GOP debate delays bail bill
House panel divided on charitable groups
A Texas House committee controlled by Republicans held off on advancing their party’s priority bail reform bill after a four-hour hearing Saturday, during which lawmakers from both parties took aim at a provision that would bar most charitable organizations from posting bail for certain defendants.
The news came as a pleasant surprise to opponents who expected the controversial measure to advance after state Rep. Trent Ashby, a Lufkin Republican in charge of the committee, announced at the outset of the hearing that he would call for a vote before adjourning.
Reversing course hours later, Ashby said the committee would probably consider the bill at its Monday hearing on unrelated legislation, citing the need for lawmakers to address issues raised during public testimony Saturday. He did not say how lawmakers might amend the 35-page bill, though a majority of committee members — including two Republicans who voted to advance prior versions — appear to oppose the restrictions on charitable bail organizations.
“What difference does it make where the money comes from?” said state Rep. Charlie Geren, RFort Worth. “If this is a way just to pay the bail bondsmen, let’s just say it.”
While Geren and state Rep. Travis Clardy, R-Nacogdoches, expressed newfound criticism of that portion of the bill, Saturday’s hearing otherwise closely resembled one held six weeks ago, when the same committee advanced an earlier iteration of the measure on a party-line vote.
Those who support the bill, most of whom are Republicans, continued to argue that the measure would crack down on the growing number of defendants charged with new felonies and misdemeanors while out on bond — a tally that has tripled in Harris County since 2015 — by limiting the opportunity for defendants to be released on no-cost personal bonds and giving judges more information about a defendant’s criminal history when setting bail.
The mostly Democratic opponents of the bill also rehashed their argument that the limits on no- and low-cost bonds would do nothing to curtail violent crime, with some pointing to a Houston Chronicle analysis that found most people accused of murder
while out on bond in Harris County had secured their release by paying bail — a circumstance not directly addressed in the bill. They also say the proposed restrictions on personal bonds are overly expansive and would further overcrowd Texas jails, exacerbating an already massive backlog of cases that they say is mostly what’s driving the problem.
State Rep. Reggie Smith, RSherman, argued the bill would reduce court backlogs, contrary to claims from Democrats on the committee, and touted a provision of the bill that would provide judges with more information about a defendant’s criminal history when setting bail conditions, including whether the defendant had previously failed to appear in court after being released on bail.
Smith also noted that while the bill still bars charitable bail groups from posting bail for defendants changed with a violent offense, it has a narrower limit for those awaiting trial for a nonviolent offense who have been previously convicted of a violent crime. While a prior version of the bill prevented the groups from posting bail for someone convicted of a violent crime at any point, the latest version only considers convictions within the last 10 years.
Democrats have argued that the charitable bail section of the bill, particularly a provision that exempts religious groups from the ban, violates the clause of the U.S. Constitution that grants people “equal protection of the laws.” Clardy raised that concern Saturday, drawing agreement from Smith that the section needed some tweaking.
“This continues to deeply trouble me,” Clardy said. “Not just because there’s some patent unfairness to it, but I think it also walks us, potentially, into a constitutional challenge under an equal protection argument: ‘Why is this group of people, or charitable organizations and their money, treated differently than anybody else on the planet?’ ”
Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican from Beaumont, tweeted Saturday afternoon that the bill would undergo changes in the House. He expressed support for a series of tweets by Marc Levin, chief policy counsel for the think tank Council on Criminal Justice, that argued against the limits on nonprofit bail funds. Levin cited limited data that shows “defendants released through charitable bail funds succeed at high rates in returning to court & not being re-arrested.”
The pending changes set up a potential showdown over the restrictions on charitable bail organizations between the Republican-controlled House and Senate. State Sen. Joan Huffman, a Republican from Houston, first introduced those provisions as part of her bail bill in the spring. They were folded into the final version of the measure, before the bill died when Democrats walked out of the Capitol at the end of the session.
Saturday’s hearing saw the return of three Democrats on the committee — state Reps. Ann Johnson and Senfronia Thompson of Houston and John Bucy of Austin — who broke quorum for a second time in July, fleeing the state to again thwart the GOP’s priority elections bill and killing the rest of Gov. Greg Abbott’s special session agenda in the process.
As soon as that 30-day session ended, Abbott called another one and again placed bail reform at the top of the agenda, which he alone controls. The latest version of the bail proposal, Senate Bill 6, advanced swiftly through the upper chamber earlier this month and was revived in the House when enough Democrats returned to the Capitol on Thursday to resume business.
Though Republicans still have time to pass the bail bill and their other priorities this session, any further delays will leave them with little room for error to hit looming deadlines before the current session ends Sept. 5. In any case, Abbott could ask lawmakers to take up any failed bills once again when he reconvenes the Legislature for the next special session to redraw Texas’ political maps.
On Friday, the same House committee advanced a proposed
constitutional amendment that would expand the ability of judges to deny defendants bail, which the Texas Constitution only allows for those charged with capital murder or some repeat offenses. The amendment, which has already passed the Senate, requires the support of two-thirds of both chambers and the approval of voters in November.