A much-anticipated meeting of Texas House lawmakers originally scheduled for Tuesday was cancelled late Monday night.
The Texas House Public Education Committee was supposed to take up two of the biggest bills of the session: House Bill 2, which addresses public school funding, and Senate Bill 2, which would create an Education Savings Account program. That voucher plan would give parents public funds to send their kids to private schools.
ESAs have been a top priority for Gov. Greg Abbott since 2023. The Senate has already passed SB 2 and House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) believes his chamber will do the same soon.
“I expect early next week, the House Public Education Committee will pass out both bills, a school finance bill and a universal comprehensive school choice bill from the Ed committee,” said Burrows last week during a press conference. “And it'll be on the floor very soon thereafter and pass.”
While Tuesday's cancellation means that won’t happen early in the week — as Burrows initially anticipated — there is still a chance most of the speaker's predictions could come true.
Committee Chairman Brad Buckley (R-Salado) released a statement late Monday night announcing the cancellation, adding that the meeting would be pushed to Thursday.
Buckley said the move comes from a commitment to members that they would have “ample time to review and digest the changes in the committee substitute and the district runs.”
Those “runs” are legislature speak for fiscal analysis. In this case, the runs would detail how Texas school districts would be impacted by the changes in the school funding bill. The runs weren’t available to lawmakers until 10 p.m. on Monday. However, due to the late hour, most members didn’t receive them until the House met on the floor Tuesday morning.
During the first hearing on the bills back in early March, Democrats on the House Public Education Committee brought up that they’d need that data to be able to understand how the bill would impact the areas they represent.
Rep. John Bryant (D-Dallas) is one of those lawmakers. He told the Texas Newsroom a vote shouldn’t take place without that information available.
“It is unthinkable that we would go to a vote tomorrow without even knowing exactly what the impact on our individual school districts is,” Bryant said on Monday.
Buckley has now moved the meeting to Thursday. Also on the meeting agenda is the school voucher bill that would give parents money to send their kids to private school.
Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) told the Texas Newsroom that, when the committee does meet later this week, she expects Republicans to insert some language from the House’s own voucher proposal into SB 2.
“It doesn’t matter, it's just a name,” said Hinojosa. “It will still be the House version of the bill that will be moving through the House process.”
