Staff Writers
AUSTIN — A staunchly conservative Texas Legislature, poised to approve the agendas set by Republican state leaders, will convene Tuesday for its 89th biennial session to tackle issues that touch the lives of 30 million Texans.
The 140-day legislative session, which winds up in early June, comes on the heels of a combative election cycle highlighting conflict among the state’s powerful leaders.
Most of the heavy lifting by the 150 state representatives and 31 state senators in the Republican-dominated statehouse will be in the trenches of policy, as lawmakers sift through thousands of proposals that govern health care, child care, water infrastructure, the power grid, immigration, social issues, tax reform, the state budget and so much more.
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The first day of the Texas Legislature is usually dominated by pomp, revelry and some housekeeping: swearing in new members, making ceremonial speeches, honoring and introducing new staff and leadership.
While the Texas Senate, under the leadership of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, expects a relatively run-of-the-mill opening, a showdown will unfold in the Texas House where the first order of business after representatives take the oath of office will be selecting a new speaker.
Patrick has a solid grip on the Senate but frequently finds adversaries in the House, particularly when it’s run by a speaker who prizes the lower chamber’s independence. After Tuesday, Patrick will find himself either battling the House for yet another session or – if his pick, Rep. David Cook, wins the speaker’s race over Rep. Dustin Burrows – wielding more influence than ever.
Then it’s on to the day-to-day work of the next five months: forming committees, digging through proposals, listening to witnesses, horse trading, deal-making and passing – or killing – legislation.
The budget is the only task required of lawmakers by the Texas Constitution. The rest is optional, but, advocates say, equally critical.
“Ultimately, they’re supposed to be representing the everyday Texan, right?” said Jordan Wat, director of government affairs for Texas 2036, an Austin think tank.
“And what does the everyday Texan care about? They care about having the water running through their faucets. They care about their children being properly educated and graduating from high school, college and career ready. They care about affordable childcare costs, housing affordability as well as health care reliability,” Wat said. Those are the issues that the Legislature can come together on and develop some really solid solutions on.”
Here are some of the major issues facing lawmakers between Jan. 14 and June 2.
Before the legislative session even began, Gov. Greg Abbott was ready to declare victory on “school choice.”
Abbott invested major political and financial capital into reshaping the Legislature to more fully support his plan to funnel public money toward private school tuition and other costs. After supporting primary challengers to House Republicans who opposed voucherlike plans in the 2023 session, Abbott believes he has the votes to advance his priority.
The final product is far from certain, however, and the issue will be among the key points of tension in the upcoming session.
Among the things that need to be resolved is which families should be eligible for public money, which students would have priority, and what guardrails should be created. For example: Should private schools that accept public money have to adhere to certain testing or transparency requirements?
Public school leaders are likely to change tack from opposing voucherlike initiatives to advocating for more money to help them fulfill their mission.
District officials say they need an increase in the base amount of money they get per student, which has not gone up since 2019. A boost would help them fund teacher raises, security upgrades and more.
“I don’t want to do Groundhog Day,” Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde recently told The Dallas Morning News. “Rather than being against something, this is what we want to be for: We want to ensure that schools are funded.”
Lawmakers already have targeted diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state universities, and may be gearing up to do more. The current DEI ban includes exceptions for research and course instruction. During a recent hearing, state senators suggested they may go further.
“While DEI-related curriculum and course content does not explicitly violate the letter of the law, it indeed contradicts its spirit,” said Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe.
State leaders have also indicated they will examine the influence of faculty senates and rules around tenure.
The House and Senate are expected to clash over a high-priority push by Patrick to ban all consumable forms of tetrahydrocannabinol — or THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana and hemp. Targeted products include gummies, vapes, drinks, candies, flowers and others being sold in coffee shops, dispensaries and gas stations by thousands of Texas retailers.
Senate Bill 3 by state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, has not been filed but is expected to find resistance in the House, which has signaled support for looser restrictions on medical marijuana and may resist banning hemp products without expanding the medical program.
That could set up a stalemate. Patrick has said the Senate does not have enough support to expand access to medical marijuana.
Lining up to support the ban are heavy hitters in the alcohol and medical marijuana industries, while the $8 billion Texas consumable hemp industry hopes to avoid prohibition by favoring regulations to address concerns about safety and access by children.
In 2023, lawmakers spent $18 billion of a historic state budget surplus to return property tax money to Texans — an effort that saw many homeowners experience a significant decrease in their tax bills.
Not everyone enjoyed the benefits. Some school districts and local governments responded by raising tax rates, while others were left out because they don’t own property.
Republican leaders are pushing lawmakers to study additional ways to lower taxes for property owners — and potentially renters — in this year’s session.
There is some support for eliminating property taxes collected by school districts. There is also talk of increasing homestead exemptions, while the House was solidly behind capping appraisals during the last round of cuts.
Resistance to property tax elimination, however, can be found on both sides of the political aisle as lawmakers struggle with how to replace billions in public school funding if that happens.
Expect Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, to lead the way in creating a comprehensive plan to address water needs for the entire state. At the Texas Republican Party convention in 2024, Perry told The Texan the plan would bolster desalinization of Gulf Coast water and brackish groundwater. The Legislature could also consider importing water from outside the state.
