Here are bills being heard this week related to the RPT Legislative Priorities with a few that relate to Texas Constitutional Enforcement, stopping a massive subsidy for the film industry, and stopping growth from ruining the quality of life of Texans. This is the last week that bills starting in the Texas House can be heard and have a shot at passing. Some House bills that are companions to bills that have passed the Senate are being heard to expedite final passage.
Monday, April 21
House Public Health -- Starts at 12:00 pm in E2.030.
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c410
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C4102025042112001.HTM
HB 3219 – Joanne Shofner – Ivermectin without prescription in Texas! Supported by Texas Constitutional Enforcement.
Tuesday, April 22
House Licensing & Admin Procedures – Starts upon adjournment in E2.016.
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c350
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C3502025042210301.HTM
HB 1382 – Wes Virdell – Prohibition on weather modification and control in Texas. Will Texas follow Florida and Tennessee’s lead in banning what was once dismissed as conspiracy theory, but is now known as a fact that concerns many Texans?
Senate Business & Commerce – Starts at 8:00 am in E1.012.
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C5102025042208001.HTM
SB 324 – Lois Kolkhorst – Texas employers required to use E-verify. RPT Border Enforcement Legislative Priority. Companion to HB 3210 by Mike Olcott, which has not moved at all in House State Affairs.
SB 1978 – Bob Hall – Prohibition of connecting the Texas grid (ERCOT) to electrical networks that are wholly or partly outside the state. This is a Texas sovereignty bill supported by Texas Constitutional Enforcement.
Wednesday, April 23
House Culture, Recreation & Tourism – Starts at 8:00 am in E1.030.
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c430
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C4302025042308001.HTM
OPPOSE HB 4568 – Todd Hunter – Enabling legislation for $500 million subsidy for film industry. Companion to SB 22 which has already passed the Texas Senate. Check out this X poll with 5,331 votes that is 98% opposed to this bill ( https://x.com/tomgglass/status/1909326045469089940 ). Procedural trickery was used to stop an amendment to strip this subsidy out of the budget. Stopping this bill is the next line of defense. Of course, subsidies like this violates Principle 9 of the RPT Platform, “A free enterprise society unencumbered by government interference or subsidies.” The GOP primary voters are VERY hostile to what they see as Hollywooding Texas and supporting values and people that they abhor.
House Insurance – Starts at 8:00 am in E2.026
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c320
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C3202025042308001.HTM
SB 495 – Senator Kevin Sparks, presumably carried by Dennis Paul -- stops Texas Department of Insurance from implementing rules that implement ESG. Expands upon what Tom Oliverson and Ken King accomplished last session. Anti-ESG bill supported by Texas Constitutional Enforcement.
House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence – Starts at 8:00 am in E2.030
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c330
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C3302025042308001.HTM
OPPOSE HB 2988 – Mano DeAyala – Removes mandatory recovery of attorney fees when you win against vindictive plaintiffs. Undoes balance put into law to protect against strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP).
HB 4803 – David Spiller – Creates district attorneys for four regional districts: Northeast (including Dallas and 23 other counties), Central (including Travis and 41 other counties); Southeast (including Harris and 19 other counties), and South (including 51 other counties). 116 counties, including Tarrant County, North Central, the Panhandle, and far West Texas counties do not get an extra layer of prosecution. I presume that this bill is intended to provide more opportunity to insure that we get law enforcement in the big counties where district attorneys choose not to protect Texans by prosecuting significant numbers and types of crime.
HB 1387 – Wes Virdell – allows people with sufficient, defined legal experience, but without a law degree, to sit for the Texas Bar exam and become licensed attorneys if they pass.
OPPOSE HB 3964 – Cody Vasut – Prohibits common law nuisance suits if regulatory framework exists. All over Texas, growth and change is creating damage to the way of life of Texans. In many cases, the regulatory framework of Texas is failing, allowing the new uses of adjoining properties to damage their neighbors, leaving only common law nuisance as a remedy. Now even that remedy is in danger. Examples include the nuisance of loud buzzing created by battery energy storage systems and in my own Lee County, the dumping of noxious, disease ridden, buzzard and pest attracting municipal “composting” facilities. Art I, Sec 13 of the Texas Constitution says: "All courts shall be open, and every person for an injury done him, in his lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law." HB 3964 closes the courts and juries of our peers and turns the well being of Texans over to bureaucrats. Worse, the Senate companion, SB 779 has already passed the Senate, so unless the people let our House members know we oppose this, it is likely to pass.
