The Blast - May 23, 2025

Today is the House’s local bill deadline
4 days until the House’s Senate bill deadline
5 days until the Senate bill deadline
10 days until sine die

IN TODAY’S BLAST

• The dearth of House bills

• The Dems who voted in favor of the THC ban

• House conservatives’ priorities still alive

THE DEARTH OF HOUSE BILLS

The 2025 Texas House bill deadline may have been last week, but today marks the final day that the House can pass its last subset of House bills.

With the House adjourned, we can confidently say: Despite members filing a record number of bills this session, the 2025 Texas House passed the smallest share of its bills in recent memory. By a long shot.

Since the 1990s, the number of bills filed has been trending upward while the number of bills passed has remained relatively steady, although the recent trend had been elevated.

State representatives filed 5,644 bills this session, up from the previous record 5,413 bills last session. At the same time, the number of House bills passed by the House fell from another record 1,566 last session to 1,158 this session. It represented the sharpest drop-off in bill passing efficiency that the House has seen since at least the 72nd legislative session in 1991.

You can also view this as a graph here.

Obviously, something is different this session than in past sessions. Speaker Dustin Burrows got a late start on making committee assignments, but the first House floor calendar occurred on the 78th day of session, the same as in 2023.

Perhaps there are more members in the doghouse this session than last session. That sounds plausible, given the high number of freshmen who oppose House leadership.

However, take a look at what’s going on with the local and consent calendar.

The House placed 737 House bills on local and consent calendars in 2023. This session, the House only attempted to place 141 House bills on the local and consent calendar.

Further evidence that the local and contested calendar was the choke point is the daily House calendar. That’s the list of bills that go through the usual process of questions, debate and amendments on the floor.

The main chunk of the daily calendar is the “general state calendar,” and the House passed 845 bills off that calendar in 2023. This session, the House passed 1,046 bills that way, the long and hard way.

The local and consent calendar is an important mechanism for the House to pass bills during their crammed schedule. They can pass pages and pages of bills in one fell swoop. The trick is that the bills have to be mostly uncontested.

Last session, only five members opposed leadership at every turn. That dropped to four after the House expelled Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, in early May. This session, the number of consistent anti-leadership members is somewhere in the high teens.

All it takes is five members to strip a bill from the local and consent calendar, or one member to filibuster it long enough. That means that this session, the House disruptors have plenty who are willing to do that.

Of course, this is only for one chamber. The Senate still has to pass the House’s bills for them to become law.

Now that the House has passed the THC ban, Senate Bill 3, some observers are tracking to see if the Senate will open the floodgate on House bills. The Senate has only passed 264 so far this session. By this time last session, the Senate had passed 400 House bills.

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THE DEMS WHO VOTED IN FAVOR OF THE THC BAN

Soon after we published The Blast last night, the House voted 87-54 to finally pass Senate Bill 3, the ban on consumable THC. That was a significant drop-off from the preliminary 95-44 vote the day before. What changed?

Six Democrats voted for Rep. Tom Oliverson’s amendment that reverted SB 3 from a regulatory bill to a full ban, and 12 Democrats voted in favor of the amended bill on Wednesday. But yesterday, only seven Democrats voted for SB 3 on final passage. Most of them had backed Oliverson’s amendment.

Here’s the pool of Democrats who cast an “aye” vote during the process. Those in bold voted in favor of a full ban the entire way.

Reps. Suleman Lalani of Euless, Christian Manuel of Port Arthur, Armando Martinez of Weslaco, Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio and Claudia Ordaz of El Paso voted “aye” the whole way through.

Rep. Jolanda Jones of Houston submitted a statement in the journal that she had intended to vote no. But the others, Reps. Alma Allen of Houston, Liz Campos of San Antonio, Oscar Longoria of Mission, Eddie Morales of Eagle Pass and Chris Turner of Grand Prairie apparently had a change of heart between Wednesday and Thursday.

