures are not always surprising to the authors of bills, but failure is a tough ending when a legislator has worked for 20 weeks or more to make some changes in the state’s law books.

The big stuff is all right — at least for a minute — but other things you’ve probably heard or read about are in peril, a list that includes new laws that would allow people and businesses to discriminate when that’s based on “sincerely held religious beliefs”; limits on local residents’ ability to block oil and gas pipelines, power lines and other infrastructure projects; and loosening of the state’s current restrictions on medical marijuana. There’s also the Senate confirmation of Abbott’s Secretary of State appointee, David Whitley, who presided over the state’s botched search for noncitizens on the state’s rolls of registered voters and who’s out of a job if the Senate doesn’t confirm him before the session ends. Until Sunday night, it also included changes to election laws sought by Republican lawmakers; that bill didn’t get onto the House’s final calendar, but its provisions could find their way into other legislation before the session ends.

That’s a tiny sample of what’s in the air, and it’s changing fast. Some of the items on that list have already died once or twice, only to pop up in some other form. You’ll know in a week or so — after Memorial Day — what’s really dead and what really passed.

The Texas Legislature’s Doomsday Calendar — the dramatic name for the deadlines that stack up at the end of a regular legislative session — only has a few squares left.

Four of those are red-letter days:

• Tuesday, May 21, the last day Senate bills can be considered for the first time in the House.
• Wednesday, May 22, the last day the House can consider Senate bills on a local and consent calendar, which is for uncontested legislation, for the first time.
• Friday, May 24, the last day the House can decide whether to accept or negotiate Senate changes to bills.
• Sunday, May 26, the last day the House and Senate can vote on final versions of bills they’ve been negotiating.

The last day — the 140th — gets a Latin name, but not a red border. It’s sine die, the last day of the 86th Texas Legislature’s regular session.

Another clock starts then, marking the time between the end of the legislative session and Father’s Day — June 16 — the last day Abbott can veto legislation passed by the House and Senate.

That’s an important deadline, but it’s not one that legislators can control. Their ability to steer the state will ebb soon — but not just yet. For them, we’re entering make-or-break week.

Read related Tribune coverage

• Analysis: When Texas lawmakers talk about “election security,” trust but verify
• Analysis: A rumor of a game of succession in the Texas Senate
• Analysis: The Texas Legislature’s unexciting, no drama, very humdrum session

Author: ROSS RAMSEY – The Texas Tribune

Texas Legislature 2019

The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial legislative session.

MORE IN THIS SERIES 

Even as the Senate stonewalls a handful of bills aimed at lessening criminal penalties for possession of marijuana, an upper chamber committee on Friday advanced legislation that aims to vastly expand who has access to medical cannabis in the state.

As filed, state Rep. Stephanie Klick’s House Bill 3703 would add multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and spasticity to the list of debilitating medical conditions that qualify for cannabis oil. The progress on her bill comes four years after Klick authored legislation that narrowly opened up the state to the sale of the medicine.

The bill requires approval by the full Senate chamber before it can return to the Texas House, where lawmakers have already approved two bills to drastically expand the Compassionate Use Program, which currently only allows the sale of cannabis oil to people with intractable epilepsy who meet certain requirements. But according to the Senate sponsor of the bill, the legislation is likely to pass the upper chamber — despite leadership once expressing aversion to relaxing the existing state program.

Several who testified before the Senate committee pleaded with the panel to advance the bill, sharing personal stories of how using cannabis oil has helped them treat a bevy of medical ailments. Lawmakers from both parties were receptive to the emotional testimony and, after more than an hour of discussion, voted unanimously to send the legislation to the full Senate.

When laying out the bill in front of the Senate committee Friday, state Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, introduced a reworked version of the measure which further expanded which Texans have access to the medicine. In addition to the conditions already outlined by Klick, those with other illnesses like seizure disorders, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, terminal cancer and autism would also be eligible to obtain the medicine. The version of the bill Campbell laid out also eliminated what she called an “onerous requirement” that those wanting access to the medicine get the approval of two licensed neurologists.

Under Campbell’s version of the bill, the Texas Department on Public Safety would still have oversight of the Compassionate Use Program. Her revised bill also keeps intact the 0.5% cap on the amount of the psychoactive element in marijuana known as THC that medical cannabis products are legally allowed to contain.

“For many patients in the [Compassionate Use Program], participation in the program has been life altering,” Campbell said. “These people are our friends, our family, our neighbors. Members of our churches and in our communities have benefitted from this.”

