Almost 970 Bills Filed by Noon in Austin: Medicaid Expansion, a Minimum-Wage Hike and Data-Center Tax Breaks Lead the First Day
The first bills of the divided 90th Legislature are Democratic priorities long blocked under the old trifecta - and the Senate, still Republican, is where several of them will be decided.
By noon on Monday, almost 970 bills had been filed for the 90th Texas Legislature, the Texas Tribune reported - the first hard count of a session that opens under a Democratic governor, a Democratic House and a Republican Senate for the first time in decades. Filing continues through March 12 and the session convenes January 12, but the lowest numbers and the first filings are the tell: Monday's earliest bills were the priorities Democrats campaigned on and Republicans spent years keeping off the floor.
First out of the gate were bills to expand Medicaid. Rep. John Bucy of Austin filed a House bill directing the Health and Human Services Commission to expand the program and file a plan with Washington; Sen. Judith Zaffirini of Laredo filed the companion in the Senate. Texas is the most populous state that has not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act - a step the reporting puts at up to $10 billion a year in federal money covering an additional 1 million Texans. Today the program mostly covers low-income children, new mothers and older adults, not the working-age adults in between. Bucy conceded the obvious - a Republican Senate is the obstacle - and argued the split Capitol leaves 'a lot of room to find compromise.'
Medicaid was not alone. The first day's filings also included boosting the state's minimum wage, ending tax breaks for data centers, undoing the state law that requires sheriffs to partner with federal immigration enforcement, and forbidding border wall construction in state parks. Those are opening bids, not laws - most of the thousands of bills expected this session will never reach a governor's desk - but in a divided Capitol the bids show what each side wants the session to be about. Democrats broadly campaigned on tighter guardrails for data centers, pulling back restrictions on consumable hemp and lowering the cost of living.
The machinery above the bills is new, too. Republicans keep the Senate majority, but Democrat Vikki Goodwin will preside over it as lieutenant governor; the House will choose a speaker on its first day to replace Dustin Burrows, with Houston's Senfronia Thompson - the longest-serving woman and longest-serving Black legislator in any state - saying Friday she has the votes. Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, who campaigned on reversing the 2025 school voucher law, announced a transition team of Democrats and Republicans on Thursday and said she hopes leaders of both parties 'don't get in the way of the progress we can make together to deliver for working people.' The bills filed Monday are where that test starts.
