Issues to fuss over as session nears close
The 2019 Texas Legislature ends on May 27, but between now and next week lawmakers are scrambling to pass or reject bills still pending after weeks of debate and hearings. Keep these seven issues top of mind in the final days.
Harvey relief takes top priority
Houston and its floodprone neighbors had no higher priority entering this session than a smart, wellfunded plan for Hurricane Harvey recovery. It looks like they will have it. The Texas House approved Thursday good changes to what had been a merely adequate Senate bill. The improved measure, still called SB 7, passed the House with a single nay vote. (Once again, Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, has embarrassed himself.) The changes are expected to be approved early this week. The bill spends more than $3 billion in rainy-day funds to help, and creates a vehicle for low-cost grants for other resilience work. The state money is an essential boost as area governments can use it as their “local match” to speed the flow of federal funds.
Santa Fe shootings pass without real reform
It’s unfair to call SB 11 — the Legislature’s response to the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting — anemic. After all, it’s a good bill dealing with more awareness and treatment of mental health issues in schools. The House should approve it. But after Gov. Greg Abbott’s forceful call to action in the aftermath of the violence that left eight students and two teachers dead, SB 11 is an inadequate answer to the question of school shootings. It limits all prevention measures to mental health, with no mention of the tools used to inflict the carnage. At a minimum, Abbott should have insisted that lawmakers pass his School and Firearm Safety Plan recommendations, including more responsible storage (the shooter’s guns belonged to his father), mandatory reporting of lost or stolen guns, and to allow judges to temporarily confiscate a person’s firearms if he or she is determined to be an immediate threat. SB 11 is an egregious missed opportunity to make Texans safer.
Rival school finance plans must be resolved
A conference committee is currently hammering out a compromise between the rival education funding bills proposed by the House and Senate. As we have written, the committee should accept the Senate’s more ambitious $12 billion proposal but recognize that the House version has better ideas on how to spend that money, such as local discretion on teacher raises, and how to calculate school funding. In other education matters, the House should approve SB 608 and SB 1659 , dealing with the management of the Permanent School Fund and composition of the School Land Board. A four-part Chronicle investigation published in March found the board invested billions of dollars with companies run by friends and business associates. The bills would allow for better management and more transparency of the board’s actions, ultimately benefiting Texas schools.
Bail reform boondoggle of Abbott’s making
Sen. John Whitmire, DHouston, had an ambitious plan to extend statewide many of the tenets of bail reform taking root in Houston and Dallas. Now the best he can hope for is to kill HB 2020. “I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill. We’ll try again next session,” Whitmire said. The culprit? The governor, who doesn’t have a vote but put his weight behind a phony reform bill that would make it harder for some defendants to be released at all. Abbott has refused to budge, so Whitmire says he’ll keep the bill bottled up until it’s too late. It’s a travesty because Abbott could have easily achieved his goals while also finding common ground with Whitmire. People locked up for no other reason than they can’t afford bail — a violation of their constitutional rights — needed a remedy. The session is ending without one. The only option now is more lawsuits.
Wins and losses on LGBTQ rights
It’s been a toss-up session for stronger civil rights protections for the LBGTQ community. In January, five members of the House formed the Legislature’s first LBGTQ caucus. By May, a promising HB 517 banning conversation therapy — the often cruel work of trying to get gay and bisexual kids to live as if they were straight — had been cast out. Then the caucus scored a win when it killed a House bill that would have barred state penalties against anyone, including state-licensed professionals, whose actions are taken in accordance with their religious beliefs. Gay rights allies worried that would allow discrimination against those in same-sex marriages. But it took no time at all for the Senate to pass a similar bill. As of Friday, SB 1978 was back in the House, before the House State Affairs Committee. Speaker Dennis Bonnen has predicted it will pass the House this time. We hope he’s wrong.
Lawmakers treat Texas cities like children
States’ rights? We hear that a lot from Texas lawmakers. Local rights? Forgetaboutit. In 2019, the Legislature has upped its animus toward municipalities across the state, all but declaring war against their lobbying organization, the Texas Municipal League. The warring school finance bills (see above), still being reconciled, would put tough new caps on local property tax rates. SB 1152, which lets cable and internet companies pay lower franchise fees, has passed both chambers and is likely to become law. It will cost Houston between $12 million and $24 million in the 2020 fiscal year. As of Friday, a House committee reported favorably SB 2486, which has already passed the Senate and would prevent cities from establishing paid sick leave policies. Why? Because Mother and Father in Austin know best.
Bill encourages churches to report abuse allegations
Stopping the vicious cycle of sexual abuse requires stopping the silence that often helps perpetuate it. That was one of the lessons of the Abuse of Faith series by the Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News, which found that hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers had been charged with sex crimes in the past two decades. In dozens of instances, church leaders apparently failed to disclose the allegations when the accused applied at new congregations. The Senate should follow the House in passing HB 4345 by Rep. Scott Sanford, R-McKinney. It would allow churches and other nonprofits to share former employees’ sexual abuse and misconduct allegations without risk of being sued. The bill, which also has the backing of Texas Catholic leaders, doesn’t do anything for victims but it’s a positive step in preventing new ones.