The Boys Are Back in Town!

The Texas Legislature is back in town, with unique opportunities to address the State’s most pressing problems. Spoiler Alert: they probably won’t.

(Governor Greg Abbott outlines his vision for the future while Honor Guard members struggle to remain standing.)

Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. If you enjoy reading it, please let me know by 1) hitting the Like button at the bottom, 2) subscribing to this newsletter, and 3) recommending it to others. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

(The Texas Capitol on Inauguration Day 2023. )

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

         Now is the fun part of the Texas Legislature’s current session, if any part of it can be called “fun.” The Governor and Lieutenant Governor were inaugurated last week, with pomp and circumstance and a $3 million price tag. Groups with interests before the Lege and money to burn – realtors, chiropractors, chamber of commerce, highway contractors, and so forth – are hosting getting-to-know-you receptions for legislators and staffers every evening, sometimes two or three a night. For modestly paid legislative staffers and often-unpaid interns, this is a godsend. Free buffet, maybe a drink or two, and it’s off to the next reception or home to watch “The Bachelor.” (Or something. I have no idea.)

         Both chambers meet in session a couple days each week and pass resolutions commending a high school band’s UIL championship or lamenting the death of a well-known member of some community. Known as memorial resolutions, the latter are attended by great solemnity and respect in both chambers. Which begs a question: would a memorial resolution for the Dallas Cowboys be appropriate at this time?

The Taxonomy of Legislation

         This is a grotesque oversimplification, but I like to think there are three types of bills:

·      Housekeeping / Organization – These bills address the day-to-day management of state government: how to get a driver’s license, fees for using a state park, creating new courts, and the like. They are not on most Texans’ radars, but facilitate the smooth functioning of government. This is the biggest category, as might be expected.

·      Tackling the Big Problems – These are bills that seek to address major problems facing the State that are within the Legislature’s primary wheelhouses: education, transportation, criminal justice, social services. These bills cover school finance, education quality and accountability, reform of the juvenile justice system, transportation needs in a growing state, criminal justice and prison reform, etc.;

·      Grandstanding bills – The primary motivation for such bills is to highlight some ideological or political goal: e.g., resolutions to balance the federal budget (the Lege has no say in the federal budget), expansions or limitations on the right to vote, book bans.

         The problem, of course, is figuring out which issues and bills fit in which categories. For instance, Texas is now in the second decade of its War on Transgender People. In 2017 the Legislature was all apoplectic with the need to pass a so-called “bathroom bill,” requiring everyone using any “public” bathroom (schools, government buildings, private businesses) to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender as assigned at birth. Presumably, this would make the bathrooms of Texas safe for women who might be accosted or even assaulted by a dude who looks like a lady. The bill was a hot topic during the regular and a special session that year but did not pass.

         Now, there were surely legislators – especially Lite Guv and Self-Taught Bathroom Expert Dan Patrick – who thought this was a Big Problem, even though no one could agree on whether it ever actually happened. Others suspected it was Grandstanding, appealing to a small but noisy cadre and trying to advance political careers in advance of the 2018 general election. Who could tell?

         Over time, the Lege in its wisdom decided that the bathrooms of Texas were safe from the Transgenders, but not the competitive sports that molded our youth and taught them Moral Fiber and the American Way. Thus, the panic over transgender people in bathrooms morphed into panic over transgender teens participating in sports, and a bill prohibiting them from participating in sports finally passed in September of 2021.

         But I digress. My point is, every legislative session is a mélange of these types of issues. Most bills filed by most legislators are of the Housekeeping type, and rightly so. Typically, when these bills are filed, interest groups and advocates sit down and fine-tune them to make them more feasible and/or acceptable. Then, with any luck, they pass without much controversy. It’s a win-win: Representative Jones or Senator Martinez write about the bills in their post-session newsletters, and grateful industries and stakeholders do their business a little bit more efficiently. This is the Legislature doing its job.

         Of course, much of the legislators’ attention – and certainly the media’s – is on the Big Problem and Grandstanding bills. And so it will be this session. Here’s a few issues likely to hog attention this session:

The War on Transgender Texans

         I’ve already mentioned that War on Transgender People. One target this year is gender-affirming medical care for gender dysphoria, a clinical medical condition. You may recall that last year our Governor, bolstered by a sketchy Attorney General Opinion, ordered the child protection agency to investigate any instances of gender-affirming care as possible child abuse. Well, the courts shut that down in expedient fashion, but the Governor did not care since he’d won his primary election by then.

         Now that the boys are back in town, the friendly folks at Equality Texas have identified 13 bills (and counting) to criminalize gender-affirming care. They’ve also highlighted 32 bills (and counting) to limit or prohibit mention of anything other than cisgender heterosexuality in our schools and libraries. 

School Finance

         Speaking of schools, public education funding will again be at the top of the agenda, in three ways. First, education advocates, frustrated with the failure of the current attendance-based funding allotments during the pandemic, want to shift to enrollment-based formulas that better meet the challenges schools face.

         Also, educators are eyeing the State’s eye-popping $50 billion surplus as a way to address underpaid teachers, needed technology upgrades and aging facilities. Unfortunately, the state’s leadership seems convinced the best educational use of the surplus is to provide one-time property tax relief.

         And finally, like Bela Lugosi crashing the movie Groundhog Day, vouchers are back, this time euphemized as “parental choice.” Voucher bills typically meet their death from a coalition of urban Democrats and rural Republicans, but voucher advocates think there should be enough surplus money to go around to, uhh, persuade otherwise recalcitrant rural legislators. 

         And, of course,

Chinese Communists Secretly Buying Farmland

         Senator Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) has filed a bill making it illegal for any person or business from China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia to buy any real estate in Texas. I swear I am not making this up; they don’t call her “Lo-Ko” around the Capitol for nothing. And Gov. Greg Abbott, terrified of the Red Menace, by which I mean Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has indicated he will sign the bill if it passes.

         Texas legislators are also looking at gun safety in the wake of the horrific Uvalde Massacre last May and during a month in which there have already been 39 mass shootings in the country. Ha ha, just kidding!

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         It’s still early, though. Legislators can file bills until mid-March.  Committee hearings, where the real work gets done, have not yet begun, although Senate committee appointments were announced yesterday.

         In the meantime, the receptions at the AT&T Center and the expensive lobby-paid dinners at the Austin Land & Cattle Company will continue. Bon appetit!