Well, it wouldn’t be an end of a regular session without bills dying, legislators crying, and everyone who is ready to leave town being threatened with a special session. Some things never change.
COVID-19 update
As we told you last Friday, the governor issued Executive Order GA-36 to prohibit cities, counties, and related governmental entities and officials from mandating face coverings, but that wouldn’t necessarily apply to the courts. And sure enough, on Wednesday the Texas Supreme Court issued its own guidance in the form of its 38th Emergency Order, which basically maintains the status quo in the courts through August 1, 2021. That includes requiring face masks or other measures designed to ensure everyone feels safe enough to attend court in whatever capacity brings them there.
For more on these instructions for the judicial branch, visit the Office of Court Administration’s Court Coronavirus Information webpage.
Final deadlines
The 87th Regular Session will adjourn sine die (“without day” for reconvening) at some point on Monday, May 31, but all bills passed by both chambers must be agreed to by midnight on Sunday, May 30, or the bill dies—even if they passed both houses in different forms earlier. That’s what legislators will be doing the next 72 hours: haggling over different language, reaching compromises behind closed doors, and drafting compromise language that sounds good to the negotiators (but without further vetting). As a result, our schedule this weekend will be sporadic and somewhat boring—at least until a conference committee report containing a Very Bad Idea™ becomes public, at which point you may be getting a legislative alert from us while you’re on the lake or grilling out for the holiday weekend. We apologize in advance for ruining your weekend if that happens.
Budget is done and dusted
The House and Senate have passed SB 1 by Nelson/Bonnen, the state’s budget for the FY 2022–2023 biennium. It wasn’t long ago that most agencies were asked to fade at least a five-percent reduction in spending, but thanks to the recovering economy and the federal government’s printing presses, budget writers ended up virtually awash in money by the end of session. In fact, this final state budget ended up 5.5 percent higher than the current budget. With that additional boost, the budget writers were able to fully fund the public education investments made last session, increase contributions to the Teacher Retirement System, increase funding for higher education, and provide additional funds to lower CPS caseloads for its caseworkers. Significantly, this budget also provides an additional $30 million for new rural and urban community mental health beds and an additional $86 million for new state mental health hospital beds. Finally, we are happy to report that the items relating to prosecutor office funding—elected felony prosecutor salaries, county attorney supplements, district attorney apportionment funding, and assistant prosecutor longevity pay—were all fully funded.
For a more detailed breakdown of this new budget, check out this update from our friends at TAC.
Still to be determined sometime during the interim will be how Texas should spend an additional $16 billion coming to the state from the American Rescue Plan Act. The governor has given assurances that he will add that to the call of the special session on redistricting to be held sometime this fall, so we’ll be back at our duty station in October (or so) to keep you posted as that develops.
New laws
Among the bills we are tracking that have become law are:
- HB 54 by Talarico/Whitmire banning participation in reality TV policing shows (effective May 26, 2021)
- SB 315 by Huffman/Hunter applying the Employment Harmful to Children offense to anyone under 21 years of age (effective May 24, 2021).
The final hurdle
Bills that have successfully run the legislative gamut and are on their way to the governor include:
- HB 9 by Klick/Campbell (highway obstruction enhancements)
- HB 368 by Sherman/West (alias address on prosecutor’s driver’s license)
- HB 375 by Smith/Zaffirini (continuous sexual abuse of a disabled individual)
- HB 558 by White/Hall (mandatory blood draws in intoxication offenses)
- HB 766 by Harless/Kolkhorst (entry of bond conditions into TCIC)
- HB 929 by Sherman/West (body cam policies)
- HB 1172 by Howard/Zaffirini (rights of sexual assault victims)
- HB 1403 by A. Johnson/Huffman (stacking of sentences)
- HB 1927 by Schaefer/Schwertner (permitless carry)
- HB 2448 by Canales/Hinojosa (discharge of surety following immigration detention)
- SB 282 by Alvarado/Meyer (ban on settling sexual harassment claims with public funds)
- SB 476 by Nelson/Stucky (county sexual assault response teams)
- SB 576 by Hinojosa/Lozano (smuggling of persons)
- SB 1458 by Zaffirini/Neave (standardized protective order forms)
If you know of a bill sent to the governor that you still want to support or oppose before it becomes law, contact Shannon for more details on how to do that effectively.
