AUSTIN — On Tuesday, lawmakers returned to the Capitol for the 89th session of the Texas Legislature — a session that was contentious before it began, thanks to a nail-biter of a House speaker race that ultimately crowned Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock to one of the most powerful positions in state politics. 

The Texas Legislature is in session for 140 days every two years, this year ending on June 2. Only the governor can call “special sessions,” in which the governor defines which issues can be addressed with legislation. 

While the Texas-Mexico border continues to be a top concern, a few other important issues have generated buzz. Gov. Greg Abbott’s school vouchers program — which would allow public funds to be used for private school tuition — is a major piece of unfinished business from the last session, which stretched into a near record-breaking overtime of four special sessions. (The program was and is unpopular with rural representatives on both sides of the aisle, who worry that funds will be diverted from local schools into private schools in bigger cities.) 

Abbott failed to get voucher legislation passed due to the roadblock of rural legislators and Democrats, but he and Burrows have signaled they now have the votes for some kind of “school choice” bill to pass. Public education advocates — who saw new school funding held hostage to a voucher bill last session and ultimately denied — will continue to fight against taxpayer dollars for private schools, but they are also putting their hopes into billions of dollars in state funding, including pay raises for teachers. Lawmakers enter the session with a $23.8 billion surplus, but will hear from many constituencies on how to spend it, including property-tax buy downs, infrastructure spending and water initiatives.

Another major issue is cannabis. Even in our dusty corner of the Lone Star state, shoppers may have noticed THC-A and Delta 8 products on shelves — chemical byproducts and variations of the psychoactive plant. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has declared war, believing that a 2019 law legalizing “hemp products” has left too much leeway for producers and business owners to peddle goods that could be harmful and otherwise illegal. 

On the local level, the Big Bend’s representatives so far appear focused on practical, quotidian projects, cleaning up laws relating to smaller courts and county governments. That’s likely to change as the session heats up — while an unusually high number of bills were filed ahead of session this year, it’s still very early in the cycle. 

A small sampling of a few of the issues Big Bend representatives have announced support for ahead of the session:

REP. EDDIE MORALES

Juror privacy — House Bill 1495 would add fine print to state laws to protect personal data collected by the court system when people report for jury duty. The bill would “prohibit release of personal information collected during the jury selection process,” which includes jurors’ social security numbers and drivers license numbers, as well as the basic demographic information recorded on juror questionnaires. Privacy concerns around data collection online have become a hot topic in recent years, and that conversation has entered the realm of legal scholarship as high-profile cases with anonymous juries — like the Trump “hush money” trial — have hit headlines. 

Alpine’s hotel occupancy tax — Each session, tourist-heavy destinations across the state clamor for the laws around hotel occupancy taxes (HOT funds, for short) to shift. The law — which aims to put “heads in beds” across the state — adds a small upcharge to lodging bills that are required to be spent on tourism promotion. 

Morales’ HB 1039 would strike a section of the law that specifically targets Alpine, stipulating that 50% of the funds or more must be used on “advertising and conducting solicitations and promotional programs,” and that 15% apiece or less can be used on arts programming and historical preservation projects designed to draw tourists. The bill would even the playing field for the city with nearby Marfa and Presidio, who have slightly more flexibility in how they spend their HOT money. 

SEN. CESAR BLANCO

Air conditioning in state prisons — Blanco is one of a handful of co-authors on a bill that would require Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) facilities to house inmates in climate-controlled temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees. The bill was inspired by the plight of Bernie Tiede, a convicted murderer (and inspiration behind the 2011 Jack Black film) who suffered a stroke after his Huntsville cell reached a sweltering 112 degrees. One of the lead attorneys on Tiede’s suit against the TDCJ is Alpine’s own Jodi Cole, who has teamed up with filmmaker Richard Linklater and a star-studded cast of attorneys to advocate for the 70% of state inmates serving their sentences without air conditioning. 

Healthcare — This session, Blanco will continue to push for the HEAL Texans act, which would override current licensing laws to allow Advanced Practice Nurse Practitioners (APRNs) to provide primary care in underserved communities. Much like the wildly successful grant-funded community paramedicine programs in Terlingua and Presidio — which authorize EMTs to make preventative care-related house calls — the bill allows healthcare professionals already living and working in remote areas to expand the services they’re able to offer. “This bill will give our families the healthcare they need and deserve closer to home,” he told The Sentinel.