According to the Texas Water Development Board, by 2050, Texas could see an annual shortfall of 5.74 million acre-feet of water. That’s equivalent to the annual water usage of more than 62 million people — twice the total population of Texas.
“People don’t understand the fragility of the supply,” Perry said in December on the podcast H2OMICS.
Policy analysts at Texas 2036, an Austin-based think tank that focuses on long-range issues, said they are encouraged state leaders appear to understand the critical need to invest in water.
“Water infrastructure is one of the number one things that Texans are really concerned about,” Wat said. “Texas needs a dedicated revenue stream to continue to have stable infrastructure being built out and water supply coming in as well.”
From drug prices to mental health, Medicaid state contracts to health insurance, tackling the health challenges of Texans is one of the biggest tasks facing lawmakers this session.
State leaders have directed legislators to look into giving Texans in underserved areas better access to health care and ending the closures of rural hospitals struggling under rising costs.
They have also taken testimony on the availability and potential expansion of children’s mental health services, including increasing funding for school-based programs, boosting Medicaid reimbursements for physicians, finding ways to make it easier for employers to offer insurance, and strengthening measures to reduce fraud and waste.
Legislative support for casino gambling and mobile sports betting increased during the 2023 legislative session but ultimately fell short.
A coalition that includes Miriam Adelson, who is majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks and the owner of Las Vegas Sands, continues to push for an expansion of gaming. Adelson’s Sands corporation pushed a bill last session that would have resulted in several casinos in Texas, including one in Dallas.
Despite high-profile support, the fate of casino gambling and sports betting rests with Patrick and the Senate.
Patrick has repeatedly said expanding gambling is not possible because it lacks GOP support in the Senate. Patrick has not discussed his personal views on casino gambling or sports betting.
He has said he won’t advance Senate bills that have more support from Democrats than Republicans, which would essentially block a gambling bill from reaching the Senate floor.
In the early weeks of 2021′s legislative session, a strong winter storm strained the state’s power grid, and more than 200 Texans died. Since then, the grid has remained a significant priority for Texas lawmakers.
In 2023, lawmakers focused on using taxpayer money to encourage companies to build natural gas power plants to increase on-demand electricity production in Texas as weather-dependent wind and solar power has boomed.
Lawmakers could continue this trend in 2025 by adding more cash to the Texas Energy Fund that Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott have endorsed. Abbott recently reinforced his desire for more natural gas incentives.
“We need to make sure that we continue to add more power to our grid so that the power will stay on for every home and for every business,” Abbott said. “And that’s why, once again, when we go into this next session, we’ll be asking for more money to generate more dispatchable power in the state of Texas.”
Also, look for GOP lawmakers to create regulatory hurdles or fees to slow renewable energy development. Several Republicans have filed bills that would do just that.
President-elect Donald Trump’s win in November — and his pledge to reduce illegal immigration — could tamp down the issue’s prominence during the upcoming session.
Before the presidential election, Abbott pushed for another $2.9 billion for Operation Lone Star, his immigration enforcement initiative that has fortified the Texas-Mexico border with razor wire, Texas National Guard troops and DPS troopers while busing more than 100,000 migrants to cities outside Texas.
It has cost Texas taxpayers at least $10 billion so far.
Beyond funding, Republicans could try again to create a state-run border patrol. GOP lawmakers have already filed bills that, among other things, would prohibit undocumented immigrants from receiving in-state tuition at public universities, require Texans to submit proof of citizenship when registering to vote and create a database with the fingerprints of undocumented children who have been detained by state forces.
ProPublica reported three instances in which pregnant Texas women have died since the state’s strict abortion ban went into effect in 2022, despite an exception for life-threatening conditions. Medical experts said the deaths were preventable.
Democrats, who are in the minority of the House and Senate, have filed bills to expand or better define exceptions to the state’s ban on abortions.
Republicans have filed legislation to further restrict the procedure. A bill by state Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, would prohibit the online sale or distribution of an abortion-inducing drug absent a Texas physician’s prescription after an in-person medical examination.
Another proposal, from Rep. Steve Toth, R-Conroe, would create a civil liability for distributing abortion-inducing drugs and make it a felony to knowingly pay or reimburse someone for costs associated with an abortion.
Staff writers Gromer Jeffers Jr. and Nolan D. McCaskill contributed to this report.
Karen Brooks Harper has covered Texas politics in and out of Austin for nearly 30 years. She's also covered the cartel wars along the TX-MX border, Congress in Mexico City, and 6 hurricanes, among other stories. Raised on blues and great food in the MS Delta, she lives in ATX with her family, her guitar, and her boxing gloves. In that order.
Talia is a reporter for The Dallas Morning News Education Lab. A Dallas native, she attended Richardson High School and graduated from the University of Maryland. She previously covered schools and City Hall for The Baltimore Sun.
Philip Jankowski has covered government, politics and criminal justice in Texas for 13 years. He previously worked for the Austin American-Statesman, the Killeen Daily Herald and the Taylor Press. Philip is a graduate of the University of Texas-Austin.
