Texas Senate passes school choice, immigration bill during late-night session

AUSTIN — In a chaotic afternoon that turned into a late night, the Texas Senate passed controversial education and border security bills, adding pressure on the House to also sign off on the proposals and send them to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

The Senate’s action caught many by surprise as three committees suddenly met and passed the bills with little public notice or testimony. In a room generally reserved for news conferences, senators and staff crowded around a podium to advance education bills and a border wall proposal.

Meanwhile, two members of the public managed to testify on a controversial border law at a hearing that happened at almost the same time.

The Senate passed four proposals — all requested by Abbott.

• Senate Bill 1 would create a $500 million education savings account program allowing parents to use taxpayer dollars to pay for private school tuition.
• Senate Bill 2 would give teachers pay raises.
• Senate Bill 3 would spend roughly $1.5 billion on constructing a wall on Texas’ border with Mexico.
• Senate Bill 4 would empower state and local police to enforce immigration law.

Lawmakers have remained under pressure from Abbott to send him a law that would allow public taxpayer dollars to be used for private school tuition. Abbott has spent tremendous political capital on the issue and called lawmakers back to Austin multiple times, but he has yet to see any version cross his desk.

Dozens of activists and Texans were already at the Capitol as House committees debated their own versions of the bills. But the hearings in the Senate were much different than those in the lower chamber.

Conroe Republican Sen. Brandon Creighton, author of the two education bills, said lawmakers decided to move at breakneck speed because they had already heard hours of discourse on the issues. He noted that the two bills he authored, Senate Bill 1 and Senate Bill 2, had been largely unchanged since the previous special session in which the proposals were hotly debated.

“We decided to make all of the committees today have sort of a concerted effort to have the hearings, get the member input and get back to the Senate floor,” Creighton said shortly after his bills were voted out of committees.

The rapid action in the Senate also occurred without the presence of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is recovering after being diagnosed with viral pneumonia. Senate president pro tempore Sen. Charles Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican, acted in Patrick’s stead.

Education bills pass

Senate Bill 1 would establish an education savings account, or ESA, program, which the Senate has previously backed on partisan lines.

However, a coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans in the House have repeatedly squashed the voucher-like effort over concerns it would siphon off money from the public schools that serve the majority of Texas children and into private schools that are not accountable to the state.

Creighton’s proposal would give families $8,000 to use each year on private school tuition or other related costs. Families that homeschool could get $1,000.

“Tonight, we’re empowering Texas students with more choices when it comes to education,” he said. “In doing this, students win, and when students win, Texas wins.”

Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, said the $500 million bill is a “fiscally irresponsible voucher plan” that is “unsustainable” and creates a two-tiered education system, “separate and unequal.”

“This legislation, unfortunately, members, it sells a dream without considering the consequences,” Miles said.

“If we start going down this path of using public resources to fund private schools, it’ll be the first step in a death of our public school education and our great state as we know it,” he added.

Although passage of a similar bill by the House is far from certain, Creighton sounded an optimistic tone and said that the chamber is getting closer to taking a vote in its public education committee.

“We’ll have to wait and see what their preferences are and, hopefully, we get to the table and negotiate,” he said.

In the House on Thursday, members debated a compromise proposal from Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, that combined the two Senate education priorities.

Buckley’s wide-ranging bill tackles various public school issues — such as boosting teacher pay and the basic allotment — alongside a bigger ESA proposal.

Senate Bill 1 on the ESAs passed 18-10. Senate Bill 2, which provides teacher pay raises, passed 27-1.

Border security bills

The longest and most intense debate of the night dealt with Lubbock GOP Sen. Charles Perry’s Senate Bill 4, allowing for state and local police to arrest migrants who are in Texas illegally. It also empowers state judges to order the migrants in the U.S. illegally to return to the country from which they entered.

“This is a response for Texas to do what it needs to do to protect the citizens under an imminent and undeniable threat that are currently faced by open borders,” Perry said.

The bill challenges the federal government’s power to enforce immigration laws. Democratic senators and one Republican said the proposal will lead to court challenges if it is signed into law.

Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, called the bill a “legal quagmire” as “unconstitutional as it is unconscionable.” And Sen. Brian Birdwell, a Granbury Republican who has been the author of similar bills in multiple sessions, surprisingly spoke against it.

“For present ease of messaging, we are creating a false expectation of a bill as a solution that is decidedly outside the bounds of the constitutional construct,” Birdwell said.

But Perry said repeatedly the bill does not violate articles of the Constitution that reserve the enforcement of immigration law for the federal government. But even if the law is deemed unconstitutional, he said he would sleep well at night knowing he had worked to shore up a border the Biden administration had abandoned.

“We are testing and pushing envelopes,” Perry said. “The state has every right to protect its citizens and this nation has every right to expect Texas to do that when called to do it. We will see who is right.”

The bill is similar to one passed by the House in the previous special session only to die in the Senate earlier this week.

The most contentious debate occurred between Perry and Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, who is an immigration attorney.

At times, Gutierrez pressed Perry on how the law would be applied, asking how law enforcement officers would establish probable cause to arrest a migrant who is suspected of being in the state without proper documentation.

Gutierrez asked whether a police officer would be able to arrest workers who are building homes and who appear to be Hispanic.

“I want to know, what are the elements that allow a cop to determine...,” Gutierrez began to ask before Perry interrupted him.

“Your question is indignant and doesn’t even justify a response,” Perry shot back.

Perry said probable cause would likely be established if law enforcement saw someone cross the border at a location that is not a port of entry. He does not believe police will start asking Hispanic Texans if they are in the state with proper legal status — similar to a show-me-your-papers bill.

The bill ultimately passed 17-11.

Earlier in the session, the Senate also sent a bill to the governor’s desk that adds an additional $1.5 billion in funding for the state to continue building the border wall.

Senate Bill 3 by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, included $40 million to the Texas Department of Public Safety for border security operations, paying for overtime expenses and increased law enforcement presence at Colony Ridge, a housing development north of Houston where conservative media reports have alleged “thousands” of undocumented migrants are living.

Reporting by several media outlets, including The Dallas Morning News, could not prove or corroborate any of the allegations.

Gutierrez introduced an amendment to strike the funding related to Colony Ridge after legislative panels in both chambers heard from witnesses who dismissed the accusations about the community.

“It is a hoax,” Gutierrez said. “A hoax that this governor tweeted about.”

Senators voted down Gutierrez’s amendment.

Staff writer Talia Richman contributed to this report.