It’s over. The special session of the Texas Legislature ended last week, without the passage of many of the its most high profile bills.
When Governor Greg Abbott called this special session, he listed 20 pieces of legislation he wanted to see passed. In the end, only about half made it through. Some notable bills that did not pass include the bathroom bill, property tax reform, and a major overhaul to tree protection ordinances.
For those not as familiar with the inner workings of our state government… the Texas Legislature only meets for 140 days every other year. That is, unless the governor decides to call a special session (which he decided to do this year) These sessions last for a maximum of 30 days. During that time, generally the only new pieces of legislation that are allowed to be passed are those that the governor has specifically called for.
First, let’s start with the trees. As you might remember, when Abbott called this special session he took special aim at the tree protection ordinances that exist in Austin and dozens of other cities across Texas. He called the ordinances “socialistic” and asked the Legislatures to work on passing bills to overturn them.
In the end, municipal tree ordinances made it through the special session largely unscathed. In an email newsletter marking the end of the session, local environmental advocacy organization Texas Campaign For the Environment cheered, “We did it. We saved Texas trees. Thousands of Texans took action in all corners of the state to tell legislators to #DefendTexasTrees.”
One tree bill (HB 7) actually did pass this session, but instead of getting rid of tree protection ordinances entirely, it merely makes a small change to them. The bill (which Abbott signed into law this week) allows homeowners who choose to remove a tree from their property to reduce the fees they have to pay to the city by planting news trees in the old one’s place.
Bottom line – the bill that passed only makes minor changes to local tree ordinances (by slightly reducing the fees property owners might have to pay). It does not threaten cities’ ability to preserve trees with preservation ordinances.
And what about property taxes?
As we reported earlier this month, another local control issue that was brought up this special session was property taxes. The Legislature considered several bills that would have limited the ability of cities to raise property taxes above a certain amount without triggering an automatic election.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler spoke out passionately against these proposals, saying that if the Legislature really wants to do something about rising property taxes, “they need to fix our broken school finance system.”
Under our current school finance system, the state collects money from the property taxes of wealthy school districts and redistributes them to lower-income districts. This year, the state is expected to recapture $1,378 of the median homeowner’s property tax bill.
In the end, the Legislature could not agree on a single property tax proposal, so the issue died without any real action. It did however stir up a lot of anger from lawmakers, including Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who blamed Speaker of the House Joe Straus for getting in the way of the bathroom bill and property tax reform. Straus was especially strong in his opposition to the bathroom bill. The House never even voted on it.
Could there be another special session?
If Abbott chooses to, he could bring back lawmakers again for yet another special session. While Abbott has said that he isn’t ruling another special session out, he hasn’t made any announcements calling for one and it isn’t clear that calling another session would necessarily result in more bills being passed. At this point in time, there are major differences between the House and the Senate that don’t seem to be resolving themselves anytime soon.
