House passes state budget

The Texas House passed its version of SB 1, the state budget, early Friday, April 11. The hearing ended around 6 a.m., lasting just over 13 hours. The final vote was 118-26, with 19 Republicans and seven Democrats opposed to the $337 billion two-year budget plan.

With hundreds of amendments to consider, floor debates on the budget are often a lengthy affair and this time was no different. Before the bulk of discussions began, almost 100 amendments were killed in a procedural maneuver, among them one that would place funding limitations on any school voucher program and one that would provide back pay to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the time he went unpaid during his impeachment trial in 2023.

In all, only 25 amendments were approved: 18 by Republicans and seven by Democrats.

One of the largest expenditures every session is the public education budget, clocking in at $75.6 billion. The House and Senate have different ideas on how to spend that money, but both want to increase pay for teachers. The House prefers increasing the basic allotment, while the Senate favors direct pay raises for teachers.

Both chambers have set aside $1 billion to create a school voucher program, commonly called education savings accounts. In previous sessions, an amendment was added to the budget explicitly barring state funding for vouchers, but no such amendment was offered this year, likely because the House's voucher bill already has 76 co-authors, clearing half of the 150-member chamber. 

Other major items include $51 billion in property tax relief and $6.5 billion for border security. (For more on what's in the House budget, check out this Texas Tribune article.)

The next step in the process is expected to be a conference committee between the Senate and House to hash out the differences in their budget proposals to craft a final version to send to Gov. Greg Abbott. Each chamber will likely make concessions on their preferred items to negotiate an agreeable final draft; those changes will be publicized in the coming weeks. The budget is the only bill the legislature is required to pass during the session, which ends on June 2.