The Blast - March 24, 2025

By Renzo Downey and The Texas Tribune Politics Team

Waiting on the House calendars

We’re halfway through the regular session, and folks are itching to see the first House calendar. While the first calendar isn’t as late as it was last session — yet — the House is approaching the point where we could officially say it’s the slowest start in recent memory.

The House Calendars Committee is the gatekeeper for the House floor. Any bill that goes before the full House must first go to Calendars to get added to the agenda.

For most of the last 30 years, the House began passing bills in late February or early March. However, the timeline seemed to change in 2019, when Dennis Bonnen became speaker. Bonnen began the throughline of speakers and House leadership teams that has led us to Speaker Dustin Burrows.

In 2019, the first bill from the daily House calendar that the Bonnen-led House considered reached the floor on the 71st day of session. That happened on the 72nd day of session under Speaker Dade Phelan in 2021. That became the 78th day of session in 2023, a record for the House — at least in recent memory.

To reach those start dates, Calendars met on the 65th day in 2019, the 70th day in 2021 and the 73rd day in 2023.

We’re currently on the 70th day of this session.

Whether he likes the pace or not, Burrows has been forced into a slower House schedule because he didn’t wrap up the speaker’s race until the first day of session. Before Bonnen, the latest start to business on the House floor came on the 72nd day in 2009. Then-Speaker Joe Straus wrapped up the speaker’s race in early January that year.

This matters because a lot of people are waiting to see what kind of speaker Burrows will truly be. They want to see how he manages his relationship with the Senate while navigating his fractured Republican caucus and the coalition that put him in power.

So far, House committees have sent reports on 15 bills to Calendars. That list includes the House’s property tax proposals. And the House’s “two-step” education package — education savings accounts and public school funding — should be ready sometime in the next couple of weeks. Budget night should also be happening soon.

How Burrows and Calendars Chair Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, manage the flow of the House agenda could hint at Burrows’ priorities. If they schedule property taxes and the budget, maybe Burrows wants to get down to brass tacks to keep Democrats happy. If they throw in some conservative priorities, he may be trying to satisfy the wing of the Republican caucus that voted against him for speaker. If they queue up some Senate bills, maybe he wants to throw a bone to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Top TDP chair candidate backs down, resigns office

Kendall Scudder, the leading candidate to be the next chair of the Texas Democratic Party, will resign his elected position on the Dallas Central Appraisal District board after all, ending the questions about whether he is eligible to run for party chair.

Scudder, the TDP’s current vice chair for finance and the leading candidate to succeed longtime Chair Gilberto Hinojosa, told the State Democratic Executive Committee today that he will resign his position on Thursday ahead of the SDEC’s meeting on Saturday. Saturday is when the SDEC’s party insiders will elect their TDP’s chair.

Hinojosa has led the party since 2012. In electing a new chair, the SDEC will decide what direction they want to go. Scudder represents some of the party’s most fervent activists, which he says party leadership has not been listening to. His top opponents are Lillie Schechter, the former Harris County Democratic Party chair, and Patsy Woods Martin, the former executive director of Annie’s List.

Two weeks ago, TDP general counsel Chad Dunn issued an opinion that Scudder was ineligible to run because state law and the party rules prevent someone from running for party chair while holding federal, state or county office. Scudder’s position on the Dallas Central Appraisal District counts as a county office, Dunn said.

Dunn raised the possibility that Democrats’ opponents could sue over Scudder’s validity if he were elected chair. Democratic operatives, taking it a step further, feared that meant Republicans could sue to boot from the ballot any Democratic candidate that Scudder had certified. That would include statewide candidates and candidates in multi-county offices, like in Congress or the Legislature.

Scudder had resisted Dunn’s opinion, calling it an attempt to create confusion and doubt, and he had besmirched Dunn as serving as “Hinojosa’s lawyer.” Scudder still holds that Dunn is wrong, but he says he felt it was best for the party for him to resign his office.

“Undoubtedly it has caused confusion, and there will now always be a little bug in the back of people’s minds where they are questioning whether or not this is the case, and that’s why I intend to tender my resignation to the Dallas Central Appraisal District,” Scudder told The Blast.

Dunn’s opinion is nonbinding, and it was clear that Scudder would have the votes for the SDEC to overlook his opinion. A majority of the SDEC had signed a letter that was critical of the opinion. Yet, Scudder backed down.

“Prevailing on this issue does not mean victory if there are fellow members of this body who are left feeling uneasy about our party’s future,” Scudder said in a letter to SDEC members. “The times we live in are dire and the calling of our party is too tall for this divisive behavior. Now is the time for all of us to come together and unite to build a party that each of us can be proud to lead.”

Scudder’s calls for party unity break from how Scudder was handling the opinion earlier this month. He had previously called it an “attempt of the establishment to put their thumbs on the scale to deny the grassroots and the worker-bees of our party the right to pick their next chairman.” Even today, he spent the top half of his letter railing against the opinion, calling it a “shockingly poor analysis.”

The change in plans comes as Democratic operatives and donors are watching to see what type of leader Scudder would be.

One operative told The Blast they thought Scudder’s letter was belligerent and resentful.

“Why did he put the SDEC through all the turmoil when he could have resigned without controversy weeks ago?” they said. “The next party chair will need to unite and lead. Kendall’s letter did not have a uniting tone.”

New Capitol bathroom policy

Capitol workers and guests should use the bathrooms that match their “biological sex,” according to a new Texas State Preservation Board policy, an answer to conservatives who wanted that distinction written into Capitol rules.

The policy, first reported as a detail buried in a KXAN feature on a transgender legislative aide from Friday, notes that all restrooms are clearly designated as “men’s,” “women’s” or “family care,” and that visitors, state officials and employees are expected to use them as such.

In the early days of session, members from the Texas House Republican Caucus’ right flank had hoped to get a policy like that added to the House rules. However, that effort died when the House voted to cut debate short on the rules without taking up any of the “reform” crowd’s amendments.

Later in the session, a staffer for freshman Rep. Andy Hopper, D-Decatur, said she encountered a male staffer in a Capitol women’s room. Explaining the events on a podcast, Hopper said he reached out to House Administration Committee Chair Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, who Hopper said promised to fire the staffer who used the bathroom if it occurred again.

Geren serves on the SPB governing board along with House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock; state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown; Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick; Gov. Greg Abbott; and citizen board member Alethea Swann Bugg. SPB isn’t political in nature but it also has to navigate the politics of the Capitol.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit Texas especially hard, making Texans’ existing health challenges worse and straining the state’s short-staffed and underfunded public health system. Five years after Texas’ first COVID death, these long-standing issues remain — the state spends less on public health, vaccination rates have dropped and Texans are more likely to distrust public health authorities. 

How can state and local leaders strengthen the health care workforce, build up local and state infrastructure and cultivate the public’s trust and cooperation in preparation for the next public health crisis?

Tribune health and human services reporter Terri Langford will moderate a conversation with health care experts, including: 

• John Hellerstedt, former commissioner, Texas Department of State Health Services, 2007-2015

• David Lakey, M.D., vice chancellor for health affairs and chief medical officer, The University of Texas System

Doors open at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 2, for lunch at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health’s Austin location, and the hour-long conversation begins at noon. Lunch is provided.

RSVP today