Senate Setting Agenda with Bail Reform
Plan that Has Potential Poison Pill in SJR
Capitol Inside
February 19, 2025
The Texas Senate continued to define the regular session agenda with a bipartisan nod for a bail restriction package on Wednesday when the House voted to take a long weekend for the fourth time in the past four weeks despite slacker portrayals by conservatives angry over the lack of progress there.
The Senate approved a bail reform plan in Senate Bill 9 on a vote of 28-2 and a separate but related measure in Senate Bill 140 with the only three dissenting votes cast by Democrats. Both measures appear to have ample support among the ruling Republicans in the House. Both are complicated, however, and have no guarantees of success in conference committees that will be needed if the House amends the legislation.
But the Senate ran the risk of having a potential poison pill in the mix when it voted 29-3 for a proposed amendment to the state constitution that takes aim at migrants who would have bail denied automatically if they've been accused of felony offenses regardless of their severity. Senate Joint Resolution 1 - if ratified by voters - would apply to migrants who'd never been processed at the border by the federal government or failed to keep applications for legal asylum in the U.S. updated.
SJR 1 needs 100 votes in the House before it can go to the Texas electorate for a statewide vote later this year. That means the House sponsors must have at least a dozen Democrats on board if the Republicans are united behind the proposal in the Capitol's west wing. The House has 88 Republicans and 62 Democrats in 2025.
But GOP State Senator Joan Huffman of Houston guided the bail plan through the Senate with ease as the leader of the bail reform charge in Austin during the past four years. Huffman - the Senate's chief budget writer as the Finance Committee chair - got a key assist from Democratic State Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa of McAllen. Hinojosa serves as vice chair on the finance panel.
A bill and joint resolution designed to tighten limitation on bail both cleared the Senate in 2023 before dying without votes on the floor of the House near the end of the regular session. The Legislature passed a bail reform measure in a special session in 2021 with 40 Democrats casting opposing votes. But a proposed constitutional amendment that was tied to it failed in the House on an 87-35 vote.
The Senate bill refers to people in Texas without proper documentation as "illegal aliens" - a term that was considered offensive in the eyes of many Hispanics, Democrats and no shortage of Republicans in the Lone Star State. Based on the Senate's definition of migrants in SJR 1, people from other countries who've been granted citizenship here would be legal aliens. Elon Musk is a prime example as a South African immigrant who's been delegated an unprecedented amount of power from President Donald Trump.
Bail reform is the third major issue that the Senate has tackled with legislation that it's sent to the House in the session's first five weeks. The House in the meantime has yet to hold a hearing or cast a vote on anything beyond the chamber's operating rules and four consecutive motions to take weekends that are longer than Texas Constitution allows without permission from both chambers.
The House approved the latest extended break on Wednesday with a vote of 118-21 for Senate Concurrent Resolution 16. The resolution gives Texas lawmakers four days off starting Friday before they meet again on Tuesday. The Senate approved the resolution on Tuesday in a vote that was predictably unanimous.
State Rep. Brian Harrison - a Midlothian Republican who's become the face of the far right at the Texas Capitol this year - said he would characterize the House work schedule up to now as a joke except for the fact that Texans aren't laughing. "They're working hard and expect us to do the same," he argued in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the motion.
more to come ...
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