There are just six weeks left in the legislative session – and as the end looms nearer, lawmakers are going to start passing bills at an increasingly faster pace.
There’s work going on behind the scenes right now to get the state’s next budget squared away. Lawmakers from the Senate and House will be meeting behind closed doors in a conference committee to try to hammer out the differences between the two versions of the budget bill.
Lawmakers are also expected to debate any number of high-profile bills in the next five days. Blaise Gainey, who covers the statehouse for The Texas Newsroom, said this week’s schedule includes several bills related to the administration of elections in Texas.
“Two of them actually seem like they are targeting Harris County. At least that’s what the analysis of the bill says,” he said. “SB 507 actually makes it where if a precinct doesn’t have enough ballot paper, enough to print out ballots for every citizen that is eligible to vote, that they can get in trouble.
And then there’s one that has to do with turning in the election results on time. So if they’re not turned in by 2 a.m. the next morning after the election, and the precinct hasn’t notified the [correct] department that they’re gonna be late with turning in those results, they can also get in trouble.”
Harris County has faced criticism in the past from Republican lawmakers for both not having enough ballots in each polling location and turning in their election results later than other jurisdictions.
“There’s another [bill] that bans political subdivisions, like county governments, from distributing voter registration cards to people who have not requested them,” Gainey said. “In this instance, they’re saying they don’t want people to get these voter registration cards unless they specifically request them.”
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
Abortion hasn’t been a big topic of debate this legislative cycle, and certainly not compared to 2023, but there is also an abortion bill, Senate Bill 33, that’s up for discussion this week.
“Some counties have found a way to still help women get abortions by either helping them with travel expenses or, you know, paying for certain things that aren’t directly related to abortions,” Gainey said. “This bill would make sure that governments cannot do that by basically adding more services into or more descriptions into what exactly is abortion-related expenses. So like childcare, the cost of a flight or train or a bus … all sorts of other things.”
Another one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priorities this session – to secure funding to turn Texas into a hub for dementia research – is also on the docket this week.
“That legislation is moving. I believe it’s in the House now,” Gainey said. “I think this bill will easily go through. [An] estimated 6.9 million Americans 65 and older have dementia right now. That’ll double by 2060. So this is obviously a big deal. I think everybody knows somebody with Alzheimer’s.”
