‘Unifying’ session brings reforms

School system to have major improvements with $4.5B invested; property taxes capped

AUSTIN — After decades of frustration, the Legislature finally has something to offer Texans who paid more and more in property taxes for a public school system that has fallen behind in teaching young children to read and in getting the older ones on track for college and careers.

Today, the gavel will fall on a legislative session in which lawmakers stepped away from divisive social wars (mostly) and instead invested the bulk of their energy on elusive school finance and tax reforms.

With $4.5 billion more invested in education, teachers can expect higher compensation. More children will have access to prekindergarten, an investment in improving fourth-grade reading scores in Texas, which now rank No. 46 in the nation. In addition, local governments will be limited on how much they can raise future property taxes after decades of annual increases up to 8 percent.

While those topics dominated the agenda, the Legislature made other changes to Texas life that people will feel.

The legal smoking age will climb to 21, emergency rooms will be barred from surprise medical bills to patients, red-light cameras will become a thing of the past and the state took baby steps in expanding the use of medical marijuana, though well short of where many other states are now.

Left on the cutting room floor were bills raising the state sales tax in order to cut property taxes more, election reforms that Democrats declared a form of vote suppression, criminal justice reforms to end the cash bail system and bills to reduce penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

A strong economy, a leadership shake-up in the House and a shocking 2018 election cycle that eroded

dominant Republican majorities in both the House and Senate all contributed to the mood, according to some of the most seasoned legislators. The devastation of Hurricane Harvey and two heartwrenching mass shootings also helped keep lawmakers focused on the big issues, they said.

There were high-profile stumbles, too. Republicans who are accustomed to calling the shots made unforced errors — one that will likely cost the secretary of State his job Monday and an embarrassing attempt by the top leadership for a tax swap that would have raised sales taxes in Texas to among the highest in the nation.

First, the Democrats opposed the tax swap, then the Republicans followed suit. Three days after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared the effort was on the 5-yard line, it was dead. Instead, lawmakers decided to bet more heavily than ever on a booming Texas economy, hoping it will provide more than $13 billion in 2021 to keep funding their reforms.

Nevertheless, gone were debates over bathroom bills and immigration that overwhelmed the last legislative session, in 2017, and created a toxicity that worked against both property tax reforms and school finance reforms. While there were undoubtedly moments that Republicans tried sneak attacks with social agenda items, state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, said it was clear that the temperature of the Legislature was very different than in past sessions, giving room to work on weighty policy reforms.

“There were flare-ups, but they were few and far between,” he said.

Instead, the priority was clear from the start, said state Sen. Jane Nelson, a Republican from Denton County who has been in the Legislature since 1993.

“We came into this session trying to accomplish something that I had never in my 26 years seen accomplished,” said Nelson, a former schoolteacher.

It’s not because past Legislatures haven’t wanted to invest more in schools and cap local property tax increases. “The planets aligned this time,” she said. “We’re addressing education in a way that I’ve never seen.”

‘The big picture’

Don’t underestimate the effect of the pain of Hurricane Harvey, Santa Fe and Sutherland Springs, said state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, a Republican from Brenham. The anguish of those events set a tone early that had lawmakers working together with a different kind of unity that spilled into the debates about school finance reform and property tax reform. This time, the Legislature approved the school finance reform bill without a single dissenting vote in the House or the Senate.

“The response to Harvey combined with school finance and property taxes drove this session,” Kolkhorst said.

One Harvey lesson is that after the disaster, local governments need help pulling together matching funds to qualify for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Under Senate Bill 7, the state would use money from its Economic Stabilization Fund to help with local matches.

Under another bill authored by Kolkhorst, the state will set up standard contracting forms for local governments to use to bring in debris removal companies after hurricanes, plus provide more disaster training for local governments.

“We’re going to be better prepared for future storms,” said state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe.

For a time, several of those post-Harvey bills were in jeopardy for mostly political reasons, but going into Monday, most of those bills had cleared the Legislature and are headed to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature, which would make them law.

Texas had gone through so much since the last legislative session — Harvey struck in the fall of 2017; less than three months later, 26 people died in a mass shooting at Sutherland Springs’ First Baptist Church. Then came the mass shooting at Santa Fe High School last May, which killed 10 people.

“It’s been incredibly difficult,” said state Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, of preparing for the session with those issues while also tackling school finance reform and property taxes.

But like Kolkhorst, he said those moments likely brought a collective focus for the Legislature that helped on other issues.

“This really has been a very unifying session where we knew what everybody wanted to deal with the big picture,” Taylor said.

The property tax reforms have been another long-term venture that has mostly produced frustration in Texas. Patrick and state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, recalled busing to Austin in the early 2000s to call for property tax reforms when Patrick was a conservative talk show host. Patrick said the ill treatment he and others got back then still burns him up and has been part of his motivation to finally get tighter caps placed on the ability of local governments to raise taxes.

“I don’t know if I ever thought this day would come,” Patrick told the Senate as Senate Bill 2 passed on Saturday.

That bill bars cities and counties from raising local property revenue collections more than 3.5 percent from one year to the next without a vote of the public. The limit is 2.5 percent for school districts.

Currently, local governments can go to 8 percent before voters can petition for a rollback election.

2020 elections loom

Whitmire said a big reason Republicans had to refocus this year away from social issues is because of the 2018 election cycle. Not only did Republicans see their majorities cut in both the House and the Senate, but statewide, Republicans suddenly had much narrower victories.

Republicans now hold an 83-67 advantage in the House, and a 19-12 majority in the Senate. While Republicans still hold control, Democrats have made their presence felt.

Whitmire watched Republicans scramble to boost teacher pay and expand pre-K — two issues Democrats have long championed, which the GOP has suddenly realized can help them in 2020.

Democrats chalked up other wins. In the House, they killed a set of election reforms that they viewed as a new effort to suppress the vote. Senate Bill 9 could have put more restrictions for those who take non-relatives to the polls to help them vote and would have threatened voter registration mistakes with jail time.

In the Senate, Democrats have held firm in opposing the confirmation of David Whitley as the secretary of state.

Whitley, who was appointed in December but needs a confirmation vote from the Senate, led a voter purge in January that targeted 95,000 registered voters suspected of being noncitizens.

But that data was filled with errors that produced a lawsuit from civil rights group. Eventually, the state settled and Whitley agreed to end the purge.

To be confirmed, Whitley needs two-thirds of the Senate to back him, meaning at least two Democrats would have to break ranks and back him. But Democrats have held firm against Whitley, saying his actions are too egregious to leave him in charge of voting in the state of Texas. The purge was a three-year project that Whitley launched just two weeks into the session. If he had waited a few more months, he likely would have sailed through confirmation hearings.

“This session more than other sessions, the Democratic caucus has stuck together more. We’ve communicated a lot better,” said Senate Democratic Leader José Rodríguez of El Paso. “I think the midterm elections may have had something to do with the caucus being much more united.”