House Gives Initial Nods to First Four Bills
Amid Opposition from Same Conservatives
Capitol Inside
April 1, 2025
The Texas House overrode objections from conservatives on Tuesday when it gave preliminary approval to four bills on Tuesday including a sales tax break for exotic and game animals in a move that failed in Oklahoma twice during the past two years.
The House also approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit the imposition of taxes on selective securities transactions in a joint resolution that 27 Democrats and four Republicans opposed and 111 colleagues voted to put on the ballot for a statewide election this fall.
In the first action on legislation on the floor in a regular session that crossed the midway point last week, the House gave tentative nods to a pair of bills that are designed to prevent wildfires by improving emergency communications and increasing state oversight over electrical equipment at oil and gas well sites and surface facilities. A fourth bill that gained tentative approval in the Capitol's west wing today would require the establishment of property tax databases for the sake of public transparency.
Eleven GOP members voted against all four of the bills that cleared initial votes on Tuesday. Eight rookie Republicans - State Reps. Janis Holt of Silsbee, Andy Hopper of Decatur, Mitch Little of Lewisville, David Lowe of Fort Worth, Shelley Luther of Tom Bean, Brent Money of Greenville, Mike Olcott of Aledo and Keresha Richardson of McKinney - cast votes against the first four bills that the House considered on the floor in their debuts.
The Republicans who voted against all four measures included State Reps. Brian Harrison of Midlothian, Nate Schatzline of Fort Worth and Tony Tinderholt of Arlington. Harrison has been the face of the far right on the west side of the rotunda so far in his second regular session. Schatzline is a second-term representative while Tinderholt has been a member of the Legislature's lower chamber since 2015. GOP State Reps. Briscoe Cain of Deer Park and Steve Toth of Conroe voted against three of the four bills in question.
Conservative Republicans accounted for all of the opposing votes on the bills that GOP State Rep. Ken King of Canadian sponsored as a way to reduce the risk that wildfires pose in a state that's had a record number in recent years. The King proposals in House Bill 13 and House Bill 143 won preliminary nods on votes of 129-18 and 130-16 respectively.
State Rep. Terry Meza of Irving was the only Democrat voting no on the ad valorem tax data dissemination proposal that won initial approval in House Bill 195 with second-term Democratic State Rep. Mihaela Plesa of Dallas as the lead author.
With veteran Republican State Rep. Angie Chen Button of Garland as chief author, the sales tax exemption proposal for wild game and exotic animals passed the first hurdle on a vote of 126-21 in House Bill 135. But HB 135 encountered opposition from an odd alliance that featured 13 Republicans and eight Democrats.
A similar proposal in Oklahoma died in a Senate committee in 2023 and 2024 after lawmakers there learned that it would cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
But the Legislative Budget Board's review of HB 135 indicated that it would have "no significant fiscal impact" on the state of Texas because it would be included under the broader umbrella of agricultural land use breaks instead of creating a new exemption.
Some of the Republicans and Democrats who voted against the measure may have found it hard to believe that the exemption of anything of value from sales taxes would have an effect on the taxation base that was indiscernible.
more to come ...
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