Texas Speaker pulls constitutional amendments after reported Democratic threat
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Leading up to the anticipated Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) vote last Wednesday, the Texas Tribune said more than 50 House Democrats threatened to vote against every proposed constitutional amendment if Republicans didn't help them put the ESA legislation to a public vote.
The vote to pass passed on party lines. On the Republican side, only former Speaker Dade Phelan, R – Beaumont, and Gary VanDeaver, R – New Boston, voted against the bill.
Ahead of pivotal vote, Texas leaders share unfiltered thoughts on future of education
On Tuesday, the House was scheduled to discuss — and likely vote on — House Joint Resolution 31. The relatively non-controversial constitutional amendment — which unanimously passed the House Ways & Means Committee — would allow the legislature to better define property tax exemptions for farmers. Instead of being brought for debate, Speaker Dustin Burrows postponed the vote.
Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds vote from both chambers of the Texas legislature before heading to the voters, meaning 51 Democratic House members can kill one without any Republican dissenting.
'Democratic members of the Texas House may be in the minority, but we will use the tools we have to protect the independence of the House and ensure the voices of the millions of Texans we represent are heard and respected in this chamber,' a representative with the House Democratic Caucus said in a statement.
Pope Francis had a unique history with Texas. What will his successor do?
However, just because the ESA vote passed without a public referendum, doesn't mean there isn't room for compromise according to a representative with the House Democratic Caucus. They say they're working with Burrows to find areas of cooperation; including bringing more Democratic bills to the House floor.
To get the gavel, Burrows needed support from 49 Democrats and 36 Republicans to defeat Rep. David Cook, R – Mansfield, who was supported by the Texas Republican Party. He faced his first authority challenge two weeks ago, as a motion to remove him from the speaker's chair was overwhelmingly voted down. Now, it appears he faces a challenge from members of the party who helped put him at the dais.
The House Democrats are open to a compromise where they would vote for constitutional amendments. But if no such deal is made, they could kill plenty of high-profile bills.
Among them are a pair of high-profile bail reform bills which Gov. Greg Abbott declared an emergency item this session. Senate Joint Resolution 1 would require the denial of bail for undocumented residents charged with a felony, and Senate Joint Resolution 5 would allow the denial of bail for defendants accused of first-degree felony sexual offenses — defendants accused of violent offenses or defendants accused of continuous human trafficking.
Will Sunday be the last 4/20 in Texas?
While both bills passed with bipartisan support, it's unclear if they had enough Democratic votes in the Texas House — potential protests set aside.
In response to the initial reporting by the Tribune, Abbott's press secretary Andrew Mahaleris posted on X, 'Texas Democrats are threatening to block property tax relief while allowing violent murderers on the street with low bail. All to serve their teachers union overlords who think they own your children.'
We've reached out to the offices of Burrows and Abbott and are awaiting comment. We will update this if statements are received.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Epoch Times
24 minutes ago
- Epoch Times
Trump Says Musk Will Face ‘Very Serious Consequences' If He Backs Democrats
President Donald Trump on June 7 warned that Elon Musk could face 'serious consequences' if he decides to back Democratic political candidates in upcoming elections. While Musk campaigned for Trump's 2024 presidential run and was a key member in the Trump administration's fight against fraud and waste, the two were involved in a public spat this week, apparently fueled by their disagreements over Trump's budget priorities in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump vowed to help US farmers. These four say his policies are ‘wreaking havoc'
Donald Trump may have won the votes of the US's most farming-dependent counties by an average of 78% in the 2024 election. But the moves made by his administration in the past few months – imposing steep tariffs, immigration policies that target the migrant labor farmers rely on, and canceling a wide range of USDA programs – have left many farmers reeling. 'The policies of the Trump administration are wreaking havoc on family farmers. It's been terrible,' said John Bartman, a row crop farmer in Illinois. Bartman is owed thousands of dollars for sustainable practices he implemented on his row crop operation as part of the USDA's Climate-Smart program. And he's not the only one. Other farmers across the country are reporting that the Trump administration's policies have destroyed their markets by ending programs that help farmers sell their produce to local schools and food banks; implementing draconian immigration policies that destabilize the farm labor pool; and generally creating volatility that makes it hard for farmers to plan ahead. One group of farmers, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, joined organizations like Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council in suing the USDA for removing department webpages focused on climate change, arguing that the move was unlawful and undermines farmers' ability to adapt and respond to climate threats. (On 13 May, the coalition declared a kind of victory when the government committed to restore the purged content; the government is set to provide more information about the restoration process on 11 June.) Some farmers, such as Bartman, loudly oppose Trump. 