Opening Week of the 88th Texas Legislature

On Tuesday, the Texas Legislature convened for the 88th legislative session. Shortly after gaveling in for the swearing-in ceremony, members of the Texas House of Representatives took the oath of office and elected Representative Dade Phelan (Beaumont) to serve as Speaker for a second term.

“It is a privilege to serve as a member of this distinguished body, and I am once again humbled by the opportunity to serve as Speaker of the Texas House,” Speaker Phelan said in his opening day remarks. “As I look out upon this distinguished gathering, I see 149 people – ordinary Texans – who are eager to get to work on extraordinary things. I am grateful to the majority of you who have honored me with your vote, but I am proud to represent all of you as Speaker of the 88th Legislature.”

In his remarks, Speaker Phelan emphasized a few of the chamber’s priorities for the session, including:

• Providing lasting, meaningful property tax relief;

• Increasing access to and giving patients greater control over their healthcare;

• Prioritizing criminal justice reform, DA accountability, and public safety;

• Utilizing the state’s once-in-a-lifetime budget surplus to improve infrastructure;

• Fighting back against the exploitation, sexualization, and indoctrination of Texas children;

• Making schools safer for students and teachers;

• Extending postpartum health coverage for new mothers to a full year; and

• Addressing the threats posed by a porous border.

The Texas House Democrats voted unanimously for the Speaker but remain the minority party. For this session, the caucus has a new chair, state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who was a key player in the quorum break in the summer of 2021 and is well known as a savvy floor fighter who has used his encyclopedic knowledge of legislative processes to kill Republican bills. At the same time, Democrats are sizing up how contentious the session could be, given that it starts Tuesday with a focus driven by the massive budget surplus.

As well as electing a new speaker, the House debated and adopted the chamber’s governing rules (HR 4) and other items such as office budgets. For the first time in four years, the House opted to increase their office budgets to keep pace with inflation and ensure they can recruit and retain talented staffs.

The House rules as filed contained no major changes. Though it may sound like inside baseball, the rules, and properly abiding by them, are the keys to passing, or stopping, legislation. As former Congressman John Dingell of Michigan was fond of saying, “I’ll let you write the substance … you let me write the procedure, and I’ll screw you every time.”

The first proposed change was in response to the quorum break during the summer of 2021. The new punishments for quorum-breaking include a $500 fine for each day a member is gone. Absent members are also responsible for their share of the cost of dispatching the sergeant-at-arms to bring members back and restore quorum. Additionally, the House can consider expelling members after an investigation and report by the Administration Committee. The amendment attracted opposition from Democrats who questioned its vagueness and potential conflict with free-speech rights. The vote was 87-59, almost entirely along party lines.

The second focused on the long-building push by the Republican Party of Texas to ban Democratic committee chairs. For months, a small but vocal minority of House Republicans have been calling for the end of the chamber’s longtime tradition of having committee chairs from both parties. However, due to technical deficiencies the matter was prevented from making it to a vote on the floor.

From the Tribune: “They did it by passing a “housekeeping resolution” earlier in the day that included a new section codifying a constitutional ban on using House resources for political purposes. That resolution passed overwhelmingly with little debate or fanfare. Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, then cited the new provision to call points of order — procedural challenges — on two amendments proposed by Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, to restrict Democratic committee chairs. Phelan ruled in favor of Geren both times.

It was a relatively anticlimactic end to the fight over Democratic committee chairs, which were a major issue in House primaries earlier this year, a rallying cry for conservative activists and a recurring theme in speeches as the legislative session kicked off Tuesday. After the House reelected Phelan by a nearly unanimous vote, he cautioned freshmen to “please do not confuse this body with the one in Washington, D.C.”