Multiple Texans who either currently use the medicine, or felt they could benefit from access to it, spoke before the Senate committee.

“Before CBD, I had 200 seizures a day lasting 15 to 30 seconds,” said Brenham resident Julia Patterson. “It affected my grades and my social life. I couldn’t play sports. I couldn’t go to sleepovers. … After CBD oil, I’m now one year seizure free. I have my driver’s license and I’m finishing the school year with A’s.”

Still, there was a small show of opposition from a handful of parents and veterans who said they wished the legislation was more broad and included conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder.

State Sen. José Menéndez, a San Antonio Democrat who filed a medical expansion bill this legislative session that never got hearing, raised questions about the potential shortfalls of Klick’s bill.

“What happens if the Legislature does not address PTSD in this bill? What do you think is going to be the impact?” Menéndez asked Keith Crook, a retired Air Force veteran who testified on the bill.

“I’m going to bury more of my friends because this medicine saved my life,” Crook responded. “And there are people who don’t have the ability to access it or will be refused access to it because of a law.

“I’m a criminal. I use everyday. But I’m just trying to stay alive and do the right thing.”

Nearing the end of the testimony, Campbell implied that it would take more than one legislative session before Texas further expanded the number of conditions who qualify for the medicine in order to prevent “unintended consequences.”

“Anybody who watches a football game is going to root for their team and be happy when they at least get a first down,” Campbell said. “We would like to be able to include so many more diagnoses. This is more certainly a more expanded list and we will keep working with this.”

The bill still faces several more hurdles before it can be signed into law. The bill will need approval from the full Senate and then the House will have to accept the Senate’s changes — or both chambers will need to reconcile their differences on the bill’s language in conference committee.

Its chances of passage look sunny in the upper chamber, however, though Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick previously said he was “wary of the various medicinal use proposals that could become a vehicle for expanding access to this drug.” During Friday’s hearing, Campbell said Patrick “helped craft” the reworked version of the legislation. House Speaker Dennis Bonnen also told Spectrum News this week he thinks the Senate will take concepts from both medical cannabis bills passed by the House earlier — one from Klick and the other from Democratic state Rep. Eddie Lucio III of Brownsville — and “put them into one.”

Expanding the Compassionate Use Act has drawn the support of some politically powerful players since the last legislative session. In March, a new group lobbying for medical marijuana, Texans for Expanded Access to Medical Marijuana, emerged and has players with some serious clout in the Capitol — including Allen Blakemore, a top political consultant for Patrick.

The Republican Party of Texas also approved a plank last year asking the Legislature to “improve the 2015 Compassionate Use Act to allow doctors to determine the appropriate use of cannabis to certified patients.”

Read related Tribune coverage

• Texas House passes second, more limited bill expanding access to medical cannabis
• Texas House passes bill to vastly expand access to medical cannabis
• Medical cannabis expansion has high support in the Texas Legislature. But Dan Patrick might stand in the way.

Author: ALEX SAMUELS – The Texas Tribune

Texas Legislature 2019

The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial legislative session.

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The Texas House voted Tuesday to raise the legal smoking age from 18 to 21, except for military personnel.

Senate Bill 21 received preliminary approval from the lower chamber more than one month after the Senate approved a slightly different version of the legislation. The bill now awaits final approval in the House, which is usually a formality. Then the Senate will vote to either appoint a conference committee for the two chambers to iron out differences in the bill or accept the House’s changes and send the legislation to Gov. Greg Abbott.

Rep. John Zerwas, a physician who sponsored the legislation, said the measure would protect young adults who are”highly susceptible” to an addiction to tobacco products.

“The idea behind this bill is essentially to move that risk away from those people that are most susceptible to it,” said Zerwas, a Republican from Richmond.

If the bill becomes law, Texas would become the 14th state to raise the legal tobacco purchasing age to 21 and the third to include military exemptions. The stricter age restriction would apply to tobacco products such as cigarettes, as well as e-cigarette products.

State Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, added a floor amendment Tuesday that broadens the bill’s military exception to allow all members of the military over the age of 18 with a valid military ID to purchase tobacco. The bill previously only allowed members of the military on active duty with a valid ID.

Zerwas filed his own version of the bill earlier this year that did not include the exemption for military personnel. It passed unanimously out of the House Public Health Committee last month. With just two weeks left in the session, Zerwas opted to take up the Senate bill after the upper chamber approved it last month in a 20-11 vote.

State Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, also added an amendment that would preempt any changes to the Texas law by a local government, such as raising the minimum age.

A separate bill that would’ve placed a 10% sales tax on all e-cigarette and vapor products died in the House last week after state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, employed a parliamentary maneuver known as a point of order against the bill.

Texas’ moves on the tobacco age are in line with a national trend. Last month, representatives in both the U.S. House and Senate introduced legislation to raise the national purchase age for tobacco from 18 to 21. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the tobacco industry have also expressed support for such legislation, though Politico reported last month that anti-tobacco advocates fear the efforts are a “Trojan horse” to block other, more proven measures to reduce youth smoking such as flavor bans and higher taxes on tobacco products.

Read related Tribune coverage

• Texas could soon increase the legal age to buy tobacco, though active military members might be exempt
• Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Senate won’t pass bill to lower penalties for marijuana

Author: ELIZABETH BYRNE – The Texas Tribune

Texas Legislature 2019

The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial legislative session.

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The Texas House gave an initial stamp of approval Wednesday to a bill that aims to prohibit telemarketers or businesses from falsifying their phone numbers.

The measure, House Bill 1992, would prohibit caller ID spoofing — when a caller tampers with information transmitted to people’s caller IDs to disguise their identity.

Under the proposal by Republican state Rep. Ben Leman of Anderson, telemarketers using a third-party source to make calls to the public must ensure the number that appears on people’s caller ID matches the number of the third party, or the number of the entity that has contracted with the third party.

“House Bill 1992 aims to prevent telemarketers from using predatory and annoying tactics by prohibiting them from replicating numbers and misrepresenting the origin of the call,” Leman told other representatives Wednesday.

The measure needs one more vote from the House before it can head to the Senate.

Federal law already mandates that telemarketers must transmit a telephone number and, when possible, a name that matches the telemarketer or business on caller ID. A spokesman from Leman’s office said the bill clarifies that the Texas attorney general may prosecute telemarketing companies that display misleading information on caller ID.

The bill tentatively passed the chamber on a voice vote. It still needs another vote from the House before it can be sent to the Senate for consideration.

The bill would not affect telemarketers who make their name and telephone numbers clear.

When laying his bill out in committee last month, Leman jokingly called his bill the “super duper anti-spoofer bill.”

“The most offensive part of spoofing is that when you go to block the number, they can call you again from one digit off the number they just called from,” Leman said at the time. “The end result is endless calls from telemarketers to your phone and an endless loop of you trying to block numbers.”

Read related Tribune coverage

• Some voters say they’re inundated with political spam this year. Is there a way to make it stop?

Author:  ALEX SAMUELS – The Texas Tribune  |  Elizabeth Byrne contributed to this story.

Texas Legislature 2019

The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial legislative session.

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The Texas House on Monday advanced a bill that would expand the list of debilitating conditions that allow Texans to legally use medical cannabis.

House Bill 1365 would add Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s disease, muscular dystrophy, post-traumatic stress disorder, autism and a bevy of other illnesses to an existing state program that currently applies only to people with intractable epilepsy who meet certain requirements.

The bill would also increase from three to 12 the number of dispensaries the Texas Department of Public Safety can authorize to begin growing and distributing the product and authorizes the implementation of cannabis testing facilities to analyze the content, safety and potency of medical cannabis.

After a relatively short debate, the lower chamber gave preliminary approval to Democratic state Rep. Eddie Lucio III’s bill in a 121-23 vote. But the legislation still faces major hurdles in the more conservative Texas Senate before it can become law.

“Today, I don’t just stand here as a member of this body but as a voice for thousands of people in this state that are too sick to function or that live in constant, debilitating pain,” Lucio, D-Brownsville, told other lawmakers.

The Compassionate Use Act, signed into law in 2015, legalized products containing high levels of CBD, a non-euphoric component of marijuana, and low levels of THC, the psychoactive element in marijuana, for Texans with intractable epilepsy whose symptoms have not responded to federally approved medication.

Patients also must be permanent state residents and get approval from two specialized neurologists listed on the Compassionate Use Registry of Texas. While Lucio’s bill strikes the residency requirement, state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, successfully tacked on an amendment Monday saying those wanting to try the medicine only needed approval of one neurologist from the registry and a second physician who only needs to be licensed in the state of Texas and have “adequate medical knowledge” in order to render a second opinion.

