From the Texas Tribune:
- Texas House approves sweeping limits on local regulations in GOP’s latest jab at blue cities.
- - The bill in question is House Bill 2127.
In a major escalation of Republicans’ efforts to weaken the state’s bluer cities and counties, lawmakers in the Texas Legislature are advancing a pair of bills that would seize control of local regulations that could range from worker protections to water restrictions during droughts.
A bill backed by Gov. Greg Abbott and business lobbying groups, House Bill 2127, would bar cities and counties from passing regulations — and overturn existing ones — that go further than state law in a broad swath of areas including labor, agriculture, natural resources and finance. It received initial approval Tuesday in the Texas House by a 92-55 vote but must come back before the chamber for a final vote.
The bill’s backers argue it’s needed to combat what they call a growing patchwork of local regulations that make it difficult for business owners to operate and harm the state’s economy. Texas’ economic growth and jobs are overwhelmingly concentrated in the state’s urban areas.
- In late-night testimonies, relatives of Uvalde victims call on Texas lawmakers to advance gun bill.
- - The bill in question is House Bill 2744.
With emotional testimony about their own experiences, parents of children who were killed in the Uvalde school shooting urged a Texas House committee late Tuesday to pass on to the full chamber a bill that would raise the minimum age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles. Families waited more than 12 hours after the House Select Committee on Community Safety first convened about 9 a.m. to testify about their final memories with some of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed in the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary and how their lives have changed since.
. . . This is the first Texas legislative session since the state’s worst school shooting in history. For more than 13 years, lawmakers have loosened gun regulations and made accessing firearms easier, despite eight mass shootings in the same period.
Any bill creating new regulations on gun access is sure to face an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature.
The testimony was during a hearing for House Bill 2744, from Democratic state Rep. Tracy King, who represents Uvalde. The bill would prohibit selling, renting, leasing or giving a semi-automatic rifle with a caliber greater than .22 that is capable of accepting a detachable magazine to a person younger than 21 years old.
- Texas Senate passes $308 billion budget plan, kicking off high-stakes negotiations with the House.
- - The bill in question is HB 1.
The Texas Senate on Monday gave final approval to a $308 billion spending plan for the next two years, sending budget leaders into high-stakes negotiations with their counterparts in the House over property taxes and other divisive issues — with just weeks to go before the legislative session ends.
Senators voted 31-0 to spend $141.2 billion in general revenue on major investments in property tax cuts, juvenile justice, mental health, higher education, state parks, historical sites and pay raises for teachers and state employees.
State Rep. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversaw the budget-writing process for the chamber, said “smart fiscal policy” over the last several sessions allowed budget writers to make historic investments thanks to an unprecedented surplus in state coffers. Comptroller Glenn Hegar has said the surplus is from a record amount of sales tax and oil and gas taxes collected from Texans for the past two years.
