The Texas House spent over 14 hours debating—but mostly, just standing around—amendments during a marathon proceeding to pass its biennial budget.
Ultimately, the House voted 118-26 to adopt a $337 billion budget early Friday morning. The bill, shepherded by House Appropriations Chairman Greg Bonnen, featured many big-ticket items. At the top is $51 billion to cover the ballooning cost of previously enacted property tax relief and finance a new round of cuts. The budget also puts $75.6 billion toward public education, which includes a modest but long-overdue bump in the per-student allotment, and $1 billion earmarked for school vouchers. Legislators are also maintaining full funding for Governor Greg Abbott’s border security project Operation Lone Star with another $6.5 billion for the next two years (despite the fact that border crossings are precipitously low and President Trump is back in the White House).
Nineteen Republicans, comprising the hard-right bloc, voted against the budget—contending that it enabled too much bloated government spending and not enough property tax cuts. Seven Democrats opposed it over the funding for private school vouchers. While there are some minor differences, the House budget has largely aligned with the one that the Senate unanimously passed on March 25. The two chambers will now iron out the differences in conference committee.