Lucio’s bill is one of two which aim to expand the scope of the narrow Compassionate Use Act that have gained traction this legislative session. Another measure by Fort Worth Republican Stephanie Klick, an author of the 2015 program, is scheduled to get debated by the Texas House later in the week.

Texas is one of several states where marijuana is still illegal, and the state remains reluctant to move forward on legislation that would legalize its recreational use. More than 30 states allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Texas is one of nearly a dozen states that only allow for “low THC, high CBD” products for medical situations in limited circumstances.

Lucio filed a similar medical expansion bill during the 2017 session. The measure attracted nearly 80 co-sponsors — including some of the chambers more hardline conservatives — but was never scheduled for a floor vote.

HB 1365 will still need a final stamp of approval in the House before it can head to the Senate for consideration.

But despite its overwhelming support the Texas House, it’s less clear where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who has already drawn a line in the sand on a bill to lessen the criminal penalties for Texans found with small amounts of marijuana — stands on expanding the existing state medical program.

Two medical expansion bills in the upper chamber by state Sens. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, and José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, have yet to get a committee hearing. And in a previous statement to The Texas Tribune, Patrick spokesperson Alejandro Garcia said the lieutenant governor “remains wary of the various medicinal use proposals that could become a vehicle for expanding access to this drug.”

To be clear, Lucio is aware of the pushback his bill might receive in the Senate.

“We’re in a good place right now, but the fight is far from over,” he said at a press conference Friday after learning his bill had been set for a floor debate. “If we get this through the House, we have a whole other battle in the Senate.”

But expanding the Compassionate Use Act has drawn the support of some politically powerful players since the last legislative session. In March, a new group lobbying for medical marijuana, Texans for Expanded Access to Medical Marijuana, dubbed TEAMM, emerged comprising players with some serious clout in the Capitol — including Allen Blakemore, a top political consultant for Patrick.

The Republican Party of Texas also approved a plank last year asking the Legislature to “improve the 2015 Compassionate Use Act to allow doctors to determine the appropriate use of cannabis to certified patients,” and according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, 26% of the state’s registered voters would legalize marijuana for only medical purposes.

“It’s not everyday I get to carry a comprehensive bill that is a platform issue for both the Democratic and Republican parties,” Lucio told The Texas Tribune Monday prior to debate on his bill. “That helps and it’s a great talking point when I can tell members there’s no political risk for them to support this bill.”

Several marijuana advocacy groups praised the passage of Lucio’s bill.

“Texans overwhelmingly support the expansion of medical cannabis, and it’s encouraging that lawmakers have championed bills that make safety the priority, emphasize the need for scientific research, insist on the importance of the doctor-patient relationship, and create high industry guardrails to ensure quality and consistency for patients,” said Brian Sweany, a member of TEAMM’s leadership.

Read related Tribune coverage

• Medical cannabis expansion has high support in the Texas Legislature. But Dan Patrick might stand in the way.
• Texas lawmaker whose bill allowed medical cannabis oil wants to expand its use in 2019
• “I don’t do this for fun.” Patients are hopeful Texas will expand access to medical cannabis

Author: ALEX SAMUELS – The Texas Tribune

Texas Legislature 2019

The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial legislative session.

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The Texas Senate on Monday approved a bill to massively overhaul public school finance, but did so while backing away from a proposal to use an increased sales tax to lower school district property taxes.

After an hours-long debate on dozens of proposed changes, the Senate voted 26-2 on House Bill 3, which under the version passed by the upper chamber would increase student funding, give teachers and librarians a $5,000 pay raise, fund full-day pre-K for low-income students, and lower tax bills.

The House and Senate will have to negotiate their significant differences over the bill — including how to offer teacher pay raises and property tax relief — in a conference committee before it can be signed into law.

“When you’re doing something as complex as this, there’s going to be something you don’t like,” said state Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, the bill’s author, anticipating tension throughout the day’s debate.

Since school districts levy the majority of property taxes in Texas, many lawmakers have been seeking ways to help reduce those portions of Texans’ tax bills. But since the state is required to ensure school districts have enough money to educate students, any tax relief effort would have a significant cost — requiring the state to reimburse schools, if they’re unable to collect enough from local property taxes.

Taylor had originally included several provisions that would provide ongoing tax relief, paid for by an increase in the sales tax by one percentage point.

Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, had thrown their support behind that sales tax swap, arguing it would help Texans who are currently being taxed out of their homes. But the proposal has serious detractors in lawmakers from both parties in both chambers who are opposed to a higher sales tax.

So Taylor stripped the increase from HB 3 and offloaded some of the more expensive property tax relief provisions in the bill. The bill no longer includes an expansion in the homestead exemption from school district taxes. It lowers property tax rates by 10 cents per $100 valuation, instead of 15 cents, saving the owner of a $250,000 home $250 instead of $375.

The legislation would still limit the growth in school districts’ revenue due to rising property values, a proposal pitched before session began by the governor. School districts that see their property values significantly increase would have their tax rates automatically reduced to keep tax revenue growth in line. That would now start next year, instead of in 2023.

“The bill before us today has no linkage to the sales tax and is not contingent upon a sales tax,” Taylor said.

Instead, the bill creates a separate “Tax Reduction and Excellence in Education Fund” to fund school district tax relief. State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said a working group came up with a plan to get $3 billion from several sources, including the severance tax on oil and gas extraction and an online sales tax.

“This does not increase any taxes of any kind,” he said.

The House and Senate have passed versions of HB 3 that are similar in some ways: Both would raise the base funding per student — a number that hasn’t budged in four years — and would provide about $780 million for free, full-day pre-K for eligible students.

Among the disagreements: how to make sure school employees get much-needed raises. The Senate has prioritized $5,000 pay raises for all full-time teachers and librarians. The House has directed districts to give all school employees about $1,388 in raises on average statewide and designated extra money for raises to be given at districts’ discretion.

Senate Democrats’ efforts to extend those $5,000 raises to full-time counselors and other employees failed along party lines Monday.

Also controversially for some, the Senate includes money providing bonuses to schools based on third-grade test scores and funding districts that want to provide merit pay for their top-rated teachers. Many teacher groups have opposed both, arguing it would put more emphasis on a flawed state standardized test.

State Sen. Beverly Powell, D-Burleson, failed to get an amendment to the bill approved that would strike tying any funding to third-grade test scores.

Teachers, parents and advocates following on social media had paid attention to Powell’s amendment, mobilizing in support through a Twitter hashtag “#NoSTAARonHB3.”

Taylor pointed out that the bill also allows school districts to use assessments other than the state’s STAAR standardized test, which has lately come under renewed scrutiny, with researchers and advocates arguing it doesn’t adequately measure students’ reading abilities. He approved an amendment requiring the state to pay for school districts to use those alternative tests, which he estimated would cost about $4 million.

Read related Tribune coverage

• After Texas Senate committee approves school finance bill, House panel advances sales tax increase to fund property tax relief
• Texas Sen. Larry Taylor unveils new school finance bill, adding $5,000 teacher pay raise
• Texas Senate aligns with House on how much to spend on education, property tax reform

Author: ALIYYA SWABY – The Texas Tribune

Less than 24 hours after the Texas House gave preliminary approval to a bill reducing the criminal penalties for Texans found to possess small amounts of marijuana, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared the measure dead in the Senate.

House Bill 63 by state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, would lower possession of 1 ounce or less from a Class B to a Class C misdemeanor, which is the same classification as a traffic ticket. Those found to possess 2 ounces or less or marijuana but more than 1 ounce would be charged with a Class B misdemeanor — punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, jail time or both.

State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, never gave Moody’s companion bill in the Senate a public hearing and previously told The Texas Observer he didn’t see an appetite for marijuana reform in the upper chamber.

In a tweet Tuesday, Patrick confirmed that to be the case.

“Criminal Justice Chair @Whitmire_John is right that #HB 63 is dead in the @TexasSenate,” Patrick tweeted Tuesday morning. “I join with those House Republicans who oppose this step toward legalization of marijuana.”

Patrick has spoken against bills to relax the state’s marijuana laws in the past. In a previous statement to The Texas Tribune, his spokesperson Alejandro Garcia said the lieutenant governor is “strongly opposed to weakening any laws against marijuana [and] remains wary of the various medicinal use proposals that could become a vehicle for expanding access to this drug.”

To make his bill more palatable to Gov. Greg Abbott — who previously opened the door to reducing the penalty for low-level possession from a Class B to a Class C misdemeanor — Moody on Monday introduced a watered-down version of his original bill.

As originally proposed by Moody, HB 63 would have replaced the criminal penalties for people caught with an ounce or less of marijuana and replaced it with a civil fine of up to $250. Only those fined more than three times would face misdemeanor criminal charges.

