393 Amendments And A Whole Lot Of BS
The Texas House is still solving problems no one has.
It will be a big week in the Texas House, as Thursday is budget day. At 9:00 a.m., House Representatives will report to the House floor, and the debate for SB1 will begin. The rules for the debate stipulated that all amendments had to be pre-filed by Monday. 393 amendments were filed.
It will be a long day and probably go late into the night. In 2023, the budget debate lasted until well after dark; in 2021, it lasted until almost 4:00 a.m. That year, the 87th Legislative Session took until the wee hours because ex-Rep. Bryan Slaton kept trying to add language to nearly every amendment regarding transgender children. Yeah.
Luckily, Slaton was expelled from the Texas House, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t be trying to hold up every amendment with some performative nonsense. My guess is Brian Harrison (R-HD10). A 15-hour day, with cameras constantly rolling? He won’t be able to resist.
Everyone wants something from the budget. This is often the place to get it done.
Like John Bucy’s (D-HD136) amendment to expand Medicaid coverage.
Or Lauren Ashley Simmon’s (D-HD146) amendment to redirect $2 billion from the Texas Energy Fund to public schools.
Or Ana-Maria Ramos’ (D-HD102) amendment to audit Operation Lone Star.
No one can say that Democrats, as the minority, aren’t trying to do what’s best for Texans. However, just a quick scan of the amendments offered by Republicans tells a different story.
Like Mitch Little’s (R-HD65) amendment, which would give Ken Paxton $63,000.
Or Katrina Pierson’s (R-HD33) amendment to defund the Infectious Disease Prevention, Epidemiology, and Surveillance program.
Or Nate Schatzline’s (R-HD93) amendment to ban teaching “gender modification procedures” at Texas colleges.
Thursday will be a long day.
While we prepare for that, the House will debate several bills today and tomorrow.
Today:
Tomorrow:
I’m not crazy about that tax exemption for spaceports, but it has bipartisan support, although it’s unlikely any progressives will support this bill.
The debate for HB10 happens today, I’ll have an update on it tomorrow, but this bill makes it easier to gut or delay necessary safeguards under the guise of “efficiency.” This bill will create more bureaucracy in the government’s office and put Abbott in charge of cutting regulations. This bill is pro-corporate and anti-regulation and directly attacks the administrative state. So, the debate should be interesting, although it will likely pass.
Two critical bills went through committees yesterday.
First, the Committee on Public Health took up HB44, the “Life of the Mother Act,” which clarifies and expands the medical exceptions under the state’s near-total abortion ban, especially in life-threatening situations.
Here is Republican Charlie Geren (R-HD99) laying out the bill:
Since the abortion ban, dozens of women in Texas have died because they weren’t being treated for pregnancy-related illnesses, miscarriages, and ectopic pregnancies.
You would think this was a straightforward bill, and no one out there would want more women to die. But nope, forced-pregnancy activists testified yesterday, saying Texas’ current law was sufficient.
Even though it’s a bipartisan, common-sense bill, we should expect to see some on the far-right side with the nutters.
Another bill I wanted to highlight yesterday was HB28, which bans all cannabis products, except for drinks, in Texas. It would regulate and tax cannabis beverages. This is the opposite direction we should be going under a free society.
During this hearing, former candidate for Agricultural Commissioner Susan Hays testified and really stole the show. She knows her stuff. I’d love to see Hays run again, for something. Check her out:
Another testimony I want to point to pissed me off.
Because Chief Steve D. is from Allen, Texas, the very same city where Marvin Scott III lost his life in 2021 after being arrested for marijuana possession. A young Black man was killed in custody, his death ruled a homicide, after Allen police arrested him for having two ounces of weed. He was 26 years old, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and reportedly used cannabis to self-medicate. He was pepper-sprayed, restrained, and had a spit hood placed over his head. He never made it out of the jail alive.
And yet, here we are, with the Allen Police Chief testifying in favor of even more criminalization, pushing for harsher enforcement, broader bans, and more authority to arrest people for cannabis-related products. Tone deaf doesn’t even begin to cover it.
It’s infuriating to watch law enforcement lobby for more power and more control over THC products when we’ve seen in their very own city the devastating consequences of over-policing cannabis. Marvin Scott III didn’t get a chance to testify.
So when the Allen Police Chief talks about protecting kids and cracking down on THC, remember Marvin. Remember that police in Allen couldn’t even safely process a non-violent marijuana arrest. Now they want more authority to arrest and seize without testing? Spare me.
We don’t need more bans and vague laws that punish users and pad law enforcement budgets. We need real accountability, and we need to stop criminalizing people for cannabis, especially in a state that already has blood on its hands.
A lot is moving at the Capitol this week, and it’s a full-blown ideological tug-of-war.
What we’re seeing right now isn’t just policymaking, it’s a reflection of what kind of state Texas wants to be, and who this government actually serves.
As always, I’ll be watching. I’ll have updates tomorrow on the HB10 debate, the full slate of bills for discussion, and any fireworks from the House floor. If you’re not already watching these committee hearings, I recommend it. Once you see who’s showing up and who’s not, who’s asking real questions and who’s performing for the cameras.
Stay tuned. More tomorrow.
April 22: Early Voting Begins
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May 3: Local and County Elections
June 2: The 89th Legislative Session ends.
June 3: The beginning of the 2026 election season.
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My two cents, we have too many people with off shore accounts to avoid taxation. It's like a game of keep-away of our vast wealth to create poor people who suffer trying to hold down two jobs just for food and shelter. The jobs are going to robotics while throngs of people go homeless.
And it's getting worse. We have some serious imbalance of hoarded wealth going on. The oligarchs could spend a million dollars a day and not run out of money if they lived 500 years! That's a capitalistic obscenity!
Have you seen Tom Cruise's "American Made"? That's just an illegal underground microcosm of wealth bubbling up in this economy. More money crosses the borders than people.
Tolerating poverty in this country is shortsighted and irresponsible. Shortchanging the services provided by the federal government is plain stupid.
The only thing positive to come out of this Musk mess is to open a national discussion of the services provided by our various government agencies. This also shines a light on the need to streamline and modernize them. Not privatization but reorganization.
You don't want the fire 🔥 departments checking to see if you are a paying customer before coming to your house when it's ablaze. Or when your child contacts measles! Or when a tsunami somewhere sends 40 foot high waves!
There are areas over which we rely for federal government protection. Food safety, is an area which has been highly compromised by Big Food, with more powerful lobbyists than all industries combined.
Our national longevity statistics have begun to drop due to metabolic syndrome illnesses shortening lives, another clear and present danger. How many friends have you lost in their prime of life?
This crosses the aisle in congress when representatives who avoid being accused of "nanny state," overturn vitally needed regulations in the incessant corporate demand for deregulation!
any mention of killer bees or fire ants?