The Blast- May 16, 2025

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The Blast | Texas Tribune
May 16, 2025

By Renzo Downey and The Texas Tribune Politics Team

Today is the House bill deadline for final passage
7 days until the House’s local bill deadline
11 days until the House’s Senate bill deadline
17 days until sine die

IN TODAY’S BLAST

  • Bill tallies, the JETI bill and Burrows’ procedural reminder

  • Chip Roy’s old bosses are running against each other

  • Roy and crew force leadership back to the drawing board

  • Andy Hopper’s ill-fated first bill

BILL TALLIES, THE JETI BILL AND BURROWS’ PROCEDURAL REMINDER

Happy Friday, y’all. This is likely the Lege’s last real weekend before sine die.

We’ve got a few housekeeping matters to follow up on after yesterday’s House bill deadline.

First, an update to our tally of House bills: When the House crosses tonight’s deadline for final passage, members will have passed 1,152 of the 5,644 bills filed this session, 20% of the chamber’s bills. That’s down from 1,516 of 4,297 House bills passed at the 2023 equivalent, 35% of the chamber’s bills.

Technically the House still has until next Friday to pass local House bills off the local and consent calendar, but they’re not catching up.

We’d also like to circle back to House Bill 105, the update to last session’s HB 5 that got postponed to death last night. Given the four previous times it was postponed this week — and given the Democrats and conservative hardliners who oppose the policy as a corporate handout — it looks as if leadership didn’t have the votes. Its death shouldn’t necessarily be attributed to running out of time.

One Democrat speculated that Rep. Ryan Guillen, R-Rio Grande City, finally let it on the floor just before the deadline so someone would raise a point of order against it. Guillen could then postpone the bill to death on the pretense of saving time, potentially saving face for leadership — or the lobbyists — who couldn’t whip enough votes in support.

Finally, after the move by Rep. Ellen Troxclair, R-Lakeway, that undercut a point of order by Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, against her Camp Longhorn bill, HB 5151, Speaker Dustin Burrows announced a clarification of House procedures upon reviewing the tape from last night.

“A point of order on a bill can be raised at any time when a bill is before the House, including when an amendment is pending,” Burrows told the body.

Canales accused Troxclair of distracting him before he was able to flag the technicality against the bill. As they were talking, the House took up an amendment by Troxclair that fixed the glitch Canales wanted to target. When the Democrat attempted to raise his point of order, the chair informed him that the House was no longer on the bill at-large.

Canales ultimately got his way by pointing out a separate technical flaw, but several members of House leadership huddled with Troxclair after the spectacle, some scolding her for her actions.

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CHIP ROY’S OLD BOSSES ARE RUNNING AGAINST EACH OTHER

As U.S. Sen. John Cornyn gears up for the primary fight of his career next year, he’s teamed up with U.S. Rep. Chip Roy to push Gov. Greg Abbott’s request for back pay over Operation Lone Star — and political observers have taken note.

Cornyn introduced legislation today to reimburse Texas for more than $11 million dollars in border operations. He identified junior Sen. Ted Cruz as a cosponsor and Roy, R-Austin, as a leader for the measure in the House.

Although Roy hasn’t endorsed Cornyn for reelection, his feelings about Cornyn’s primary challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, aren’t a secret. 

The Blast’s Washington-linked sources say Roy hates Paxton. “Effing hates” was how one put it, only a little less fit for print.

Don’t take their word for it. Roy called on Paxton to resign in October 2020 after the attorney general faced bribery accusations.

“Any grace for him to resolve differences and demonstrate if the allegations are false was eliminated by his choice instead to attack the very people entrusted, by him, to lead the office — some of whom I know well and whose character are beyond reproach,” Roy said in his 2020 statement.

Roy began his political career working on then-Attorney General Cornyn’s 2002 Senate campaign and worked for him till 2009. He later moved to Paxton’s operation as first assistant attorney general — with stops working for Gov. Rick Perry and as chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

“Chip has worked for both Cornyn and Paxton, so he’s looked under the hood in both situations,” a former Cornyn staffer told The Blast.

“He’s only called for Paxton’s resignation,” they added later.

But beyond the underlying politics of the primary, backing up Abbott and Texas on OLS is a good issue for them to harp on while they tout themselves as conservatives. Cornyn and Roy haven’t always been on the same page, but OLS reimbursement is a Republican middleground.

Cornyn told the Tribune’s Katharine Wilson last week that he was not willing to vote for a budget reconciliation bill that does not include funds to reimburse Texas. He called any amount less than $11.1 billion “unacceptable.”

Wilson reports that Cornyn and Roy hope to get the reimbursement added into the megabill once the measure gets to the House Rules Committee, of which Roy is a member. But first, it must leave the House Budget Committee.

ROY AND CREW FORCE LEADERSHIP BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

Roy helped hold up the reconciliation bill in the Budget Committee today as Congress attempts to usher through President Donald Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill.”

During a House Budget Committee markup today, Roy and other House Freedom Caucus members voted with Democrats against the Republican budget reconciliation bill, blocking the bill from advancing at a critical point when all the budget pieces are first coming together. Roy wants to cut back Medicaid and decrease the federal deficit.

