Lawmakers begin work on Tuesday for their biennial legislative session. They'll debate over the state budget, school issues, border security and property taxes, among other issues. 📝: TexasTribune
, another property tax relief hawk, has introduced a note of caution, warning the Legislature could not spend half of the surplus without busting its self-imposed spending cap.
It's also unclear how much homeowners would even notice a property tax cut in the form of a homestead exemption. In 2021, lawmakers increased the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000, which would save the average homeowner of a $300,000 home about $175 a year. How exactly that goal manifests itself in the session remains to be seen. Abbott campaigned for reelection on a "" that, among other things, seeks to increase the transparency of school curricula and crack down on what he's called "pornographic" materials in books available to schoolchildren.
Still, major leaders like Abbott have supported the push by conservatives to launch child-abuse investigations of parents who provide such care to their children. Before the November elections, some Republican candidates and lawmakers had expressed an openness to creating exceptions to the state's abortion ban in cases of rape or incest. But after Republicans maintained their dominance in state politics on Election Day, Smith said he does not see a political motivation for GOP leaders to revisit the issue.
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