Senate Tax Hike Election Measure Bombs
in House as 27 Republicans Break Ranks
Capitol Inside
September 2, 2025
The Texas House torpedoed a property tax rate election measure on Tuesday after conservative Republicans teamed up with Democrats in a vote against a conference committee report that represented a compromise with the Senate where the bill had been conceived.
The middle-ground plan that Republican negotiators had fashioned for Senate Bill 10 collapsed when the House voted 71-60 to reject the report from the conferees who'd been appointed by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Speaker Dustin Burrows to hammer out differences between the competing chambers' proposals.
Twenty-eight Republicans opposed the conference product on SB 10 along all but one of the Democrats who were on the House floor for the vote. State Rep. Richard Raymond of Laredo was the only Democrat to side with a majority of the Republicans on the conference committee report on SB 10.
Sixteen GOP members who opposed the compromise plan are freshmen legislators who've been some of the lower chambers most conservative members throughout the year. Republicans who opposed the final product on the tax election trigger measure have complained that the leadership proposals are enabling a local tax system that an increasing number of GOP members want to abolish or to severely restrict.
GOP State Rep. Steve Toth of Conroe said a vote against the SB 10 conference report would not kill the bill. Toth said the House simply would be sending the proposal back to the Senate to take another shot on making it more palatable. Democrats opposed SB 10 on the grounds that it would be handcuffing cities and counties by lowering the threshold for local elections on proposed rate hikes.
Republican State Rep. Morgan Meyer of Dallas had the lead role in the House on SB 10 as a function of his part as the Ways & Means Committee chairman. State Senator Paul Bettencourt - a Houston Republican who's one of Patrick top allies as the Local Government Committee chair - is the author of the measure that the Senate could try to rework in the current special session's final dozen days. Bettencourt and Meyer were picked to lead the negotiating teams by Patrick and Burrows respectively.
The failure of SB 10 would represent another defeat for the powerful lieutenant governor in the summer's second special session barring a revival in the House snub wake.
Patrick's push for a THC ban appears to be a bust with legislation to accomplish that stalled in a House committee which has yet to take a vote on it. The perennial Patrick plan to prohibit local governments from hiring lobbyists appears to be going nowhere in the west wing as well.
The House approved Senate Bill 12 on a vote of 78-52 on August 25 with Republicans united at the time behind the measure. State Rep. Sergio Muñoz of Mission and Raymond were the only two Democrats to break ranks on the legislation on its first trip through the House in special session number two.
Muñoz was the only Democrat on a team of House conferees on SB 12 that included GOP State Reps. Greg Bonnen of Friendswood, Angie Chen Button of Garland and Will Metcalf of Conroe. All of the Republicans on the negotiating team are high-level Burrows lieutenants.
Patrick picked an all-Republican cast for the compromise talks on the tax relief proposal with State Senators Brian Birdwell of Granbury, Brent Hagenbuch of Denton, Robert Nichols of Jacksonville and Angela Paxton of McKinney on the team led by Bettencourt.
Senate Bill 10 - Texas Legislature Online
Yeas - Ashby; Barry; Bell, C.; Bell, K.; Bonnen; Buckley; Button; Cain; Capriglione; Cook; Craddick; Cunningham; Curry; DeAyala; Dyson; Fairly; Frank; Gates; Gerdes; Geren; Guillen; Harless; Harris; Harris Davila; Hayes; Hefner; Hickland; Hull; Hunter; Isaac; Kerwin; King; Kitzman; Lambert; Landgraf; Leach; Leo Wilson; Lujan; McQueeney; Metcalf; Meyer; Noble; Oliverson; Orr; Patterson; Paul; Phelan; Raymond; Schofield; Shaheen; Slawson; Spiller; Swanson; Tepper; Troxclair; VanDeaver; Vasut; Villalobos; Wharton; Wilson
Nays - Alders; Allen; Bernal; Bhojani; Bryant; Bucy; Bumgarner; Canales; Cole; Collier; Cortez; Darby; Davis, A.; Dorazio; Dutton; Flores; Gámez; Garcia Hernandez; Garcia, L.; Gervin-Hawkins; González, M.; Goodwin; Harrison; Hernandez; Hinojosa; Holt; Hopper; Howard; Johnson; LaHood; Lalani; Little; Longoria; Lopez, J.; Lopez, R.; Louderback; Lowe; Lozano; Luther; Martinez; Martinez Fischer; McLaughlin; Meza; Money; Moody; Morgan; Muñoz; Olcott; Ordaz; Perez, M.; Perez, V.; Pierson; Richardson; Romero; Rose; Rosenthal; Schatzline; Schoolcraft; Shofner; Simmons; Smithee; Talarico; Thompson; Tinderholt; Toth; Turner; Virdell; Vo; Walle; Ward Johnson; Wu
Present, not voting - Mr. Speaker(C)
Absent, Excused - Anchía; Dean; González, J.; Guerra; Jones, J.; Manuel; Morales Shaw; Morales, E.; Plesa; Zwiener
Absent - Bowers; Campos; Davis, Y.; Garcia, J.; Jones, V.; Morales, C.; Reynolds; Rodríguez Ramos
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