The failure of the megabill in the Budget Committee may force leadership back into discussions with hardliners over the weekend to add some of their priorities into the budget. These changes, especially regarding Medicaid, could frighten moderate Republicans or swing district Republicans from passing the bill on the House floor.

This is a major setback for Republican leadership who had planned to pass the budget in the House of Representatives by Memorial Day.

— Katharine Wilson

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ANDY HOPPER’S ILL-FATED FIRST BILL

A good find from political consultant Derek Ryan:

Freshman Rep. Andy Hopper, R-Decatur, voted against at least 19 bills that create utility districts with powers including eminent domain, issuing bonds and imposing taxes — just like the Wise Regional Water District Hopper tried unsuccessfully to approve last night.

Hopper’s first bill, House Bill 3154, died 41-78, a firm bipartisan scolding from the House’s governing coalition. In most other cases, it would’ve passed smoothly on a local, consent and resolutions calendar. However, it wasn’t eligible because it received nay votes in committee from Democrats — one week after Hopper helped kill a calendar that honored Cecile Richards.

That was one of countless moves Hopper has pulled or participated in this session to disrupt the status quo.

During questioning on HB 3154, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, laid into him the hardest during a moment that’s usually saved for cordial hazing. Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, tried to get him to reflect on the consequences of voting to kill the local, consent and calendars earlier this session. Rep. Richard Raymond, R-Laredo, joked that the Democratic Party chairman had offered a trade for him for his liberal bill.

Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, a joint author of the bill, was one of the 78 who voted no.

The bill isn’t dead, however. After adjourning today, the House referred the Senate version, SB 1359 by Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, to the same committee as Hopper’s bill.

However, it does mean that Hopper joins Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, as members with no bills passed this session. Hopper’s other bill that was scheduled to come up yesterday, HB 2333, was postponed to death last night in the final 20 minutes of the sprint to the House bill deadline.

Still, it doesn’t mean that Hopper is changing his tune.

After midnight last night, Hopper told The Blast that he had confronted leadership earlier and urged them to triage bills. He wanted them to focus first on bills that needed to preliminarily pass last night and save all the bills up for final passage for today. Instead, the House worked until 3 p.m. finally passing the bills the chamber had preliminarily passed the day before.

“None of that work had to be done by midnight,” Hopper said, noting that only two of the six Republican Party of Texas priority bills on the agenda survived. “This is an orchestrated process. They get exactly what they want out of it. There is nothing left up to chance.”

Next week:

  • The bail package is at the top of the House’s agenda for Monday, including SJR 1, SJR 5, SB 9 and SB 40.

  • The House’s medical THC bill, HB 46, will go before the Senate State Affairs Committee on Monday. Score one for House State Affairs Committee Chair Ken King, R-Canadian, whose bills have long been stalled in the Senate.

  • The next day, the House is scheduled to take up the consumable THC bill, SB 3. King will be the House dealer on that.

  • Also on the House’s calendar for Tuesday is SB 21, creating the Texas Bitcoin Reserve, and SB 23 and SJR 85, which aims to raise the homestead exemption to $200,000 for seniors. Those bills, plus the consumable THC bill, are at the top of the House’s daily calendar for that day.

View the House and Senate floor calendars here and here.

The House will convene at 10 a.m. on Monday.
The Senate will convene at 11 a.m. on Monday.

View the full list of upcoming committee notices here and here.

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  • Reps. Cody Vasut and Cody Harris engaged in some gavel measuring after Vasut broke yet another gavel and Rep. James Frank asked what the score is between “Big Cody and Little Cody.”

TX-SEN: The campaign of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn flagged that his primary opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has not submitted a personal financial disclosure or an extension. The federal deadline was yesterday. “Crooked Ken Paxton thinks rules and laws don’t apply to him and he has consistently made the system work for himself at the expense of taxpayers,” Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said in a statement, adding, “What is Ken Paxton hiding?”

OH-GOV, because apparently we cover that, too: Former presidential candidate, DOGE man and current Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will be in Austin for a fundraiser at the home of Joe Lonsdale.

  • The Texas House did some heavy reworking to House Bill 5520, the “Border Enhancement Act” brought by Rep. Erin Gámez, D-Brownsville, after the Texas Conservative Coalition and others came out against the iteration that passed last night. The House’s hardline conservatives claimed victory and thanked their supporters for raising awareness.

  • Some more umpiring from House Speaker Dustin Burrows: When Burrows gave the House his announcements about points of order, he also announced one member hurriedly asking the House to pass a bill does not prevent other members from raising a point of order or speaking on the bill. The House had gotten a little lax with those rules, particularly in the rush to last night’s deadline. Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, then sought clarification about getting access to the back mic when other members are asking questions, another problem that arose last night. “If the chair is aware that you want to raise a point of order, you will be recognized,” Burrows said. “One member cannot detain another member.”

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  • Say hello to the newest members of the Tribune’s politics team, Eleanor Klibanoff and Alejandro Serrano! Klibanoff will cover the attorney general, courts, politics and more.

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“SpaceX wins federal approval to launch more rockets in South Texas” by Berenice Garcia of The Texas Tribune

@CodyforTexas: Must not have any more bills coming through calendars huh @moralesfortexas?

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(May 17) State Rep. Cecil Bell Jr., R-Magnolia
(May 17) State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin
(May 18) State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin

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