Texas lawmakers target property taxes, election fraud and transgender people in new legislation ahead of 2023 session

Rep. Lina Ortega, D-El Paso, and Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, have filed bills to expand postpartum Medicaid to 12 months. House Republicans have called this a top priority, particularly in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Last year, the House voted to give new moms access to Medicaid for a year after they gave birth, but the Senate reduced that time period to six months. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said that the state’s application is “not approvable”; applications for 12-month extensions were automatically approved through the American Rescue Plan.

House Bill 70 by Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, would make menstrual supplies like tampons and pads tax-exempt. Howard has filed similar bills every session since 2017, but this year, Gov. Greg Abbott and other key Republicans have signaled their support for eliminating the “tampon tax.” — Eleanor Klibanoff and Sneha Dey

Texas Republicans have targeted transgender people several times in recent sessions. Already, there is a wave of bills aimed at gender-affirming health care.

House Bill 42, filed by Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, would expand the state’s definition of child abuse to include providing gender-affirming health care under the guidance of a doctor or mental health care provider. The Legislature declined to pass a similar bill last session.

House Bill 112, filed by Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, would also criminalize gender-affirming health care. In particular, the legislation would bar health care providers from offering various gender-affirming procedures and treatments for children, including puberty blockers and testosterone or estrogen doses. Violations could result in a second-degree felony. Toth also introduced this proposed ban in House Bill 41, which would also take away professional liability insurance policy from providers who offer these treatments.

Gender-affirming care is recommended by all major medical associations to treat gender dysphoria, the distress someone can feel when their physical presentation does not align with their gender identity. For teens and youth, gender-affirming care is often limited to social transition — using different pronouns or wearing different clothes — but can include puberty blockers, which are fully reversible, and hormone therapy.

In February, Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion that equated gender-affirming care with child abuse, prompting Gov. Greg Abbott to direct the state’s child welfare agency to investigate parents. Those investigations are largely blocked by court order, but if state law changed, they could potentially resume. — Sneha Dey, Eleanor Klibanoff and Alex Nguyen

House Bill 39, introduced by Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, would bump the penalty for election fraud from a Class A misdemeanor to a state jail felony.

In 2021, Abbott called for stiffer penalties for illegal voting — less than a month after he signed a bill that lowered penalties. Phelan, in response, said it was not an appropriate time “to re-litigate” the legislation known as Senate Bill 1.

The bill filed Monday would amend existing voting law. Some offenses include causing “any false or intentionally misleading statement, representation, or information to be provided to an election official” and causing “the ballot not to reflect the intent of the voter.”

Similar legislation, House Bill 397, House Bill 222 and House Bill 52, would increase penalties for illegal voting to a second-degree felony. These bills are filed by Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth; Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City; and Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, respectively. — Sneha Dey and Alex Nguyen

Two Houston Democrats have filed legislation pushing for more inclusion of ethnic studies in schools. House Bill 45, filed by Rep. Christina Morales, D-Houston, would mandate most public school districts to offer Mexican American and African American studies. Meanwhile, House Bill 368 by Rep. Jarvis Johnson would create an African American studies advisory board within the State Board of Education to expand the teaching of “citizenship, culture, economics, science, technology, geography, and politics as they relate to the history of African Americans.”

Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, has filed a bill that would change how the state funds Texas’ 1,204 public school districts and open-enrollment charters. With House Bill 31, Hinojosa wants to fund schools based on their average enrollment.

Currently, schools are funded on their average daily attendance. The average daily attendance is calculated by the sum of children present divided by days of instruction that schools are required to give. Texas schools have to be open for a minimum of 75,600 minutes over a school year, which includes recess and lunch.

This means if a kid is absent, the school loses that money. Some superintendents have been calling to be funded based on enrollment so they don’t lose money regardless of attendance. — Brian Lopez and Alex Nguyen

A series of bills by state Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, would require more legislative oversight into the Texas governor’s ability to renew disaster declarations — which grant the state’s top elected official more authority outside the checks and balances by state lawmakers typically in place

The package of legislation includes Senate Bill 99, which would require the governor to call a special session of the Legislature if a disaster declaration is to be renewed past 90 days, provided the Legislature is not already in session at the time.

Gov. Greg Abbott has taken criticism from some Republicans for using his authority under the pandemic disaster declaration to extend the early-voting period during the height of the pandemic. He has also been criticized by Democrats for using a disaster declaration along the Texas-Mexico border to funnel billions in tax dollars to his Operation Lone Star with no legislative appropriations process.

Proponents say limiting the governor’s ability to renew declarations curbs potential for abuse of power and allows voters to weigh in during the process. — Karen Brooks Harper

House Bill 379 by state Rep. Cecil Bell Jr., R-Magnolia, directs the state comptroller to automatically put half of any budget surplus at the end of each biennium into the Texas Education Agency to help reduce property taxes. Republican leaders have said they want to use a massive budget surplus to help lower Texas homeowners’ property taxes. — Karen Brooks Harper and Joshua Fechter