Blast Bulletin: 05-16-25

By Renzo Downey and The Texas Tribune Politics Team

LOW HOUSE BILL NUMBERS STRUCK DEAD AT MIDNIGHT

As if on cue, the Texas House reached a frenetic pace in the final hour before tonight’s House Bill deadline, but effort couldn’t save some of the House’s top bills this session.

By 11 p.m., it was clear that the House wouldn’t reach one of the most contentious bills remaining on the calendar, House Bill 32 by Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Garland, the House’s legislation to crack down on squatters.

Even if the House had reached HB 32, they might not have taken it up. As one Republican put it to reporters in the press box, why waste time on that bill? Democrats would fight it till midnight to kill the bill, taking other good bills with it. The Senate version, SB 38, has already passed its House committee, and there’s still a dozen days remaining for the House to pass Senate bills.

Before 11 p.m., a contagion of yawning swept through the ranks of the House. By midnight, nearly every member was on their feet, cheering with every bill passage or postponement.

Just before the House kicked it into overdrive, Democrats dragged out the fight on HB 3520 by Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, which would lower the insurance requirements for rideshare drivers while they’re driving to pick up a passenger to keep the coverage in line with when they’re waiting to be matched with a passenger. They sunk 75 minutes into that bill with amendments and points of order.

After that, the House urgently sprinted to pass as many bills as it could, postponing bills at even the hint of a roadblock.

One big bill to die was HB 105, a priority-designated bill by Rep. Ryan Guillen, R-Rio Grande City, that cleans up last session’s Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation Act. JETI was the economic incentive package on which lawmakers reached a late deal after the normal deadline as the successor to Chapter 313.

To stop the bleeding, Guillen postponed HB 105 to death a few minutes into debating the point of order.

Insurance Committee Chair Jay Dean, R-Longview, gave a rousing speech before postponing priority-designated HB 139, vowing to return next session to reduce insurance rates after the bill received a point of order.

Along with HB 32, that marked a significant number of “priority bills” dying at the deadline.

Perhaps that’s the cost of assigning so many bills as priority bills, as Speaker Dade Phelan did on his way out of the speaker’s office. Perhaps it’s also the cost of the House’s pacing this session.

When the clock struck midnight, the House stood still, having passed 1,137 of its bills to engrossment since the first day of session. The House has 22 more House bills ready to go on tomorrow’s local, consent and resolutions calendar, the last chance to pass those types of bills.

For those who feel the House never really found its footing this session, here’s some perspective: By the corresponding Friday in 2023, the House had passed 1,568 of its bills to engrossment.

• A Blast reader points out that, in our late session delirium, The Blast mistakenly called tonight the “bill filing deadline.” As we’re sure you know, it’s the House bill passage deadline. The filing deadline was more than two months ago.

• At midnight, Rep. Joe “Flavor Flav” Moody, D-El Paso, raised a point of order against what would be the final bill. “If I could turn back time. If I could find a way…” Moody said.

• Freshman Rep. Andy Hopper, R-Decatur, received a different kind of hazing on his first bill, HB 3154, which would create the Wise Regional Water District and otherwise belong on the local, consent and resolutions calendar. Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, went through the House disruptor's bill line by line, pointing out that it created a new government entity with the power of eminent domain and no debt limit, violating hardline conservative principles. Hopper’s bill failed 41-78.

• Democratic Reps. Claudia Ordaz of El Paso, Eddie Morales Jr. of Eagle Pass and Sergio Muñoz Jr. of Mission attempted to command the gallery to start the wave as the clock struck 11:20 p.m.

• With about 10 minutes to midnight, Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, attempted to give Democrats a taste of their own chubbing medicine on HB 5509 by Rep. Ben Bumgarner, R-Flower Mound, which addressed human trafficking.

• Elsewhere in the Capitol, the Senate Education K-16 Committee heard several hours of public testimony on its version of the public school finance bill, HB 2. The committee left the bill pending for another day.

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