Inside the Texas Legislature -- bills, votes, and committee action from the Texas House and Senate.
Gary VanDeaver, the former rural superintendent who fought private school vouchers in 2023 who was one of only two House Republicans to vote no when they passed in 2025, will take over the Texas Association of School Boards on Oct. 1.
Texas cannot yet tell whether this spring's college graduates found work, let alone whether artificial intelligence is shrinking the jobs they trained for, witnesses told the Senate Committee on Economic Development Sept. 22.
Texas lists 795,000 people on its Central Abuse Registry, and the agency that maintains it told a House committee Sept. 9 that it wants to stop issuing one of the findings that decides who goes on it.
Fort Worth raised its property tax rate by 3.2 cents this year.
The Texas House Committee on State Affairs will gavel in at 10 a.m. Sept. 14 in Room JHR 140 to take invited and public testimony on two interim charges that pick up where the Legislature stopped after the July 2025 Hill Country floods: how the state prepares for, responds to and recovers from disasters, and whether Texas should stand up a formal council to make first responders' radios work with one another.
The Texas House Committee on State Affairs will gavel in at 10 a.m. Sept. 15 in Room JHR 140 to take invited and public testimony on whether online gaming platforms expose children to violent and sexually explicit content and to adult strangers, and what the state can do about it that a federal court will let stand.
The Texas House Committee on Energy Resources will gavel in at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 14 in Capitol Extension room E2.026 to take public and invited testimony on three interim charges that between them cover almost everything the oil patch puts back underground: carbon dioxide, produced water and the disposal wells blamed for West Texas earthquakes.
The Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs will gavel in at 9 a.m. Sept. 14 in Capitol Extension room E1.012 to take public and invited testimony on three interim charges: whether online gaming platforms do enough to keep adult strangers and explicit content away from children, whether Texas family courts drag divorce and custody cases out longer than they should, and how the state lottery is faring a year after lawmakers abolished the agency that ran it.
The Texas House Committee on Energy Resources will gavel in at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 15 in Capitol Extension room E2.026 for the second of two consecutive interim hearings, opening with an oversight review of the Railroad Commission of Texas that the committee's chairman has already told one commissioner he expects him to answer for on the record.
The Texas House Committee on Environmental Regulation will gavel in at 10 a.m. Sept. 15 in Capitol Extension room E2.016 to review four environmental laws the 89th Legislature passed through this committee and to open a broader inquiry into whether Texas permitting can be made faster without being made weaker.
The Texas House Committee on Ways and Means will gavel in at 10 a.m. Sept. 15 to take invited and public testimony on whether Texas can cut property taxes further and on how local governments borrow and spend the money those taxes secure.
The Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs will gavel in at 9 a.m. Sept. 15 in Capitol Extension room E1.012 for a second consecutive day of interim hearings, this time on four charges that share a common shape: an industry doing something Texas law did not anticipate.
The Texas House Committee on Human Services will gavel in at 10 a.m. Sept. 9 in Capitol Extension room E2.012 to take invited testimony on six interim charges spanning the state's foster care system: how three 2025 laws are being carried out, whether families under investigation by child welfare authorities are getting the services and the due process they are owed, and what happens to children after a private adoption closes.
One year after three state housing laws took effect, senators heard that the laws are producing homes and that some North Texas cities have written ordinances to blunt them.