State leaders have been filing bills in anticipation of the next Texas legislative session which begins in January.
Among those are bills concerning abortion, LGBTQ, guns, education energy, emergency declarations and books banned in public schools.
Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, has filed a bill that would change how the state funds Texas’ 1,204 public school districts and open-enrollment charters. With House Bill 31, Hinojosa wants to fund schools based on their average enrollment.
Currently, schools are funded on their average daily attendance. The average daily attendance is calculated by the sum of children present divided by days of instruction that schools are required to give. Texas schools have to be open for a minimum of 75,600 minutes over a school year, which includes recess and lunch. If a student is absent, the school loses that money.
House Bill 338, filed by Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, would require publishers to assign content ratings to books that they want to sell to schools. The scores, which function similar to movie ratings, would place restrictions on which books students can access depending on their age. If the ratings are not deemed proper, the books could be recalled.
The legislation follows a year of rapid book banning in the state. PEN America, a free expression advocacy nonprofit, found that 22 school districts in Texas banned 801 books — the highest number in the country — between July 2021 and June 2022.
Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, filed bills that would require sales of multiple firearms to be reported to law enforcement agencies. Moody’s bill, which includes the sale of multiple magazines, would require the Texas Department of Public Safety to inform the sheriff where the purchaser resides.
Democrat Sen. Roland Gutierrez, has also introduced Senate Bill 145 to raise the minimum age to purchase some weapons.
Texas law bans all abortions from the moment of conception, except to save the life of the pregnant patient. A group of Democrats have filed two bills that would expand those exceptions.
Senate Bill 122 would add an exception to the ban in the case of rape. It would not require the pregnant patient to file a police report, provide forensic evidence or prosecute the crime to obtain an abortion under this exception.
Senate Bill 123, filed by Democrats, would allow abortions to save the life of the pregnant patient, to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health, or in cases of lethal fetal anomalies or other fetal conditions that are incompatible with life “without extraordinary medical interventions.” The bill would require those decisions to be made by a doctor and patient, not a medical review board.
Republicans are expected to file bills this session to tighten and ensure enforcement of existing abortion laws. Rep. Candy Noble, R-Lucas, has filed House Bill 61, which would stop Texas municipalities from helping people pay for out-ofstate abortions. House Bill 42, filed by Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, would expand the state’s definition of child abuse to include providing gender-affirming health care under the guidance of a doctor or mental health care provider. The Legislature declined to pass a similar bill last session.
House Bill 112, filed by Rep. Steve Toth, RThe Woodlands, would also criminalize genderaffirming health care. In particular, the legislation would bar health care providers from offering various gender-affirming procedures and treatments for children, including puberty blockers and testosterone or estrogen doses. Violations could result in a second-degree felony. Toth also introduced this proposed ban in House Bill 41, which would also take away professional liability insurance policy from providers who offer these treatments.
Republican lawmakers filed bills that would make building renewable energy facilities more difficult. For example, a bill by Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, would increase setback requirements on the location of wind turbines and allow county commissioner courts to create designated areas for wind turbines and prohibit them elsewhere in the county. An identical bill was filed by Sen. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, in the Senate.
Rep. Lina Ortega, D-El Paso, and Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, have filed bills to expand postpartum Medicaid to 12 months. House Republicans have called this a top priority, particularly in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Last year, the House voted to give new moms access to Medicaid for a year after they gave birth, but the Senate reduced that time period to six months. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said that the state’s application is “not approvable”; applications for 12-month extensions were automatically approved through the American Rescue Plan.
A series of bills by state Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, would require more legislative oversight into the Texas governor’s ability to renew disaster declarations — which grant the state’s top elected official more authority outside the checks and balances by state lawmakers typically in place.
The package of legislation includes Senate Bill 99, which would require the governor to call a special session of the Legislature if a disaster declaration is to be renewed past 90 days, provided the Legislature is not already in session at the time.