Senate Plows Ahead in Special Session
Without House with Committee Referrals
Extraordinary Session #1
Capitol Inside
June 2, 2023
The Texas Senate refused to play the pigeon on Friday when it met for five minutes before taking a long weekend off without taking action on a record $17 billion property tax cut that the House approved this week before calling it quits in a special session that the upper chamber has all to itself now.
With GOP State Senator Charles Schwertner of Georgetown subbing for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick in the chair, the Senate reconvened this morning after a two-day hiatus before quickly adjourning until 6 p.m. on Tuesday. The Senate accomplished nothing in the abbreviated meeting beyond the referring of a House migrant smuggling bill to the Border Security Committee in the Legislature's upper chamber.
The House sent the trafficking punishment plan to the Senate on Tuesday night along with a pair of property tax relief measures that Governor Greg Abbott quickly endorsed. The House had been in special session for less than 24 hours before adjourning sine die at the end of its first and last meeting on the floor in the gathering that the Senate has decided to extend indefinitely based on the maneuvering today.
Patrick has spent the past two days ripping House Speaker Dade Phelan and Abbott for cutting a deal that he says would siphon billions of dollars away from homeowners so businesses could reap the benefits instead. While the Senate appears to be wasting valuable time in a special session where every bill that it passes will be dead on arrival in empty House, the lieutenant governor has devoted the past few days to an educational and awareness campaign that's designed to highlight the differences between the competing tax relief proposals.
Patrick remains the singular roadblock to a deal on property taxes after holding out for a homestead exemption increase throughout the regular session that ended on Monday. Phelan and the House had been just as stubborn with a proposal that featured a reduction in appraisal caps that Patrick has vehemently opposed and vowed to kill. But the House bit the bullet in a move that caught Patrick and senators by surprise when it dropped appraisal caps from the special session package and approved a bill that revolves exclusively on the state-mandated compression of local tax rates.
The Senate ignored the specific wording of the governor's decree and approved a plan early Tuesday afternoon that included the homeowners provision and rate compression before a two-day break from the first of an unspecified number of special sessions that Abbott has promised to call in the newly-minted interim.
Having been bamboozled by Phelan and the House, the Republican Senate president has yet to accept that the initial special session is a bust as far as actually passing legislation is concerned with only one chamber in business. Patrick, who controls the Senate's Republicans with an iron fist, must find a way to move the fight to a second special session at some point if he's serious about cutting taxes while lawmakers have the luxury of an all-time budget surplus.
But Patrick would have to have the Senate either vote to kill the largest tax cut in Texas history or to simply adjourn the first special session without taking action on the compromise plan that's wrapped in House Bill 1 and House Joint Resolution 1 in a move that lets the historic proposal die.
Patrick could be buying time with an elongated weekend for senators - hoping to use the break to stir up a groundswell of support among voters for the Senate plan as the more populist proposal on slashing taxes in the mix. Patrick could take a page from the Abbott playbook and conduct a tour to selective House members' districts to pitch the Senate plan in a crusade for Texas homeowners.
Patrick stepped up his attacks on the House pact with the governor on Friday - portaying the compression compromise as a giveaway for big business and the wealthy at a steep expense for people who own homes in Texas. But the Senate appeared to going through the motions of a special session with bills still in play today when Patrick referred three measures to the Border Security Committee.
The Senate appears to be in business just for show nonetheless until it does what it takes to get a second special session under way. The House for the record stands adjourned sine die pending messages, bill signing and administrative tasks.
Patrick cited a Houston Chronicle story that "states 44% of all benefits go to the 1/5 of Texas households with the highest incomes" in the legislation that the House approved with Abbott's vigorous support and endorsements from a long list of business groups.
"So I am not surprised these groups are lining up behind @GovAbbott," Patrick tweeted on Friday. "31 Senators and I are proud to stand with the people. All 5.7 million homeowners deserve a $100k homestead exemption. The Senate plan gives homeowners a permanent $1200-1450 tax cut. The Abbott/House plan only gives the average homeowner about $740 because they’re giving a significant portion of tax cuts to businesses and the top 20% of the highest-priced homes. And the Abbott/House plan tax cut is not permanent. The Senate plan is."
Patrick retweeted a message that the influential Texas Public Policy Foundation on the elimination of property taxes altogether. "We all want to end property taxes for good but it would require increasing the local sales tax from 8 ¼% to about 19%" Patrick countered. "Not happening! The @TPPF plan that @GovAbbott endorses is not realistic and everyone knows it. Whenever sales taxes underperform, property taxes will immediately go back up."
more to come ... |
