Tax Relief and Grid Bills Run Out of Time
as Public Distracted by AG Impeachment
Capitol Inside
May 28, 2023
The GOP leadership's highest priorities are getting diluted or dying on the eve of the regular session's expiration at a Texas Capitol where Attorney General Ken Paxton's impeachment on Saturday in the House provided an unprecedented distraction from a Legislature that has almost nothing to show for itself up to now.
Texas House and Senate conference committees failed to reach deals on property tax relief and the electric grid by a midnight deadline on Saturday when lawmakers approved a record state spending plan as their only major accomplishment in a session that adjourns on Monday after 140 days.
The House voted 124-22 to adopt a conference committee report on a $321 billion appropriations bill on Saturday after impeaching Paxton in a 121-23 tally for an array of corruption charges in a move that removed him from office until the Senate reaches a final verdict in the historic case.
While falling short on the most critical issues facing the Lone Star State, the GOP-controlled Legislature has fared better on measures that are designed as red meat for the conservative base and will have no effect on the lives of most Texans. Lawmakers are sending watered-down bills to Governor Greg Abbott on hot-button issues such as school porn and college tenure after final votes in the past two days.
The House and Senate appear poised to vote on Sunday on the ratification of conference reports on bills that take aim at drag shows, local covid mandates, election fraud and diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education hiring and recruiting. Most if not all of those began with Senate proposals that were scaled-back dramatically in the House.
Private school vouchers had been the highest-profile flop so far in 2023 until GOP leaders and lawmakers allowed negotiations on tax reduction and the grid fizzle without agreements before time ran out late last night. The Senate's last-ditch attempt to pass school choice in a teacher pay bill prompted GOP Speaker Dade Phelan to appoint a conference committee with three rural Republicans and a Democrat who are vouchers foes.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has vowed to force a special session if the House did not abandon its stubborn opposition to vouchers. Abbott has also threatened to summon lawmakers back to Austin in the absence of a school choice bill. But the state's top two leaders had promised to have the Legislature approve a vouchers measure in the regular session - and they will have to a much better sales job in a special session than they performed in the biennial gathering that's on the verge of shutting down.
Despite the conservative agenda's collapse and the failure of proposals that actually affect the lives of all Texans like taxes and electricity, Republican lawmakers have demonstrated that transgender children and families are no match for them in the legislative arena. They have shots for final votes on Sunday on conference committee reports on drag shows after already passing bills that will ban gender-affirming medical care and transgender females in college sports where there are none in Texas.
more to come ... |