On the House floor Tuesday, just after the lower chamber gave final approval to his bill in a 103-42 vote, Moody said that Patrick was “the odd man out” and that “the ball is in his court.”

“Whatever you think about Colorado-style legalization, this isn’t it. It isn’t even a step toward it,” Moody told his colleagues on the House floor. “Mr. Patrick has been tweeting about this bill instead of giving us the courtesy of talking to us here in the House. … Let’s vote this across the hall so they can get to work on the House’s priorities, and so we can see how those priorities are respected as we consider Senate bills over here over the next few weeks.”

Despite Patrick’s comment, some advocates for marijuana reform said they still hoped to push the bill forward.

“Working through the legislative process means overcoming objection that some folks may have and working with them to find common ground,” said Heather Fazio, the director for Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy. “That’s exactly what we did in the House yesterday and what the vote yesterday demonstrates … and we intend to bring that spirit to the Texas Senate.”

Read related Tribune coverage

• Texas House passes bill that reduces penalties for Texans caught with small amounts of marijuana
• No, experts don’t consider marijuana a gateway drug. That, and five more fact checks from the Texas Legislature on weed.
• Will Texas decriminalize marijuana this year? There is growing support.

Author: ALEX SAMUELS – The Texas Tribune

Texas Legislature 2019

The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial legislative session.

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Texas isn’t going to get any action on property taxes without reforms to school finance, if the latest House maneuver is the barometer.

The House Ways and Means Committee approved its version of a Senate property tax bill Thursday, inserting an all-or-nothing clause that makes the tax bill contingent on approval of a related school finance measure.

Look, this isn’t rocket science. It’s easier to get lawmakers to restrain local property tax increases than it is to get them to make big changes to complicated school formulas and education policy. Education is a top concern of voters, but property taxes are a particular point of pain for them, and lawmakers want to do something about it.

That’s the only possible explanation for the big idea of the moment: a sales-tax-increase-for-property-tax-decrease swap proposed by the state’s top three Republican officeholders.

We’re in an odd spot when GOP headliners want a tax increase and one of them — Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — is even pushing for a $5,000 teacher pay raise straight out of the Democratic and teacher association playbook. Strange times.

But this stuff is hard, and the easy thing to do with less than five weeks remaining would be to pass some property tax restraints and push the education stuff into a special session — or into the next regular session in 2021.

Not gonna happen. First, because nobody will say out loud that it’s a good idea. And now, more firmly, because a House committee has handcuffed the property tax bill to the education bill.

It makes some policy sense. People who are complaining about property taxes are doing so, whether they know it or not, because of school taxes. School taxes are rising with property values. The state’s been taking advantage of that, using state-written formulas to lower state spending as local property taxes rise. The comptroller has said the state currently covers only 36% of public school funding, while local property taxes cover 64%. Balancing that would take pressure off of property taxes but require the state to put up the money.

The property tax legislation tagged by the House doesn’t actually lower property taxes. It requires voter approval when city, county or emergency district property tax revenues rise by 3.5% or more, or when school property tax revenues rise by 2% or more.

It makes a lot of political sense, too, subverting anyone who had the idea of limiting property taxes and leaving school finance for later.

Author: ROSS RAMSEY – The Texas Tribune

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City mayors extended an olive branch. Witnesses spoke uninterrupted. A House Democrat said he appreciated the “frame and tone” set by a GOP chair.

When the Legislature’s priority property tax reform bill was rolled out by a House committee Wednesday, it was met with a tenor and pace that differed markedly from the more contentious proceedings in the Senate.

Absent the quick tempo and heated exchanges that marked the upper chamber’s committee hearings on the legislation, a panel of state representatives deliberated its bill for nearly 12 hours, taking expert and public comments without proposing amendments. The proceedings were the latest sign of the lower chamber’s approach to the priority property tax package — which the chair of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee said they would “fully understand before we get into the debate and discussion.”

That, he said, “is how we have discussions in the Texas House.”

During the Senate committee’s proceedings, public testimony was largely limited to two minutes — a strategy designed to allow everyone who wished to testify the opportunity to do so, according to the office of state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, chair of the committee.

As the Ways and Means Committee meeting wore on Wednesday, some witnesses complained that homeowners hadn’t been called until well into the evening and that many had departed before their turn came.

