Last year, after the Legislative Session started, I noticed that everyone and their mother had Legislative Priorities. Government agencies, legislators, non-profit organizations, think tanks, thought leaders, and influencers all had lists of what they wanted passed in the 89th Legislative Session.
So I started thinking, if the Texas Public Policy Foundation (fascists) gets a list, and neo-nazis get a list that includes “parental rights,” why don’t I? While I’m not a lobbyist or a PAC, I do have thousands of readers who are ready for the new Democratic government to work for them.
So, here are Lone Star Left’s legislative priorities, the progressive wish list for 2027.
I’ve broken it up into three sections. One: the things Gina Hinojosa can do as soon as she’s sworn in. Two: Things that need to pass through the Legislative majority. Three: Things that need a constitutional amendment or a two-thirds vote in the Legislature. Let’s get into it.
Things the Governor can push in January.
Governor-elect Hinojosa can do all of these through emergency items, appointments, line-item vetoes, executive orders, or her control of the National Guard.
Immigration.
End Abbott’s disaster declaration, under which Operation Lone Star operates.
Withdraw the National Guard from the border.
Line-item veto future funding for Operation Lone Star or border walls.
Democracy.
Appoint a new Secretary of State.
Energy and environment.
Remove old Public Utility Commission commissioners and appoint new ones.
Appoint a new TCEQ commissioner.
Appoint a new Texas Water Development Board.
Healthcare.
Make Medicaid expansion an emergency item.
Economic justice.
Set conditions on the Texas Enterprise Fund and other incentive deals controlled by the Governor’s office.
Issue executive orders on worker heat safety at state agencies and among state contractors.
Taxes and corporate accountability.
Tighten review of JETI tax abatement deals approved by the Governor’s office.
Civil rights.
Rescind Abbott’s executive orders on DEI.
Issue nondiscrimination orders covering state agency employment.
What bills should the Legislature push in the 90th Session?
Of course, we’re going into this knowing the Senate will be a challenge, but we can probably still get several of these things through with enough compromise.
Immigration.
Repeal SB 4 (2023), the state illegal-entry crime.
Repeal SB 4 (2017), the sanctuary city ban.
Repeal the 287(g) mandate for sheriffs.
Defund Operation Lone Star and the border wall in the budget.
Restore in-state tuition for undocumented students.
Driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status
Wage theft protections for immigrant workers
Local control.
Repeal HB 2127 (2023), the Death Star law.
Repeal the state ban on local rent control.
Repeal the ban on local source-of-income housing protections.
Repeal the state’s preemption of local tree ordinances, plastic bag rules, and similar measures.
Democracy.
Repeal SB 1 (2021).
Online voter registration
Same-day registration
Restore voting rights for people on parole and probation.
Authorize ranked-choice voting.
Campaign contribution limits
Dark money and lobbying disclosure
Restore countywide drop boxes and 24-hour voting.
Dark money and lobbying disclosure, including paid influencers.
Civil rights.
Repeal SB 17 (2023), the DEI ban at public universities.
Repeal SB 10 (2025), the Ten Commandments mandate.
Repeal SB 14 (2023), the ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Repeal SB 15 (2023) and HB 25 (2021), the bans on trans athletes in college and K-12 sports.
Repeal SB 12 (2023), the drag law.
Repeal SB 12 (2025), the K-12 DEI and student club ban.
Repeal HB 229 (2025), the binary definition of sex in state law.
A statewide nondiscrimination law covering employment, housing, and public accommodations
Expand the HUB program for state contracting.
Fund the Medicaid disability waiver waitlist and accessibility mandates.
State recognition of tribes and protection of sacred sites.
Criminal justice.
Abolish the death penalty.
Legalize marijuana.
Raise the age of adult prosecution to 18.
Limit solitary confinement.
Fund prison air conditioning in the budget.
Police accountability: a duty to intervene, chokehold bans, reforming the officer discipline arbitration in Chapter 143, and TCOLE licensing reform
Ban private prisons.
Wrongful conviction compensation.
Reentry measures: fair-chance hiring and record sealing.
Statutory bail reform SB 9 (2025).
Education.
Repeal SB 2 (2025), the vouchers, or defund them in the budget.
Repeal SB 763 (2023), school chaplains.
Repeal HB 900 (2023), the READER Act.
Repeal SB 13 (2025), the library book removal law.
Repeal SB 3 (2021, second special session), the “critical race theory” curriculum law.
Raise the basic allotment in the school finance formula.
Teacher pay raises beyond HB 2 (2025)
Charter school accountability and moratoriums on expansion.
Re-regulate tuition, which the Legislature deregulated in 2003.
Ethnic studies mandates.
Universal full-day pre-K, which expands the 2019 HB 3 mandate.
Economic justice.
Raise the minimum wage above the federal floor.
End the subminimum wage for tipped workers.
Paid family and medical leave.
Universal childcare funding.
Payday lending reform: cap fees and close the credit services organization loophole.
Statewide heat protections for workers.
Repeal the ban on public-sector collective bargaining (Gov. Code ch. 617).
Repeal right-to-work.
Fund Summer EBT and school meals.
Guaranteed income pilots.
A public bank.
Modernize unemployment insurance.
Corporate accountability.
Insurance rate reform: switch from “file-and-use” to prior approval of rates.
Revolving-door restrictions for legislators and agency staff.
Workplace safety enforcement.
Taxes.
Repeal or tighten HB 5 (2023), the JETI abatement program.
Require disclosure of commercial property sale prices.
Franchise tax reform.
Raise the severance tax.
School tax compression through the school finance formula
Address unfunded mandates.