Bills awaiting concurrence/conference
When one chamber makes changes to a bill from the other chamber before approving it, the bill must be returned to the original chamber to concur with those changes or refuse to concur and go to a conference committee to hash out the differences before midnight on Sunday, May 30. Bills currently at that stage include:
- HJR 4 by Kacal/Huffman (preventive detention)
- HB 20 by Murr/Huffman (bail bond reform)
- HB 385 by Pacheco/Hughes (probation reforms)
- *HB 492 by Wu/West (limits on no-knock warrants)(*we had marked this as “dead” in last week’s update, with the caveat that nothing is ever truly dead until May 31—consider this your case in point!)
- HB 686 by Moody/Lucio (early consideration of parole release for youthful violent offenders)
- HB 1900 by Goldman/Huffman (limits on defunding municipal law enforcement agencies)
- HB 1925 by Capriglione/Buckingham (public camping ban)
- HB 2593 by Moody/N. Johnson (THC edibles)
- HB 3774 by Leach/Huffman (omnibus court creation bill)
- SB 23 by Huffman/Oliverson (limits on defunding county law enforcement agencies)
- SB 49 by Zaffirini/Murr (procedures for defendants with mental illness/intellectual disability)
- SB 68 by Miles/Reynolds (excessive force)
- SB 69 by Miles/White (choke holds)
- SB 111 by West/Collier (law enforcement discovery duties)
- SB 112 by West/Harless (mobile tracking devices and location data)
- SB 281 by Hinojosa/Lucio III (forensic hypnosis)
- SB 321 by Huffman/Bonnen (ERS cash benefit plans)
- SB 1827 by Huffman/Holland (opioid abatement account and settlements)
- SB 2212 by West/Thompson (officer’s duty to render aid to injured person)
Conference committees do not take testimony on their bills, but the members (known as “conferees”) may accept input individually. If you want to have a say in their final product, you can find the conferees for each bill by clicking on the bill links above and reaching out to them on your own, but you might want to check with Shannon or Rob first to get the inside scoop.
Scattershooting
Here are some articles we read this week that you might find interesting:
- “Where do Texas Democrats and Republicans really come together? Dog bills.” (Houston Chronicle)
- “Inside the Texas Capitol date rape drugging case that wasn’t” (Houston Chronicle)
- “‘Big Candy’ is angry” (New York Times)
- Texas lawmakers react to potential special session after conservative bills miss deadline” (Spectrum News)
Quotes of the Week
“It’s just the reality of the solution, you know. When you make big, overarching statements that we’re going to defund or abolish and dismantle the police department and get rid of all the officers, there’s an impact to that. Do we need massive change? Yes, we do. We need accountability and culture shift within our department, and we need police.”
—Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis, MN, which has seen a steady surge of gun violence after the city’s failed experimentation with de-policing in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
“I don’t think anyone conceptualized what would happen when … industry and science and business and the motivation of profit come into the state of Washington. All of a sudden, a few years later, your shelves are stocked with these oils that are 99 percent THC.”
—Washington State Rep. Lauren Davis (D), who supports legislation to cap THC potency in cannabis concentrate products such as oils, wax, and shatter.
“Asking @GregAbbott_TX to call a June #SpecialSession today to pass #SB29 to save girls sports, #SB10 to end taxpayer funded lobbying and #SB12 to stop social media censorship. The TxHouse killed these conservative bills that majority of Texans in both parties support. #txlege”
—Tweet by Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R), after the House’s Tuesday night deadline killed several of his priority bills this session.
“That’s pretty goofy. Not only am I the only one with the authority to call a special session; I get to decide when and I get to decide what will be on that special session.”
—Governor Greg Abbott (R), when asked about the lieutenant governor’s public demands for a special session.
###