Hey there — Greg here with the latest edition of Regulated Discourse. Thanks for reading.

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Quotable

Over the Senate and to the House, to the Governor’s Desk We Go?

Legislators have largely been back home aside from a Monday meeting of the House State Affairs Committee to hear three Senate bills. The work resumes tomorrow.

One thing to watch for is whether we see any movement on Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).

The Senate passed its priority legislation—Senate Bill 1—last week. The bill would create ESAs and make them available to a wide swatch of families based on certain eligibility criteria.

What is an ESA, you ask? It’s an optional publicly-funded expense account aimed at giving parents more options when it comes to educating their kids. Instead of the State cutting a check to your local school district as a result of your child’s attendance, an ESA lets you direct the use of those funds.

(And yes, I called it an expense account rather than a savings account. Not knocking the policy. But education is expensive. Ain’t none of that money gettin’ saved.)

As of today, SB 1 remains pending in the House Select Committee on Educational Opportunity & Enrichment. Keyword: select committee. As opposed to a standing committee.

Select committees are formed by the Speaker to study big issues. Property taxes. Health care reform. Gun violence. Things of major public import that deserve concentrated focus within a specific timeframe.

Speaker Phelan formed this select committee just a few days after the regular session ended when it was clear that Gov. Abbott would be calling this special.

In the regular session, school choice legislation went through the Public Education Committee. Both committees are chaired by Rep. Brad Buckley, a Republican from Bell County, and overlap significantly in membership.

In August, the committee published a report that contained a number of recommendations. As for an ESA proposal, it didn’t shoot the idea down. But it didn’t exactly give it a glowing review.

Meanwhile, the House has not yet filed its own ESA bill, although one is expected to come from Rep. Jacey Jetton, who filed similar legislation during the regular session.

We already know that a House bill will differ from the Senate’s bill in a significant way: testing and accountability. The House’s bill will require that any school receiving ESA funds be subject to the same testing and accountability requirements as public schools.

Not only that, but you can expect that the House will not pass an ESA bill without the Legislature also increasing public school funding and teacher pay. Although Gov. Abbott has said he’ll add these to a special session call only if the Legislature first passes an ESA bill.

20 days left. We shall see.

Legal Kernels

What type of legal entities carry out political activity? Do you form a corporation? An LLC? A partnership?

Political entity structure is a unique creature. The legal term is committee.

A political committee is simply two or more people acting together to either make political expenditures or accept political contributions.

The Happenings

Monday, October 16

• U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones resigned after an appeals court opened an investigation into a previously undisclosed relationship Jones had with a lawyer who handled matters in his court. Jones became well known in the political world after handling the post-Uri bankruptcy of Brazos Electric Cooperative that left ERCOT short almost $1 billion.

• Senate Bill 7, which would prohibit employers in Texas from making a COVID-19 vaccine a condition of employment, was heard in the House State Affairs Committee.

• It doesn’t appear that Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked the Texas Supreme Court to reconsider its earlier decision to lift a stay on the whistleblowers’ case against him. If so, the case will proceed to the discovery phase.

• Texas is building a border wall on the New Mexico border.

Tuesday, October 17

• Pro-life groups are suing the City of San Antonio over its “Reproductive Justice Fund,” which could give money to help residents travel out-of-state to seek abortions.

• U.S. Reps. Jake Ellzey, Kay Granger, and Tony Gonzales were the three Texans who joined with 17 other Republicans to block Jim Jordan from becoming U.S. Speaker.

• The ERCOT Board of Directors held a board meeting where it reviewed the grid’s summer performance and looked ahead to winter plans. Remember that the Legislature totally revamped the ERCOT Board after the 2021 Winter Storm.

Wednesday, October 18

• Mitch Little, one of Ken Paxton’s impeachment defense lawyers, filed a campaign treasurer appointment to run for the Texas House. His opponent? Rep. Kronda Thimesh, whose own campaign treasurer, Mitch Little, has resigned to run against her. What a time to be alive.

• Defend Texas Liberty PAC has ousted its President, former State Rep. Jonathan Stickland, after he met at least once for over six hours with a known Nazi sympathizer. But his status in the Dunn/Wilks political money laundering apparatus remains unclear.

• AG Paxton published a guidance letter on the Texas law that prohibits governments from contracting with companies that boycott Israel. In the letter, he encourages more due diligence when verifying a potential contracting party’s positions.

Thanks for reading! If you’re enjoying this newsletter, the biggest compliment you could give me is to share it with one person who might find it useful.

Have a great week. See you again on Sunday morning.

Greg

And P.S. This newsletter is a just a fun hobby. By day, I run Clearfork Strategies, where I tackle complex government and public affairs issues.

Nothing you read here should be taken as legal advice. Legal advice is different from legal information. If you have a specific legal problem, you should consult an attorney.