School choice, border security bills in limbo as Patrick, Phelan spar

(The Center Square) – Most of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s priority legislative items remain in limbo with just days left in the third special legislative session.

Despite the governor saying last week that he’d reached an agreement with House Speaker Dade Phelan and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on his signature school choice bill, Patrick and Phelan remain deadlocked, escalating attacks against each other on social media.

Patrick, referencing the literary genre of tragedy and comedy, described Phelan’s performance as speaker in several social media posts. He said it’s a “tragedy” because “Speaker Dade Phelan and the Texas House have just wasted another special session with no action on the legislative priorities of the governor, the Senate, and the majority of Texas voters.”

It’s also a “comedy,” he said, because “Speaker Phelan’s pattern [is to] waste time [until] the very last minute and then blame everyone else for his inability to run the House and get a bill out of committee to the floor for an up or down vote so the voters know where members really stand on these important issues.”

Phelan says Patrick’s claims are “desperate” and the House “will not be lectured” to.

Four days ago, on the same day Abbott extended the special session call, the House couldn’t convene because it didn’t have a quorum. House Republicans blamed House Democrats for not showing up; they in turn said Republicans had no leadership.

As of Friday, only two bills passed both chambers and were sent to the governor for his signature. They are SB 4, which expands the penalty for human smuggling and operating a stash house, and SB 7, which bans private employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates as a condition for employment. The governor is expected to sign both.

The remaining bills, including Abbott’s signature school choice bill, and key border bills, remain in limbo. Sen. Brandon Creighton’s SB 1, which would create the state’s first Education Savings Account, passed the Senate and was referred to the House Select Committee on Educational Opportunity & Enrichment. It went nowhere. SB 2, which nearly unanimously passed the Senate to increase school funding and teacher salaries, was received in the House. It was never assigned to a committee.

In the House, HB 1, an omnibus education bill that would increase public school funding and teacher salaries and create an ESA, was filed on Oct. 19 and went nowhere.

The Senate passed SB 6 to appropriate more than $1.5 billion for border security and SB 11 to create a penalty for illegal entry into Texas from a foreign nation. Both were received in the House. SB 6 wasn’t assigned to a House committee and SB 11 was left pending in the House State Affairs Committee. The House passed HB 6, also appropriating $1.5 billion for border security. It was referred to the Senate Finance Committee.

Of lack of progress on bills, Patrick said, “The Speaker’s goal is to stay Speaker, not to help parents and teachers. House leadership does not push the Senate’s bills to the floor because the Speaker doesn’t want to upset Democrats and a handful of Republicans who oppose school choice. Instead, he blames the governor, the Senate and me to cover up for the House’s dysfunction under his leadership.”

The biggest contention is over HB 4, which passed the House but was altered in the Senate Border Security Committee. It would create a penalty for illegal entry into Texas from a foreign nation, but the Senate changed the removal language. After it did, Phelan issued a lengthy statement on social media Thursday, saying the House version was “carefully designed with the Office of the Governor to effectively repel illegal border crossings and swiftly return migrants” to an official port of entry. The Senate’s version, he said, a “pro-illegal immigration bill,” would “house undocumented immigrants for up to 99 years, shouldering Texas taxpayers with the exorbitant costs of their long-term detention, including healthcare, housing and meals.”

Patrick criticized HB 4, saying it “does not require proper identification of suspects, fingerprints, or a background check and allows illegal border crossers to return whenever they want, time and time again. Even if returned to the border, this policy would allow unidentified hardened criminals and terrorists to slip through the cracks and cross the border over and over again.”

Phelan said Patrick’s claim “is a desperate bid to salvage what’s left of his credibility on border security this special session after the Senate significantly watered down HB 4, the strongest border legislation that has ever passed the House. … The Senate’s response to the threat of illegal immigration is to establish a long-term, state-funded hospitality program for illegal immigrants, rather than deploying immediate and effective deterrents. They know their version is not just softer – it’s an economically reckless proposal that does nothing but pass the buck to the Biden Administration.

“The House has no interest in backpedaling on its strong stance. We will not be lectured on border security by a Senate that has weakened our bill substantially and wants to further empower the federal government to turn migrants loose.”

He called on the Senate to pass the House version of the bill, which it won’t do.

Unless the chambers reach an agreement and work over the weekend and before Tuesday, the school choice, education funding, teacher salary, and border bills will die. Abbott would then call a fourth special session. Each special session lasts for 30 days unless extended.