Gov. Greg Abbott spoke in front of a crowd of lawmakers and supporters to deliver his State of the State Sunday afternoon from Arnold Oil’s corporate headquarters in East Austin.
He named his list of emergency items, which are the only issues lawmakers can pass bills on in the first 60 days of the session.
These items included several that were also named last year: property tax relief , school choice — also called vouchers — and cracking down on bail reform.
Several new items also topped the governor’s list including water infrastructure, increasing pay for teachers, increasing career training opportunities and creating a Texas Cyber Command to fend off cyber attacks.
Texans also heard from their fellow citizens as part of the Democratic Party’s response to Abbott’s speech, with state Democrats enlisting a public school educator, an OB/GYN, electricians’ union representative and the state’s Democratic chair to represent what the party hoped to project as the voice of everyday Texans.
Blaise Gainey, who covers state politics for The Texas Newsroom, said there were a few items that surprised him during the speech.
“What surprised me the most was actually the teacher pay raises,” he said. “$750 million into that program is going to be impactful. And I didn’t see that one coming.
The other thing that surprised me was the Texas Cyber Command center that he wants to build at the University of Texas in San Antonio. That’ll be really interesting to see what it’s like. I think that sort of came out of left field for those who were more interested with school choice.”
Abbott also wants to extend diversity, equity and inclusion – or DEI – restrictions. He talked about increasing career training opportunities and investing in water infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Texas Senate is expected to vote on SB2 this week, the bill that would allocate public funds to help families pay for private school and other education expenses.
“The Senate will meet today,” Gainey said. “My guess is they may not pass the bill, but they may discuss it. And then sometime this week, they can go ahead and pass it off the floor.
I don’t know why they would wait to do it. I think them passing it this early will signal to the House that they mean business… So it’ll really put some pressure on the House to get moving on school choice.”
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SB 2 earmarks $1 billion for vouchers, with $10,000 going to students who participate in the program, Gainey said.
“Children with disabilities will get $11,500,” Gainey said. “Last time around, I believe, some money went to people that were homeschooling their children. This time they’ll get $2,000. I don’t think it’s as much as they were offering last time around, but this will be used to send them to like SAT prep training and different types of things.”
Currently, the basic allotment for public school students in Texas is $6,160 per student.
The House has been moving at a slower pace than the Senate, Gainey said, and lawmakers there are still waiting on committee assignments.
“I think this is actually the normal speed of the house. They have a lot more members, a lot more committees. And I think it just takes a while, definitely with the change of a new speaker, to decide exactly who you want on each committee,” Gainey said.
“They turned in their request for committee assignments last week. My guess is over the weekend, House Speaker Dustin Burrows looked over that and maybe he has an idea and they can get to business when they meet tomorrow on the floor.”
Gainey said those House committee assignments are part of what he’s keeping an eye out for this week.
“I’m going to look for some bills to be filed in relation to what the governor made his emergency items on. And I would also expect, hopefully in the House, some committee assignments,” he said.
“The thing that I’ve been waiting to keep my eye on whenever it happens is who is the chair of the education committee in the House, since that is the committee that the school choice bill will have to go through.”