On Jan. 31, Gov. Greg Abbott announced his four emergency items that will be taken up immediately by the Senate and eventually the House.
These four items—reforming Child Protective Services, eliminating sanctuary cities, ethics reform and calling a convention of states—can exclusively get passed into law before March 10, or the 60-day mark into this legislative session. Every other bill proposal must wait at least two months into session before any final action can occur.
Read up on the four issues below. We will keep the guide updated as each progresses in the House and Senate.
1. Child Protective Services
Context: In October, Gov. Abbott joined state House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to order Child Protective Services to work on a plan to protect endangered children in the foster care system. The order required the department to focus on retention and recruitment of new case workers. This order followed an announcement by CPS that more than 1,000 at risk children were not checked on in a six-month time period.
In his State of the State address, Abbott called this issue "life or death" as more than 100 children have died in the past year while in Texas' foster care system.
The Latest (as of Feb. 6): On Feb. 2, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee heard testimony regarding how to fix Child Protective Services within Senate Bill 11. The bill is still pending in the committee and will likely have another hearing. No other hearings for the Senate Committee have been scheduled at this time.
What's Next: If the bill is voted out of committee, it will then face a vote on the Senate floor. If approved in the Senate, the bill will advance to the House to face the same process.
2. Sanctuary cities
Context: Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez campaigned last year on a promise to implement "sanctuary city" policies. This means Hernandez plans to not comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests for some individuals whose immigration statuses are in question.
As it currently stands, no sheriff's department is legally required to comply with these detainer requests and can choose whether to honor them. Hernandez said she would honor them for certain crimes, such as human trafficking or murder.
Abbott struck back against Hernandez by revoking more than $1 million in funding to the county. The funding provides money for a special court for veterans and criminal justice programs.
The Latest (as of Feb. 8 at 1:05 p.m.): Senate Bill 4 aims to end sanctuary cities by making complying with ICE detainer requests a legal obligation. The State Affairs Committee took up the bill Feb. 2 and heard more than 13 hours of testimony, overwhelmingly against the passage of the bill. But at 1 a.m., the nine members of the committee voted 7-2 along partisan lines to forward the bill back to the Senate floor for a vote.
The Senate has taken up Senate Bill 4 for debate on the floor. Bill sponsor Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, emphasized the bill is about rule of law and not immigration status of individuals. Sen. Jose Mendendez, D-San Antonio, attempted a point of order to halt the progress of the issue. He eventually withdrew the point of order and has continued questioning Perry.
After roughly three and a half hours of questioning for the bill's sponsor, the Senate voted on party lines to take up the bill on the floor. The Senate approved each of the amendments proposed by Perry and voted down all other amendments, proposed by Democrats. These votes fell on party lines.
On Wednesday afternoon, Democrats offered additional debate and negative opinions on the bill, before the upper chamber voted 20-10 to pass the bill to the House. One Democrat was out sick.
What's Next: Once the House names committees, the bill will be taken up and debated in the lower chamber.
3. Ethics reform
Context: In 2015, Abbott called for a number of ethics reforms throughout the government including preventing retired legislators from immediately lobbying the state and requiring lawmakers to disclose contracts with public entities.
The session ended with back-and-forth blaming between the House and Senate as to why reforms did not pass.
The Latest (as of Feb. 7 at 12:20 p.m.): Sen. Van Taylor, R-Plano, sponsored Senate Bill 14 that includes a long list of ethics reforms, along with several other bills that feature individual reforms included in the low numbered bill. The bills were heard Feb. 1 by the State Affairs Committee without controversy and unanimously voted back to the Senate for further progress.
After facing debate on the Senate floor with several amendments, the Senate voted unanimously to pass the ethics reform package to the House.
What's Next: Once House committees are named, the House will take up the bill for debate.
4. Convention of states
Context: Following the November presidential election, Abbott renewed his calls to form a convention of states. Based on Abbott’s previously suggested constitutional amendments, the convention could amend the U.S. Constitution to implement term limits for members of Congress, require Congress to adopt a balanced budget and allow more than 33 states to join together to override a Supreme Court decision.
“All three branches of government have so far strayed from what the Constitution provides [that] it is impossible to put that genie back in the box by just one president,” Abbott said in December.
The Latest (as of Feb. 6): Eleven Republican state senators have sponsored Senate Bill 21 to call a convention of states. The bill has been referred to the State Affairs Committee, which has yet to set a hearing date for the legislation.
What's Next: After being heard by the State Affairs Committee, the committee will vote on whether to advance the bill back to the Senate floor. Two of the eleven sponsoring Republican senators sit on the State Affairs Committee.
