Texas Senate State Affairs committee will hear public and invited testimony on election integrity, primary-ballot procedures, the flow of abortion pills into Texas, and a 2025 law on proxy advisers.
When: 9:00 AM, Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Where: Room E1.012 (Hearing Room), Capitol Extension, Austin
Chair: Sen. Bryan Hughes, R–Mineola (SD-1)
Vice Chair: Sen. Angela Paxton, R–McKinney (SD-8)
Format: Public and invited testimony; testimony limited to 2 minutes per witness; written testimony requires 20 copies to the clerk; interim charges only — no vote on legislation
Live video: senate.texas.gov/av-live.php
Submit comments online: N/A — testimony given in person; no online public-comment portal listed for this hearing
The Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs will gavel in at 9 a.m. Tuesday to take public and invited testimony on a slate of interim charges spanning election security, the conduct of party primaries, enforcement against abortion pills shipped into Texas, and the implementation of a 2025 law regulating proxy advisory firms. Witnesses will be held to two minutes each.
Chaired by Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, the nine-member panel carries an eight-Republican, one-Democrat majority and broad jurisdiction over elections, constitutional issues and state government. The committee is working through interim charges issued ahead of the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027. Hughes was a principal author of the state’s 2021 election law, Senate Bill 1, making election administration familiar terrain for the chairman.
The first charge, Maintaining Election Security, directs the committee to study ways to strengthen election security and guarantee poll-watcher access, to further evaluate county election administration and local officials, and to examine “any recent attempts to circumvent state law.” Poll-watcher access was a central feature of SB 1, and questions over local election administration have continued to generate litigation and legislative attention since.
The second charge, Ensuring Efficiency in Texas Elections, asks members to study the different methods counties use to mark and count ballots and to review the designation of polling locations for a specific political party during primary elections — an issue tied to how the two parties run their primaries and share polling sites.
The third charge, Protecting the Unborn, directs the panel to study “the continued threat posed by abortion pills unlawfully shipped to Texas” and to monitor implementation of House Bill 7 of the 89th Legislature’s Second Called Session, with recommendations to further protect women and children. The charge extends Texas’s post-Dobbs enforcement focus toward mailed medication abortion, an area of active interstate legal conflict.
A final Monitoring charge asks the committee to track legislation it handled in the 89th Legislature, singling out Senate Bill 2337, relating to the regulation of proxy advisory services — firms that advise institutional investors on shareholder votes. Because this is an interim hearing, the committee will gather testimony and make recommendations rather than advance bills.
Committee members
- Sen. Bryan Hughes, R–Mineola (SD-1) — Chair
- Sen. Angela Paxton, R–McKinney (SD-8) — Vice Chair
- Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R–Houston (SD-7)
- Sen. Bob Hall, R–Edgewood (SD-2)
- Sen. Adam Hinojosa, R–Corpus Christi (SD-27)
- Sen. Tan Parker, R–Flower Mound (SD-12)
- Sen. Charles Perry, R–Lubbock (SD-28)
- Sen. Charles Schwertner, R–Georgetown (SD-5)
- Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D–Laredo (SD-21)