With one week left in the Texas legislative session, top leaders are making their final push to get their somewhat disparate agendas approved.
The outcome of the session could shape politics in 2024 and beyond, as politicians try to establish their legacies and plot their next moves.
The stakes are the highest for Gov. Greg Abbott, who wants to bolster his standing with national conservatives, perhaps becoming an option as a vice presidential candidate or a Cabinet official under the next GOP president.
It’s probably too late for Abbott to gain traction as a presidential contender, with former President Donald Trump topping GOP primary polls and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expected to announce his White House candidacy in the coming days.
Abbott wants a fourth term, which would give him the chance to break Republican Rick Perry’s record as the longest serving governor in Texas history.
In order to improve his chances, he needs to show the hard-right conservative voters who dominate the Republican primary process that he’s delivered on the culture war issues they find important.
That’s why Abbott has been pushing lawmakers to pass a plan that would use state money to allow public school students to attend private schools. The Senate, strongly on board with Abbott, passed a bill giving families taxpayer dollars to spend on private school tuition. But the issue has struggled to get enough backing in the House.
A week ago, a House education committee considered a plan that gives an education savings account, or ESA, only to students with special needs or those in low-performing public schools. An estimated 800,000 children statewide would qualify. Abbott said that proposal doesn’t go far enough.
But Abbott said he isn’t interested in more modest proposals and threatened to call lawmakers back for a special session on the issue.
“Parents and their children deserve the time and effort this will take,” he said in a statement.
Whether there are enough votes to approve a voucher-like plan in a special session is unknown. But it’s clear that Abbott would rather continue to wrangle lawmakers instead of giving up.
The usually politically cautious governor went all in on the school choice plan. He made it part of his crusade for parental rights, an issue that fired up conservative activists across the country.
Abbott has had numerous campaign-style trips at private Christian schools to tout the plan.
Historically, a coalition of rural and urban lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — have decried voucher programs that they fear will adversely affect their public school districts. That coalition has remained intact for this legislative session, and Abbott and other voucher proponents have underestimated the popularity of public schools in small-town Texas.
That leaves Abbott facing one of the biggest defeats in his prolific political career. Such a loss could haunt him down the road, unless he shows conservative GOP activists that he did all he could to expand school choice programs in Texas.
For Republican primary voters, the only thing worse than losing on an issue is not fighting for it to the very end.
The other big legislative item for Abbott is property tax relief. On that subject, he can be confident that the Legislature will send him a bill, whether it’s for the current session or a special session.
Republican leaders have promised Texas property tax owners relief in the wake of a nearly $33 billion budget surplus.
Last week, the House advanced a plan that would result in homeowners across the state saving more than $1,000 a year. Under the proposal, the state-required homestead exemption on school taxes would rise from $40,000 to $100,000. The plan needs Senate approval, which could be tricky.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, are in a tug-of-war on the mechanics of a property tax plan, and it’s not clear a deal can be worked out in the few days that remain in this year’s legislative session.
A major sticking point is that the House’s plan would ask voters to approve tighter appraisal caps aimed at restraining home valuations, which over the past two years have skyrocketed in major urban areas.
Patrick and leading GOP senators have insisted tighter appraisal caps would unsettle the real estate market by encouraging people to hold onto their homes.
Abbott, Patrick and Phelan have all committed to significant property tax relief.
It’s hard to imagine GOP leaders failing to compromise and deliver on the tax cut they promised.
Someone will blink.
