At the beginning of the 87th Legislative Session I was honored to be appointed by the Speaker of the House to Chair the Ways & Means committee, a vital committee that hears any bills that propose raising state revenue, changing existing tax law, or levying taxes or other fees. As Chairman of this committee, my focus was to promote economic recovery and smart, innovative approaches to tax reform and relief while making sure we fully funded priorities like education and public safety.

During the regular session, Ways & Means was referred the second most amount of bills and held weekly hearings to consider these important matters. Some highlights of legislation that we were able to pass out of committee and into law include:

• Giving property owners more accessibility to the appraisal protest process
• Improving the appointment process of appraisal review board members ensuring more expertise to the appraisal process
• Ensuring small businesses would not be penalized with franchise taxes related to pandemic loans received from the Federal government
• Preventing over taxation in historic districts (including Swiss Avenue) due to restrictions on building improvements

The 2022-2023 State Budget

The Legislature passed a $248.5 billion budget which includes $163.7 billion in state funds and $84.7 billion in federal funds. The state budget stays well below all Constitutional spending limits while fully funding public education, health care needs, supporting businesses by reinforcing infrastructure that is essential for private sector growth, and more. This budget also continues to provide billions in property tax relief statewide as well as toward “Robin Hood” recapture reduction.

The Texas Legislature continued its commitment to fully funding public education investments made in the 86th Legislative Session. This included the appropriation of $3.1 billion for enrollment growth during the 2022-23 biennium as well as $1.25 billion for financial aid programs. Additionally, we supported public education through:

• Allocating $664 million for programs to help students and schools affected by COVID-19
• Appropriating $60 million for supplemental special education services
• Increasing the funds for the Foundation School Program (which funds TX public schools) by $464 million.
• Increasing the state’s contribution rates to the Teacher Retirement System (TRS)

This past session we took action to expand access to health care and services while also working to make care more affordable for Texans across the state. We passed laws that:

• Grant Texans access to low-cost medications
• Allocate $352.6 million for women’s health programs
• Extend healthcare coverage for new moms and their children
• Expand telemedicine services across the state

The 87th Legislature addressed major issues regarding our power grid in order to help prevent future situations like the one experienced in February 2021, during winter storm Uri. The legislature made several reforms including:

• Preventing lengthy blackouts
• Creating a statewide power outage alert
• Improved the qualification and selection requirements for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) board members.
• Protecting Texans from future extreme fluctuations in electricity prices

Protecting vulnerable Texans has always been one of my top legislative priorities. I was proud of our accomplishments in this realm this session, including:

• HB 2462, improved the collection and analysis of sexual assault evidence and ensures every victim who comes forward with a sexual assault allegation and submits to an examination is able to be heard.
• HB 1706, which authorized the commissioner’s court of a county to establish a sexual assault victim services court program.
• HB 2706, which streamlined processes related to the reporting, preserving, and analyzing evidence of sexual assault and other sex offenses and operations related to emergency services and care provided to victims.
• HB1540, which implemented recommendations of the Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force including measures to better protect victims and strengthen law enforcement’s investigatory and prosecutorial tools for addressing these crimes.
• HB 465, which made it so individuals convicted of certain continuous human trafficking offenses involving children ineligible for parole.

This session I authored and passed several laws to improve the lives of Texans, including:

• Online Vehicle Registration Renewal: HB 2152 extends the time period allowed for individuals to renew their vehicle registration online.
• Property Tax Information Transparency: House Bill 2723 creates a statewide website that makes it easy for homeowners to access their home counties’ truth-in-taxation websites.
• Protecting the Vulnerable: HB 3529 and SB 109 continues the fight against coercive debt and provides remedies for victims of this abuse.
• Appraisal Process Reform: Senate Bill 63 and Senate Bill 916 give more tools to homeowners to protest their appraisals, increase accessibility and transparency, and ensure properly trained and licensed appraisers.
• No Taxpayer Funds for Sexual Harassment Settlements: SB 282 prohibits taxpayer dollars from being used to settle or pay a sexual harassment claim made against an elected official, their staff, or a person that has been appointed by the governor.