House Dems Protest GOP Leaders
Debate Prevention Ploy on Taxes
Capitol Inside
July 13, 2023
Texas House Republican leaders fought to keep a fragile property tax compromise intact on Thursday with a calculated defensive scheme designed to prevent debate on renter relief and teacher compensation provisions that Democrats attempted to add to the package.
Apparently stung by criticism from Democrats on the circumvention of their right to try to amend the tax package, the Republicans finally allowed a vote on the seventh alteration that Democrats proposed to House Bill 2 with an amendment that would have doubled a proposed homestead exemption increase for some Texans.
The House buried the amendment by Democratic State Rep. John Bryant of Dallas in a vote of 79-51 late this afternoon. But House Republicans will need more than a dozen Democrats at the minimum on board for a vote on a constitutional amendment proposal at some point on Thursday night in House Joint Resolution 2.
A clash over process erupted after GOP Speaker Dade Phelan upheld a point of order that Republican State Rep. Briscoe Cain of Deer Park raised immediately after Bryant was recognized for the introduction of an amendment with the educator and renter breaks. Bryant didn't get the chance to say a word about the proposal before Phelan invalidated it with the ruling.
Republican State Rep. Cody Harris of Palestine registered points of order on another Bryant amendment and a revision that Democratic State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio proposed before either Democrat was afforded the opportunity to speak. Phelan sustained the objection to the Martinez Fischer with the same reasoning that torpedoed a Bryant amendment - determining that the proposed alteration strayed beyond the bounds of Governor Greg Abbott's call for the second special session by channeling tax relief through the school finance system.
The coordinated ambush that had the speaker as the lynch pin prompted protests and inquiries from several Democrats on why they'd been deprived of the right to ask questions about the Bryant amendments to the property tax cuts plan in House Bill 2. But Phelan cited House rules that give him the ability to recognize representatives for points of order if he's aware of them in advance.
The effort that the speaker's team invested into the smothering of debate on renters and teachers suggested that they feared the Democratic amendments could be successful if the House voted on them. The adoption of any amendments would send the $18 billion package back to the Senate, which could rubber-stamp the changes or force the plan into a conference committee in the current session's final two weeks.
The House was in a holding pattern early Thursday evening as a result of a point of order that Harris raised in an attempt to shortcircuit a vote on an amendment that Democratic State Rep. Erin Zwiener of Driftwood offered in a move that boost school funding. GOP State Rep. Greg Bonnen of Friendswood raised the point of order that killed the Zwiener proposal.
more to come ...
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