House Passes Budget Bill After Marathon Floor Debate

The Texas House passed its $337.4 billion two-year spending plan for the state in the wee hours of Friday morning after more than 14 hours of floor debate.

Representatives ultimately approved 35 amendments to the budget out of 53 that were formally considered on the floor and hundreds more that were placed on suspension or moved to Article XI, where motions often are sent when they lack sufficient support from the floor.

The House and the Senate each drafted budget bills this session, but the budget bill that the House approved on Friday was the Senate proposal, Senate Bill 1, which that chamber adopted last month and referred to the House. Members of the lower chamber then spent weeks scrutinizing the Senate proposal in committee hearings to consider possible changes or different uses of money.

Still, the approved House version is mostly similar to the one that the House received from the Senate last month, setting aside $1 billion to create a universal private school voucher program, $6.5 billion to continue the state’s spending on border deterrence under Operation Lone Star and billions more in property tax cuts.

What differences do remain in the budget will be resolved in private negotiations between the two chambers in the coming weeks.

The final vote was 118-26, with dissenters from both sides of the aisle. Some of the chamber’s most hardline conservative Republicans, including Midlothian Rep. Brian Harrison, protested alleged funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, while many of its most outspoken Democrats, including Austin Rep. Gina Hinojosa, denounced the inclusion of publicly funded vouchers for private school tuition without boosting public school funding to make up for six years of high inflation.

Still, unless the House actually passes a bill establishing a voucher program in state law, the voucher money budgeted won’t be spent. The House Education Committee passed both a voucher bill and an education spending bill out of committee at the end of last month; a full floor debate on the voucher proposal is expected in the coming weeks.