One factor may be that, as Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos of Richardson said in her floor speech last night, more Texans are following the outcome of SB 3 than perhaps any other bill this session, perhaps even dreading it. Republicans and Democrats who voted in favor of the ban may have to answer to those voters next year.

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HOUSE CONSERVATIVES’ PRIORITIES STILL ALIVE

The House hardliners’ push for Senate Bill 2880 achieved its goal today when the House State Affairs Committee voted 8-5 to advance the abortion pill crackdown.

The committee, chaired by Republican Ken King of Canadian, had held onto the bill for three weeks after the House’s version, HB 5510 by Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, didn’t receive a vote. But the House’s most conservative members aren’t done making their asks.

During a press event today, they called on the House Calendars Committee to schedule the following bills:

• SB 16 — proof of citizenship to vote

• SB 18 — banning drag story hour

• SB 315 — granting people ownership of their DNA

• SB 1065 — prohibiting contractors from banning guns on public property, a la the State Fair

• SB 1396 — Banning national sex ed standards in public schools

SB 2880 had support from beyond the couple dozen staunch conservatives. At least 43 Republicans signed a letter yesterday to King asking that he set that bill for a vote.

The next task will be to convince Calendars Committee Chair Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, and his committee to set their priorities for a vote, maybe with a bit of help from the Republican caucus at large.

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House actions:

• The House voted 85-49 to preliminarily pass SB 38, the anti-squatters bills.

• The House voted 94-43 to preliminarily pass SB 36, the bill creating the Homeland Security Division within the Department of Public Safety.

• The House voted to concur with Senate amendments on HB 33, the Uvalde Strong Act.

• The House Calendars Committee can now schedule SB 30, the bill for tort reform on medical billing and SB 2519, the bill to ban Project Connect’s funding mechanism.

Senate actions:

• The Senate unanimously passed the public school finance deal, HB 2.

• The Senate State Affairs Committee voted unanimously yesterday to advance the ban on social media accounts for minors, HB 186.

• The Senate Business and Commerce Committee today heard testimony on the bill to crack down on EPIC City, HB 4211.

Tomorrow’s House calendars include :

• The Ten Commandments bill, SB 10

• The faculty senates bill, SB 37

• The ban on ranked-choice voting, SB 310

• The lottery bulk ticket purchasing ban, SB 1346

• The ban on bail for repeat offenders, SJR 87

Sunday’s House calendars include:

• The compromise bill to abolish the Texas Lottery Commission but transfer the lottery and bingo to the Texas Commission on Licensing and Regulation, SB 3070

View the House and Senate floor calendars here and here.

The House will convene at noon tomorrow.
The Senate has not yet adjourned for the day.

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

• Fumes from the Capitol refurbishment became a problem in the House today. The House had to clear the air during their lunch break, but members were still complaining after lunch.

San Antonio mayor: The San Antonio Express-News editorial board endorsed former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos in the mayoral runoff over Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones.

• Gov. Greg Abbott will speak at the Memorial Day ceremony on the House floor tomorrow morning.

“‘See how we do things’: Austin cannabis shop invites Texas lawmakers wanting to ban THC” by Sofia Sorochinskaia and Laura Duclos of The Texas Tribune

“Texas lawmakers push to regulate AI in government and the tech industry” by Alejandra Martinez of The Texas Tribune

“How a bill to speed up evictions is testing Texas’ powerful landlord lobby” by Megan Kimble and Matt Zdun of the Houston Chronicle

“Tim Cook called Texas governor to stop online child-safety legislation” by Rolfe Winkler, Amrith Ramkumar and Meghan Bobrowsky of The Wall Street Journal

“U.S. Sen. Cornyn’s bipartisan Big Bend National Park expansion bill stalls in Senate” by Mateo Rosiles of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Do you or someone in your office have a birthday you’d like mentioned? Email us.

(May 23) State Rep. J.M. Lozano, R-Kingsville

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