But the thorough approach was set early in the day by Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, the committee chair who began proceedings on the reform bill by saying he hoped the 11-member panel would hear comments and “talk about ideas that can make the bill better in either direction.”

After, “the committee can collaborate and can work and try to come up with a bill that is right,” he said. “[We’re] not just trying to get something across the finish line as quick as we can.”

The Senate tax committee passed its version of the property tax reform bill, with amendments, earlier this month. It has not yet been debated by the full upper chamber. As drafted, both versions of the legislation would require that cities, counties and special taxing districts receive voter approval before increasing property tax revenues 2.5 percent more than the previous year. Revenue from new developments would not count toward the 2.5 percent threshold.

Burrows seemed open to other rates Wednesday, but he explained why he filed the bill at 2.5 percent. An election trigger could be tied to a price or wage index — or based on “simple math,” Burrows said.

“If property taxes continue to go up year after year at 8 percent, they will double in nine years,” he said. “At 4 percent, it takes now 17 years to double, and 35 years to quadruple. And at 2.5 percent, it takes 28 years for somebody’s property taxes to double, and 56 years for them to quadruple.”

Currently, voters can petition to have an election if revenue growth surpasses 8 percent, a figure supporters of the legislation say was set during a period of high inflation in the 1980s.

The reforms are a big-ticket item for state leaders. Though they are unlikely to reduce individual tax bills — a concern for residents who say their incomes have not kept pace with rising property values — they could tamp down the rate of a jurisdiction’s property tax revenue growth.

The legislation also proposes a battery of modifications to how properties are appraised, with an aim of making the process more transparent and less subjective.

Still, as Burrows noted Wednesday, the 2.5 percent election trigger has “captured most of the headlines,” and several witnesses were asked Wednesday to help identify a more palatable number.

“Do you think 8 percent is where it ought to be, or do you think it should be lower?” Burrows asked Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson.

“I think we’re engaging in that conversation with you guys,” she responded, listing a number of factors she thought should be taken into account.

Two dozen big-city mayors proposed using a formula to tailor the trigger to each jurisdiction, in a letter to the committee chair dated Feb. 26. Six mayors testified on behalf of the group, stressing they were remarking “on” the bill — a neutral position — not against it.

Bettencourt noted a new attitude coming from mayors Thursday.

“The Mayors came in with solutions this time because they just said NO last time,” he said. “That’s progress.”

Despite the generally placid tone Wednesday, the hearing exposed some of the party-line fissures that have animated the property tax reform effort so far. Mayors were questioned by GOP lawmakers about why having an election trigger would force them to cut their budgets. Municipal leaders said population growth and unfunded mandates were tying their hands. And many homeowners, who supported a trigger at 2.5 percent, spoke of their difficulty paying rising tax bills on top of other expenses.

Near 11 p.m., the Speaker of the House, Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, walked through the hearing room to greet lawmakers and watch the proceedings.

In 2017, property tax proposals left the House and Senate at an impasse during both the regular and special sessions. The lower chamber proposed that an election be triggered at 6 percent revenue growth, while the upper chamber pushed for 4 percent.

In a move Bettencourt has jokingly called a “compromise,” Gov. Greg Abbott pitched a 2.5 percent rate in advance of the 2019 session. A poll from Quinnipiac University, released this week, found voters largely supported the idea of requiring local governments to get voter approval before “increasing property taxes” more than 2.5 percent.

Still, lawmakers’ public support for the 2.5 percent threshold has appeared to wane. Republicans have cast the figure as a starting point. Prominent Democrats on the committee — state Reps. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, and Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin — have said the figure is a non-starter.

“For the number now to shift downward by a point and a half to 2.5,” Martinez Fischer said, “my natural reaction and response to that is, ‘Well, my 6 becomes 7.5.’”

And a major component of the reform package has yet to be unveiled. The bulk of property taxes statewide are levied by school districts, with state dollars flowing in after local revenue has been accounted for. The property tax reform proposal has inserted placeholder language for schools, as lawmakers’ wait on sprawling public education bills to be filed.

Martinez Fischer, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said of the lower chamber’s approach: “we don’t care about getting it done first; we care about getting it done right.”

“Everybody seems to want to live this policy through the lens of 2017,” he said. “I take the mayors at their word that they’re going to work hard, they’re going to come up with a collective solution. I take the chairman at his word that he wants our input and is hoping to make this bill better.”

Author: SHANNON NAJMABADI – The Texas Tribune