House Natural Resources – Starts at 8:00 am in E2.036
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c390
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C3902025042308001.HTM
HB 1523 – Stan Gerdes – Prohibits City of Austin from injecting water into the aquifer under Bastrop County. Austin says they want to store lake water there, but there are many concerns about the threat to the groundwater that supplies the entire region.
HB 2109 – Gary VanDeaver – Stops the regional warfare of the Marvin Nichols Reservoir plan, which is intended to provide water to Dallas-Fort Worth by seizing and flooding 72,000 acres in Red River, Titus, and Franklin Counties, and under unconstitutional federal “mitigation” law would require the seizing of an additional 200,000 acres of private land in Morris, Fannin, and Bowie Counties.
HB 5188 – Janie Lopez – Exempts brackish groundwater wells from obtaining permits from groundwater districts. Removes red tape for desalinization of brackish groundwater.
HB 3898 – Richard Raymond – allows Texas Water Board to provide financial assistance to brackish water desalination for Webb County.
House State Affairs – Starts at 8:00 am in JHR 140 (Reagan Building on north end of Capitol Complex)
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c450
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C4502025042308001.HTM
HB 1907 – Dennis Paul – Prohibition on Texas governmental contracts with Chinese companies or companies controlled by China selling information and communications technology. RPT Texas is Not for Sale Legislative Priority.
SB 871 – Brian Birdwell -- Modifies the Texas Disaster Act and State of Emergency Chapter 433 of the Government Code to prohibit lockdowns by executive fiat in disasters or emergencies, limit the suspension of certain election law, to preempt local executives from expanding or limiting state declared disasters, and to remove authority from the executives to suspend alcohol or explosives sales. Ties to constitutional amendment (SJR 40) that requires the legislature to be called into session to extend widespread disasters. Does not fix the separation of powers provisions of the Texas Disaster Act that is fixed in Shelley Luther’s HB 5464. Am still trying to decide how to approach this bill. I note that the accompanying SJR 40 is not set for hearing, which raises eyebrows Since the bill allows the governor to suspend the Code of Criminal Procedure which contains a number of due course of law protections, that needs to be worked, as well. I may testify on the bill and recommend amendments.
Trade, Workforce & Economic Development – Starts at 8:00 am in E2.014
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c473
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C4732025042308001.HTM
HB 4555 – Pat Curry – Right to repair motor vehicles. Note that this follows on Gio Capriglione’s HB 2963, heard on April 15 in the same committee, whose bill description addresses the broader scope of right to repair digital electronic equipment, but includes motor vehicles. Curry’s bill is more precise and transparent on the issue while Capriglione’s bill non-transparently references a memorandum of understanding by the auto industry in its language for motor vehicles. Still deciding on how to approach. Both bills are APPROVED by the RPT End Federal Overreach Legislative Priority (the Freedom to Travel segment).
Thursday, April 24
House Elections – Starts upon adjournment in E2.012.
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c240
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C2402025042410301.HTM
HB 5337 – Carrie Isaac – Requires proof of citizenship to register to vote. RPT Secure Texas Elections Legislative Priority. Companion to SB 16 (Bryan Hughes) which has already passed the Senate.
HJR 161 – Candy Noble – Adds positive statement that non-citizens cannot vote to Texas Constitution. RPT Secure Texas Elections Legislative Priority. SJR 37 by Birdwell has already passed Senate 28 to 3 (the three nays being radical Dems Cook, Eckhardt, and Gutierrez). Last session, enough Democrats voted Present Not Voting in the House to deny the 100 votes needed to take the amendment to the voters.
House Criminal Jurisprudence – Starts at 8:00 am in E2.014.
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c220
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C2202025042408001.HTM
HB 3061 – Tom Oliverson – Increases penalties for commission of certain crimes including the robbery, burglary, arson, criminal mischief, disturbing the peace, and riot while wearing masks.
House Environmental Regulation – Stan Gerdes – Starts upon adjournment in E2.016.
Online comments: https://comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c260
Hearing notice: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C2602025042410301.HTM
HB 4086 – Stan Gerdes – Law allowing counties to prohibit municipal, commercial, or institutional composting facilities within 3,281 feet of stream, drain, recharge feature, recharge area, or tributary that my constitute or recharge the source of water supply of any municipality. Companion to SB 2078 by Lois Kolkhorst which has already passed Senate. This bill is known in Lee County as the Stop the Slop bill.
HB 4271 – Stan Gerdes – Requires TCEQ to hold a hearing on composting facilities upon request of a legislator. Companion to SB 2240 by Lois Kolkhorst which has not yet had a hearing. Came out of the controversy in Lee County where TCEQ refused to hold a hearing despite input from over 2,000 people. Not as likely to pass, and not near as effective to resolve the problem facing Lee County as HB 4086/SB 2078.