DALLAS — Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan told House members that the lower chamber will finish up the fourth special legislative session on Tuesday. The session officially ends on Wednesday.
In a memo over the weekend, Phelan made no indication that the chamber would take up any of the major pending bills. It instead said the House will consider congratulatory and memorial measures.
The memo also noted that Tuesday would be the only day the chamber would convene this week.
This decision means bills that include increasing school safety funding and creating a new school voucher program may not pass unless the House decides last minute to approve bills drafted by the Senate. Also on the line is legislation that would ensure new property tax cuts and teacher pension raises aren't delayed by an election challenge -- a bill drafted last minute by the upper chamber.
"Any big issue that changes tax structures or education funding requires some time to get their minds around and the sort of pressure that leaders like governors and lieutenant governors need to put on members to get them to vote," said political science expert Dr. Cal Jillson.
Phelan and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick have posted on X, formerly Twitter, placing blame on each other for failure to pass legislation.
"This back-and-forth was aggravated by Ken Paxton’s impeachment and then failure to convict in the senate," Dr. Jillson said. "It put a lot of bad blood between Patrick and Phelan.”
Since the start of the regular legislative session in January, Governor Greg Abbott has asked the House and Senate to strike a deal on school vouchers. It hasn't happened.
"There are a couple of dozen rural Republicans, small town Republicans, whose public schools are central to their communities and they may not even have private schools," Dr. Jillson said. "So vouchers wouldn't do them any good and fear it may leave them with less money for their public schools."
The Senate has routinely passed bills in favor of school vouchers. The House has been slow to get a sufficient amount of votes, with some Republicans voting alongside Democrats against vouchers.
Gov. Abbott has threatened to call lawmakers back to the Capitol if they did not bring a vouchers bill to his desk, but when that may happen is unclear.
Senate Bill 5, which would allot $800 million to school safety measures through 2025, was unanimously passed in the Senate. The bill concerns school safety, which was on the governor’s fourth special session agenda.
The House passed a similar bill with even more funding, but it has made no movement in a Senate committee.
Senate Bill 6 is on the line, which proposes to adjust the timeline of a trial after a citizen or group files a suit contesting an election result.
The bill comes after six lawsuits were filed in Travis County this week disputing the results of this November's election. In that election, voters approved constitutional amendments that would dramatically reduce property taxes, give a modest pension increase to retired teachers and invest billions of dollars for water infrastructure, broadband internet, state parks and the power grid.
By law, challenges to constitutional amendment elections can’t go to trial earlier than a month after they’ve been filed — unless requested by the contestant — and not later than six months after they were filed. Many of the amendments passed last month are supposed to go into effect Jan. 1, but could be delayed if the challenges are not resolved.
SB 6 would adjust those deadlines so that the implementation of the measures wouldn’t be delayed.
The election disputes are not currently on Gov. Abbott’s agenda for the session.
"It’s hard to see where we go from here," Dr. Jillson said. "[Gov.] Abbott’s gonna have to do something to break this law-jam.”