970 Bills by Noon: Medicaid Expansion, a Wage Hike and Data-Center Tax Breaks Open Filing for a Divided Legislature
Rep. John Bucy's Medicaid bill — up to $10 billion a year, a million more Texans covered, with Sen. Judith Zaffirini's companion in the Senate — led a first-day flood that also took on the minimum wage, data-center tax breaks, the sheriffs' ICE law and pretrial detention.
AUSTIN — The first day of bill filing is a statement of intent, and the new Texas Legislature made a large one: almost 970 bills had been filed by noon Monday, the Texas Tribune reported — about 340 of them in the first two hours after filing opened at 8 a.m. The headline measure came from Rep. John Bucy, D-Austin: a bill directing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to expand Medicaid and file a plan to do so with Washington, with a companion bill in the Senate from Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo. Expansion would send the state up to $10 billion a year and cover an additional 1 million Texans; Texas is the most populous state in the country that has not expanded Medicaid.
The rest of the opening slate reads like the campaign that produced it. Bills landed Monday to raise the state minimum wage — Texas has no state minimum of its own, so the federal floor of $7.25 an hour applies — to end tax breaks for data centers, to undo the state law requiring sheriffs to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and to forbid border wall construction at state parks. Rep. Jolanda Jones, D-Houston, refiled her pretrial-detention measure — previously House Bill 413, vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott in June — addressing people who cannot afford bond but have already spent the maximum jail time for the sentence they face. "We do think there's going to be a lot of room to find compromise," Bucy said of the session ahead. "The House and the Senate need to find compromise to get things done for the people of Texas."
What Monday does not do is pass anything. Filing is introduction: the bills now wait for a session that convenes Jan. 12 — when the members-elect who could not file Monday are sworn in and may file themselves — and filing stays open through March 12. Between the flipped House, the Republican Senate and a governor-elect who campaigned on much of this slate, the first day's 970 bills are best read as the two chambers and the two parties showing their hands early. The desk will track the Dallas–Fort Worth delegation's filings as they land.
