Senate passes bill authorizing study of Texas mental hospital capacity
AUSTIN (KXAN) – A bill authorizing an extensive study of Texas' mental health facilities and treatment system received full Senate approval Wednesday.
State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, wrote the measure, SB 719, saying Texas' state hospital system is 'overstrained and over-capacity' and experiencing increasing annual demand, according to her bill analysis.
The bill now goes to the House where it will await referral to a committee.
Among many duties, Texas' state hospitals treat patients charged with crimes and found incompetent to stand trial. Due to limited space, those individuals often wait months – even years in some cases – before getting to a state hospital bed.
'Currently, there is no official state estimate of future bed needs,' according to Eckhardt's bill analysis. 'In 2023, over 60 percent of adults treated inside state hospitals came from the criminal justice system, either from county jails or the prison system.'
'This is a crisis.' Lawmaker seeks transfer deadline for state hospital waitlist
All those criminal cases are put on hold, until the mentally ill individuals reach a state hospital, get treatment and are returned to competency. Eckhardt told KXAN that delay can amount to 'justice denied.'
KXAN has reported extensively on the impact of the state hospital's waitlist, including people dying before reaching trial and families left waiting for justice.
At least 54 died since 2018 waiting for state hospital opening, senator calls for more tracking
The bill would study the current supply and future needs for acute inpatient psychiatric beds in in-patient mental facilities, and researchers could collaborate with an academic institution.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
17 minutes ago
- CNN
Trump lays into Musk, suggesting he has ‘Trump derangement syndrome'
President Donald Trump appeared to confirm the deterioration of his relationship with Elon Musk, saying he was 'very disappointed' in the tech billionaire after Musk repeatedly blasted the president's sweeping domestic agenda bill in recent days. 'Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office less than one week after the two exchanged effusive praise on Musk's last day as a special government employee. Since then, Musk has strongly criticized what Trump calls his 'Big, Beautiful Bill' that has passed the House and faces an uncertain path forward in the Senate. On Tuesday, Musk called the bill a 'disgusting abomination.' Trump and Musk have not spoken since Musk lashed out at the legislation, a source familiar with the dynamic told CNN. 'He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left,' Trump said, adding that while Musk has not yet personally attacked him, the president expected that could be next. Trump repeatedly claimed that Musk's concerns with the bill were centered on the repeal of electric vehicle subsidies that benefitted Tesla. Musk has admitted his company has struggled in the wake of his political involvement. Musk didn't wait to respond, posting his reactions in real time on his social media platform X. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,' Musk said. He added: 'Such ingratitude.' Musk denied Trump's claim that the Tesla CEO knew the inner workings of the bill ahead of time, and countered that the elimination of EV tax incentives has nothing to do with his opposition to the massive domestic policy bill. 'Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill' Musk in a separate post. 'In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.' One Republican strategist who has worked closely with the tech billionaire downplayed the idea that Musk's opposition is only about the EV subsidies, telling CNN that Musk was genuinely troubled by projections of how much the bill would add to the deficit – the reasoning Musk has publicly cited on multiple occasions. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the legislation passed by the House would increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion. During Thursday's Oval Office appearance alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump reminisced about his campaign bromance with Musk, who contributed at least a quarter-billion dollars to efforts supporting Trump's 2024 presidential bid and once called himself Trump's 'first buddy.' 'Elon endorsed me very strongly. He actually went up and campaigned for me. I think I would have won – Susie would say I would have won Pennsylvania easily anyway,' Trump said, referring to his chief of staff Susie Wiles, appearing to hint at tensions between Wiles and Musk. Trump appeared to moderate his tone at times, saying he 'always liked Elon' – before implicitly accusing him of so-called 'Trump Derangement Syndrome.' 'He's not the first – people leave my administration, and they love us, and then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is. It's sort of 'Trump derangement syndrome,' I guess they call it, but we have it with others too,' he said. 'They leave, and they wake up in the morning, and the glamour is gone,' he continued. 'The whole world is different, and they become hostile. I don't know what it is.' Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tesla Tumbles After Musk Escalates Attacks on Trump Tax Bill
(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc.'s shares sank as Elon Musk and President Donald Trump's simmering feud devolved into a public war of words between two of the world's most powerful people. ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract Next Stop: Rancho Cucamonga! US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn The Global Struggle to Build Safer Cars Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World Trump on Thursday said he was 'very disappointed' by the Tesla chief executive officer's criticism of the president's signature tax policy bill. Musk fired back on social media, saying it was 'false' that the Tesla CEO knew the plan would unwind EV tax credits that benefit Tesla's business. Musk followed up with several more sharply worded posts, including saying Trump showed 'such ingratitude' for the help the billionaire entrepreneur has provided to Trump's administration. Tesla's shares fell as much 9.2% to an intraday low as the two traded barbs. The spat highlights how policies advanced by Trump and Republican lawmakers put billions of dollars at risk for Tesla. Trump's massive tax bill would largely eliminate a credit worth as much as $7,500 for buyers of some Tesla models and other electric vehicles by the end of this year, seven years ahead of schedule. That would translate to a roughly $1.2 billion hit to Tesla's full-year profit, according to JPMorgan analysts. After leaving his formal advisory role in the White House last week, Musk has been on a mission to block the president's signature tax bill that he described as a 'disgusting abomination.' The world's richest person has been lobbying Republican lawmakers — including making a direct appeal to House Speaker Mike Johnson — to preserve the valuable EV tax credits in the legislation. Separate legislation passed by the Senate attacking California's EV sales mandates poses another $2 billion headwind for Tesla's sales of regulatory credits, according to JPMorgan. Taken together, those measures threaten roughly half of the more than $6 billion in earnings before interest and taxes that Wall Street expects Tesla to post this year, analysts led by Ryan Brinkman said in a May 30 report. Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The House-passed tax bill would aggressively phase-out tax credits for the production of clean electricity, and other sources years earlier than scheduled. It also includes stringent restrictions on the use of Chinese components and materials that analysts said would render the credits useless and limits the ability of company's to sell the tax credits to third parties. Tesla's division focused on solar systems and batteries separately criticized the Republican bill for gutting clean energy tax credits, saying that 'abruptly ending' the incentives would threaten US energy independence and the reliability of the power grid. The clean energy and EV policies under threat were largely enacted as part of former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. The law was designed to encourage companies to build a domestic supply chain for clean energy and electric vehicles, giving companies more money if they produce more batteries and EVs in the US. Tesla has a broad domestic footprint, including car factories in Texas and California, a lithium refinery and battery plants. With those Biden-era policies in place, US EV sales rose 7.3% to a record 1.3 million vehicles last year, according to Cox Automotive data. --With assistance from Kara Carlson, Keith Laing, Josh Wingrove and Kate Sullivan. (Updates shares, adds Trump, Musk comments starting in the fourth paragraph.) Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom Millions of Americans Are Obsessed With This Japanese Barbecue Sauce Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? Trump Considers Deporting Migrants to Rwanda After the UK Decides Not To ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Axios
22 minutes ago
- Axios
Musk goes nuclear: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election"
Elon Musk declared all-out war on President Trump Thursday, writing on X: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate." Why it matters: The public breakup between Trump and Musk — who spent nearly $300 million to support the president's campaign and served in his administration until this week — has escalated dramatically.
