AUSTIN — A last-minute rescue of some high profile bills late Sunday reduced chances that Gov. Greg Abbott would instantly summon lawmakers back into a special session, though his emergency items of property tax relief and “education freedom” haven’t been acted on.
Impasses between the Senate and House on power grid sustainability and corporate property tax subsidies eased with hasty passage of compromises just before the 11th hour.
Bills on bail and the border, which Abbott also declared as emergencies, did not cross the finish line.
Those failures, along with blockades on the Republican governor’s priorities of cutting school property taxes and creating education savings accounts, whetted speculation he might call a special session as soon as Tuesday.
Whether an overtime session loomed immediately, or not until later in the year, Texas’ part-time legislators would have to return to Austin to iron out the governor’s priorities that failed to pass.
“There’s a lot of talk about it,” said Rockwall GOP Rep. Justin Holland, who helped usher through some power grid compromises at the last minute.
“I just hear rumors like you do,” said Rep. Hugh Shine, a Temple Republican who played a key role in end-of-session haggling over an economic development measure that’s a pet bill of Abbott.
Houston Democratic Rep. Armando Walle tweeted an automobile GIF about how he might return home late Monday, only “to swang a U-turn on I-10.”
On Sunday, Abbott was mum on whether he would call a special session. His office did not respond to a request for comment.
Abbott priorities that were poised to fail late Sunday include property tax relief and a bill to secure taxpayer funds that families can use for private schooling.
Other major bills that appeared dead as the session wound down toward its final day Monday included bills creating criminal offenses for illegal border crossings and a new border force, and tightening cash-bail policies. However, some last-minute negotiations revived the bills that would create a low-interest loan program for natural gas power generators and the corporate tax break program.
Prospects of legislative carnage left members of the Senate and House pointing fingers at each other over numerous failures to reach compromise.
Shine, a veteran Bell County lawmaker, said he spent months mediating talks among manufacturers, oil and gas, the chemical industry, chambers of commerce, school interest groups, tea party activists and skeptical liberals about an acceptable replacement for the “Chapter 313″ tax break program that expired.
“When it got to the Senate, they saw how important it was to us,” he said, referring to House leaders, including Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont.
Phelan’s southeast Texas district includes major petrochemical installations and other capital-intensive employers, many of whom benefited from the expired program’s massive school property tax abatements.
“Then they [senators] found out it was important to the governor,” Shine recounted. “And all of a sudden, it became a hostage piece.”
What emerged was a “scaled down” version of the corporate tax break program, that Corpus Christi GOP Rep. Todd Hunter said was a bipartisan effort.
Spokesmen for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. Charles Schwertner, who was chief author of the Senate’s economic development bill, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Power grid
Legislators revived a bill that would use taxpayer money to seed a low-interest loan program for the developers of natural gas power plants.
Patrick, the Senate’s presiding officer who for months has demanded rapid moves to bring more natural gas-fired electricity generators online, has said he would force a special session if legislation was not passed that provides more assurances the grid won’t fail again.
Lawmakers had until midnight Sunday to approve compromises, which at that late stage of the session required two-thirds votes to suspend 24-hour layout rules.
Under pressure, the chambers also came together on one piece of grid legislation.
A bill that continues operations at the state’s power grid operator ERCOT and the grid’s regulator, the Public Utility Commission, won approval from both chambers Sunday after Senate negotiators glommed on several pieces of legislation that failed to advance in the House.
Those included a $1 billion market cap on the redesign of Texas’ wholesale electricity market underway at the PUC and rules that could add reliability costs to wind and solar energy.
“With some of these things getting negotiated here at the end, it might be avoided,” Holland said of a special session. “The governor would have to tell you that. I’ve heard him say that he would bring us back immediately if certain things didn’t happen. But [revival of the PUC bill] certainly was one thing that lessened that chance.”
Some proposals that would have made it harder to develop renewable energy projects in Texas were taken out in a compromise between the chambers, specifically a change from Brenham Republican Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, which would have created permitting rules for wind and solar farms that was reviled by the industry.
‘School choice’
Abbott, who this year joined Patrick in making education savings accounts a top priority, has threatened to call a special session on what he calls “education freedom” and supporters of traditional public schools decry as yet another school vouchers push.
Late Saturday, a wide-ranging education finance proposal that tied education savings accounts to teacher pay raises and more money for public schools was proclaimed dead by Canadian GOP Rep. Ken King, a leading opponent of school choice measures.
It’s unclear whether Abbott would add the ESAs to a snap special session’s agenda — or postpone a decision on that.
Rep. Harold Dutton, a Houston Democrat who has helped write House education policy for years, noted that school districts are preparing their budgets this summer.
Any funding for teacher pay raises would need to be acted on immediately if it’s to take effect this fall, he said.
“We need to have an up or down vote on ESAs,” Dutton said. “The governor is trying to make it a poison pill for everything” lawmakers want to do on teacher compensation and school funding formulas.
“He’s trying to do something where he can say he has the largest ESAs in the country,” Dutton said.
Abbott should focus on Texas, he said.
Property taxes
Property tax relief is another unresolved issue important to Republicans.
The House insisted on its plan to tighten appraisal caps, which Patrick rejected as “bad math,” a measure not needed because of limits the Legislature has imposed recently on local governments’ harvesting more property-tax revenue.
Phelan, though, held his ground.
Abbott has not weighed in on details. In his February State of the State speech, he promised to deliver “the largest property tax cut in the history of Texas.”
The newly passed state budget includes $12.3 billion for new property tax cuts and $5.3 billion to continue cutting school property tax rates. That’s required under a 2019 school finance and tax relief bill.
Meanwhile, here’s where other key proposals were heading as the midnight deadline neared:
*Lawmakers sent Abbott a bill that included more money for school safety and a provision requiring armed school staff at each public school campus.
*A proposal essentially banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at Texas public colleges and universities is also headed to the governor.
*A border security bill prioritized by GOP leadership that was a last-gasp effort at creating a new policing unit along the border died after negotiations on differences in the proposal failed, the bill’s author, GOP Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, said.
*The House and Senate agreed to give low-income mothers a year of health insurance after they’ve given birth. Currently, Medicaid covers only 60 days. Health care advocates say a full year of comprehensive health care is critical to keep new mothers healthy and avoid maternal deaths.