The Senate’s operating rules (SR 8) received much less dramatic treatment and mostly expanded on committee structure and size. A standalone Committee on Border Security was added to the chamber’s standing committees, removing the issues from the Committee on Veteran Affairs. The new border security committee will be composed of five members. The Committee on Business & Commerce grows from 9 to 11 members; the Committee on Education grows from 11 to 13 members; the Committee on Finance grows from 15 to 17 members; and the Committee on State Affairs grows from 9 members to 11. Lastly, the standing Committee on Higher Education was eliminated. Instead, the Lt. Governor will appoint a 5-member subcommittee from the membership of the Committee on Education.

Also, this week, Senators drew lots for term length, to reset the staggering of district terms. Unlike the House, whose members must stand for election every two years, Senators serve four year terms. To avoid situations where the entire body is up for election, the Texas Senate, like the US Senate, staggers terms so that only half of the chamber's seats are up for election in any given cycle.

The exception to this rule is the election immediately following a redistricting year, as was the case in 2022. With all 31 members elected or re-elected last November, the entire body could be back on the campaign trail for the 2026 cycle. In order to re-establish the two-cycle balance, senators took turns drawing lots: in this case, 31 sequentially-numbered sheets of paper drawn out of a bowl. Drawing an odd number won a Senator a four-year term and members who drew even numbers will serve a two-year term. Because of the effort and cost involved with a campaign for office, it's a fairly high-stakes proposition that members nevertheless greet with a genial good humor.

The following Senators drew two-year terms, and their seats will be up for election in 2024:

• Alvarado of Houston,

• Blanco of El Paso,

• Campbell of New Braunfels,

• Eckhardt of Austin,

• Hinojosa of McAllen,

• Huffman of Houston,

• Johnson of Dallas,

• King of Weatherford,

• LaMantia of South Padre Island,

• Parker of Flower Mound,

• Paxton of McKinney,

• Springer of Muenster,

• West of Dallas, and

• Whitmire of Houston.

All other Senate districts will be up for election in 2026.

This new session brings several firsts. Salman Bhojani swore in on Tuesday as one of the first Muslim representatives in the Texas Legislature, along with Rep. Suleman Lalani. Bhojani, a Democrat who represents parts of Tarrant County, is a history maker among the 26 new House representatives who have now been sworn in. Another legislator in this category is Caroline Harris, who is the youngest Republican woman state representative in Texas, having been 28 years old when she won her 2022 election. And John Lujan, R-San Antonio, will finally participate in his inaugural legislative session. Lujan previously won two special elections for a seat in the House, but never served during a legislative session.

“This is a building where you can get involved at a young age, you can make a big difference at a young age,” Harris reflected before the ceremony on her time in the state Capitol.

To ensure they are following the very letter of the state constitution, the chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee announced Wednesday that the panel is reopening the process for the drawing of state Senate districts. Senator Joan Huffman of Houston chaired that committee last session when the state House, Senate, school board, and US Congressional districts were redrawn as they are every ten years following the national census. Due to the COVID pandemic, however, the US census results were delayed into 2021. This pushed back the state redistricting process by some months, but the Legislature was able to pass redrawn district maps in the third called session, which fell in October of '21. All Texas state lawmakers and congressional members were elected in 2022 based on these maps.

The issue arises for state districts because Article III, Section 28 of the constitution reads "The Legislature shall, at its first regular session after the publication of each United States decennial census, apportion the state into senatorial and representative districts." Because the final maps were approved during a special session in the fall and not the 140-day regular session beginning in January, there is some concern that it might raise legal issues. "I am proposing that the 88th Legislature take up the Senate map again…out of an abundance of caution, to ensure that the Legislature has fulfilled its duty to apportion the state into senatorial districts at its first regular session after the publication of the 24th decennial census of the United States." Reappointed chair of the committee by the Lt. Governor, Huffman said that the panel will begin to take public testimony, both in person and virtually, in a series of regional meetings beginning on Wednesday, January 25th and running through Saturday, January 28. "This will ensure that every Texan can participate in the regional hearings, and we can have conversations with people from all parts of the state," she said.