Energy and environment.
ERCOT market reform, weatherization requirements, and energy efficiency goals, all through the Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA).
Utility rate reform, also through PURA.
Renewable energy and storage incentives.
TCEQ reform: cumulative-impact permitting and stronger enforcement.
Methane and flaring limits.
Funding to plug orphan wells.
Restructure the Railroad Commission’s duties. Its existence is constitutional, but its duties are set by statute.
Grid cost-sharing rules for data centers.
Flood and climate resilience funding.
Healthcare.
Medicaid expansion, which needs both a statute and appropriations.
Repeal the abortion bans: HB 1280 (2021), the trigger law; SB 8 (2021), the bounty law; the pre-Roe statutes; and HB 7 (2025, second special Session), the abortion pill law.
A statutory right to contraception.
Extend postpartum Medicaid.
Fund maternal mortality programs.
Mental health and substance use funding.
Cap prescription drug costs, including insulin.
Raise Medicaid rates paid to rural hospitals.
A public option.
Housing.
Repeal HB 1925 (2021), the statewide camping ban.
Right to counsel in evictions and longer notice periods before eviction.
Regulate corporate and investor landlords.
HOA reform.
Fund affordable housing development.
Colonias infrastructure.
Gun safety.
Repeal HB 1927 (2021), permitless carry.
Raise the purchase age to 21 for semi-automatic rifles.
Red flag orders.
Safe storage requirements.
Universal background checks.
Ethics and transparency
Close Public Information Act loopholes.
Give the Texas Ethics Commission enforcement teeth.
Privacy and surveillance
Strengthen the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act.
Regulate license plate readers.
Shield reproductive health data from use in prosecutions.
Confederate Statues
Repeal Confederate Heroes Day (Gov. Code §662.003).
Rename state highways that carry Confederate designations by statute.
Mandate Reconstruction and Juneteenth history in the curriculum.
Constitutional amendments.
These are most likely long-game items, since passing a constitutional amendment requires 2/3 of both the House and the Senate, and we have neither.
Taxes.
Repeal the personal income tax ban.
Undo the 2025 tax-ban amendments: bans on a capital gains tax, a securities transaction tax, and an inheritance tax. These were sold as “tax relief” and lock in tax policy that favors the wealthy.
Changing the homestead exemption and targeting relief to lower-value homes takes an amendment.
Restructure appraisal caps and senior tax freezes.
Change the Rainy Day Fund’s cap and permitted uses.
Democracy and voting.
Create an independent redistricting commission.
Create a citizen initiative and referendum process.
Move from biennial to annual sessions.
Raise legislator pay, now $7,200 a year. Right now, only wealthy people, retirees, or those backed by an employer can afford to serve.
Lower Senate confirmation threshold for appointees from two-thirds.
End partisan judicial elections.
Write an affirmative right to vote into the Constitution.
Address the 2025 citizenship-voting amendment. Noncitizens couldn’t vote before it either, so it changed nothing in practice.
Civil rights.
Repeal the same-sex marriage ban. Obergefell makes it unenforceable, but it would spring back if Obergefell falls.
Expand the state Equal Rights Amendment to cover sexual orientation and gender identity.
Remove the religious test in Art. I §4. It still disqualifies anyone who doesn’t “acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.”
Repeal or replace the 2025 parental rights amendment.
Criminal justice.
Undo the 2025 bail amendment, which requires denying bail for certain offenses.
Revise the existing denial-of-bail provisions in Art. I §11a and the related sections.
Education.
Constitutionally ban vouchers by prohibiting public money for private schools. Repealing SB 2 by statute can be reversed by the next Legislature; an amendment locks it in.
Strengthen the school finance mandate.
Expand Permanent University Fund eligibility beyond the UT and A&M systems.
Healthcare.
Add a constitutional right to reproductive freedom. This is the Michigan and Ohio model.
Add a right to health care.
Economic justice.
Add a constitutional right to collective bargaining. Illinois did it in 2022.
Add a constitutional minimum wage indexed to inflation.
Local control.
Strengthen home rule for cities against state preemption. This is the permanent fix for the Death Star law.
Give counties home rule. Texas counties have almost no power to pass ordinances.
Energy and environment.
Add a “Green Amendment”, a constitutional right to clean air and water. Pennsylvania and New York have one.
Replace the elected Railroad Commission with an appointed regulator.
Ethics.
Expand the Texas Ethics Commission’s powers and independence.
Three decades of one-party rule leave a lot of wreckage, and somebody has to write down what needs hauling off.
Will all of it pass? No. Some of it won’t get a committee hearing. A few Republican senators will clutch their pearls. The constitutional amendments need Republican votes, and we won’t have them this Session.
But here’s the thing about a list. The Texas Public Policy Foundation never apologized for theirs. They wrote down exactly what they wanted, handed it to their people in the Capitol, and spent years checking items off. Vouchers. The Death Star law. None of it was inevitable. Somebody wanted it badly enough to put it in writing.
So this is ours, in writing.
The 90th Session gavels in January 12. Hinojosa takes the oath a week later. The Session ends May 31, and the Governor has until late June to sign or veto. Then I’m pulling this list back out and grading every single item. Passed. Died in committee. Killed on the floor, and by whom. Names and vote counts.
Texans didn’t flip the Governor’s office so the new folks could spend 140 days being polite. Make them earn it.
January 12, 2027: The 90th Legislative Session begins.
Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.
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You forgot free school breakfast and lunch for every kid in Texas schools.
Off topic, but can you suggest where I might go to read about details of Republican efforts to change power of Lt Gov and other similar Republican shenanigans ?