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Capital Highlights
Gov. Greg Abbott last week signed a $1 billion private school voucher bill into law in front of a large crowd at the Governor’s Mansion, the San Antonio Express-News and other media outlets reported. Abbott called the new law the biggest legislative win of his time in the governor’s office and touted the new program as the largest in the nation.
“Today is the culmination of a movement that has swept across our state and across our country,” Abbott said. “It’s time we put our children on a pathway to have the number one-ranked education system in the United States of America.”
The new voucher law will give Texas students $10,000 a year that can be used toward private school tuition, tutoring, textbooks, and other educational expenses.
Abbott was joined on stage by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, and several private school leaders. Meanwhile, across the street from the mansion, Democratic legislators, union officials, and public educators gathered to express their opposition to vouchers.
“Today, big money won and the students of Texas lost,” said state Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. “Remember this day next time a school closes in your neighborhood. Remember this day next time a beloved teacher quits because they can’t support their family on their salary.”
BAIL CRACKDOWN BILL STRUGGLING IN THE HOUSE
Another of Abbott’s priorities is facing stiff opposition in the House from enough Democratic members to jeopardize its passage, according to the Houston Chronicle. The bail crackdown bill would prohibit pretrial release of defendants accused of certain violent offenses. In addition, voters would have to approve it as a constitutional amendment.
As of late last week, not enough Democrats support the bill, which requires passage by a supermajority. At least 12 Democrats would have to side with Republican legislators in order for the bail bills to pass. Senate Joint Resolution 5 would allow judges to deny bail to anyone accused of a violent crime or sexual offense, while Senate Joint Resolution 1 would prevent judges from granting bail for undocumented immigrants charged with a felony.
“This is not a right or left issue,” Abbott said. “This is not and should not be a Republican or a Democrat issue. This is a public safety issue, plain and simple.”
Both measures easily passed the Senate in February.
House Democrats assail the proposals as unconstitutional and have offered alternative bail reform proposals.
“Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott don’t actually want to fix crime — they want to run on it next year,” state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston and chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.
STATE MAY RESTRAIN NEW LARGE ENERGY USERS
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas predicts the state’s energy needs will nearly double in six years, The Texas Tribune reported, prompting one West Texas legislator to sponsor Senate Bill 6. That measure, sponsored by state Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, would put guardrails on the state’s energy market meant to help ERCOT better forecast future electricity needs.
“We do not have accurate load forecasting. No one knows if the forecast is real,” King said. Large companies, he added, are requiring ERCOT to plan “for load growth at dramatically higher levels than experienced ever in the history of Texas, and frankly, ever in the history of the United States.”
King said that without credible data the state runs the risk of either overbuilding, leading to higher rates for consumers in order to finance the expansions, or underbuilding and risking grid failure. His bill has already passed the Senate and is now before a House committee.
King’s bill would require new large businesses needing more than 75 megawatts to disclose whether they have similar requests elsewhere in Texas or out of state, what their backup generator capacity will be, and to pay at least $100,000 to examine the transmission work needed to get electricity to their facilities.
PARASITE COULD POSE RISK TO TEXAS CATTLE
A flesh-eating parasite found in an infected cow in Mexico has prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture to warn states along the southern border to monitor livestock and pets for signs of the New World Screwworm, a fly that was eradicated in this country in 1966 through use of sterile male flies to stop propagation.
However, confirmed cases of cows infected with the screwworms are being found spreading northward from Central and South America. The Austin American-Statesman reported imports of Mexican livestock into the United States were halted last November for three months. Imports restarted in February after increased sterile fly deliveries and surveillance increased.
April, Mexican authorities began curtailing flights of USDA planes dispersing sterile flies and imposing import duties on “critical aviation parts, dispersal equipment, and sterile fly shipments,” according to a letter from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to Mexico’s ambassador to the United States. A new ban was averted when Mexican authorities relented and allowed additional flights and waived custom
BILL WOULD CREATE PARENTAL ADVISORY COUNCILS FOR SCHOOL LIBRARIES
A Senate bill already passed that would require all Texas school boards to establish library advisory councils to vet books in school libraries drew criticism at a House committee hearing, the Statesman reported. Critics say the councils would make it nearly impossible for districts to buy new library books and would give too much power to small groups of parents.
The councils would identify books with “indecent” or “profane” content and could also nix materials they deem “harmful” or “inconsistent with local community values.” Several people testifying at the House hearing called SB 13 an “overreach that would pave the way for discriminatory book removals.”
However, supporters of the measure say a 2023 law designed to remove objectionable books has not been effective. Two court rulings have made that measure largely unenforceable.
Gary Borders is a veteran award-winning Texas journalist. He published a number of community newspapers in Texas during a 30-year span, including in Longview, Fort Stockton, Nacogdoches, Lufkin and Cedar Park. Email: gborders@ texaspress.com.