'I've met some Democrats who'll say: 'You farmers deserve this. You voted for him.' Well, I didn't vote for the guy. The programs that have been impacted the most are targeted towards farmers that care about the environment.' Others, such as those living near North Carolina farmer Patrick Brown, are experiencing 'buyer's remorse', said Brown, 'but they don't want to say it because they voted for the current administration'. No matter who they voted for, farmers across the country are living in the new reality created by the Trump administration's agricultural policies. The Guardian spoke to four farmers about what it's like trying to grow crops, feed people, and keep their operations afloat in 2025. John Bartman, Bartman FarmMarengo, Illinois I am a vegetable and grain farmer; we're mostly a row crop operation. My family has been farming in Illinois since 1846; we have the oldest continuous running vegetable stand in McHenry county. I farm 900 acres. I try to use the least amount of fertilizer and herbicides that I can. Three main policies have been impacting us. Number one is the cancellation of USAID. That's about a billion dollars worth of grain that the United States purchases from farmers like me, and they give it to third world nations who are hungry. To kill that program is a disaster. It's morally bankrupt, and it hurts farmers' bottom line. Another thing that's very pressing is the payment freezes to farmers from the USDA. I was involved in the Climate-Smart practices. We were paid to implement stewardship practices that the USDA has been preaching since the Dust Bowl. The added benefit is these practices combat climate change. That's what the current administration doesn't want anything to do with. I'm supposed to be paid close to $100 an acre. Then the current administration came in and put a freeze on everything. $100 an acre may not sound like much, but there are some years where we're happy if we make $20 an acre off of things. I have an operating loan that I haven't been able to pay off because I was counting on this money. I have rent that's due. I have seed costs. I have chemical costs. I try to explain to people, if I were a repair person, and I went to my local grade school and fixed their furnace, and in the meantime, a new school board was elected, I still deserve to be paid. I've signed a contract with the USDA. The full faith and credit of the United States is at risk, because if Uncle Sam will renege on a farmer, they'll renege on anybody. The third one is the tariff situation. China is and has been our number one export for soybeans; 100% of the soybeans that I grow are exported. During Trump's first administration, half of all the soybeans that China purchased were from the United States. By the end of his first administration, it was down to a quarter. Now Brazil has taken over our role as the number one importer of soybeans into China. From an environmental standpoint, that means more deforestation in the Amazon. Mexico purchases 40% of all the corn in the United States. And he wants to have a trade war with Mexico? Mexico can just as easily buy their grain from Argentina and Brazil. The USDA has also canceled a lot of contracts for food pantries and school districts to purchase from local farmers, and that's absolutely devastating. I was just in Springfield, Illinois, testifying and hearing testimony from other farmers. Many of them are first-generation farmers, and that program gave them an outlet for their produce. It's so sad listening to them saying, 'I finally had my dream of owning my own farm and making a living at it. Now I don't know what I'm going to do, because my market has dried up.' Shah Kazemi, Monterey MushroomsSanta Cruz county, California People don't recognize that we either have to import our labor, or import our food. We operate five farms right now: in California, Tennessee, Texas and Mexico. We have close to 2,000 employees. Our business has been totally dependent on migrant workers, just like all other ag businesses in this country. Without them, there is no food on anybody's table. In 1983 we acquired a farm in Loudon, Tennessee. At the time we didn't have one migrant worker in that plant. By the early 1990s we had about 20% migrant workers, and by the early 2000s we had 85%, because nobody wants to do that kind of work any more in this country. When you're bent over picking strawberries, cucumber, lettuce, zucchini, whatever the crop is – try to do that for eight hours. See how your back feels, how the rest of your body feels. Farming is hard, physical work. These are skilled workers, harvesting at a certain rate to stay productive; you have to know your trade. A skilled mushroom picker can pick about 75 to 80 pounds an hour, and some of them exceed 100 pounds an hour. A new picker comes in, their productivity is in the 20s, and it will take six to eight months to get them up to 50. So if you had to replace a guy that's picking 80 pounds an hour with people who are picking in the 20s, you need three or four of them. We have a lot of respect and admiration for these people. They're really underappreciated. I have a friend who is in the farming business. About a month ago, there was an Ice [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raid in the area. The following day, most of his employees didn't show up. Even the people who have been here for a long time, they're listening to the news and hearing that people with green cards are being deported. The fear factor has been heightened significantly. That's what has happened with the new administration coming in. If we don't have enough workers, we cannot harvest our crops. And if you don't harvest, then it's all wasted. The uncertainty and erratic decision making creates volatility in the marketplace. And now we're concerned about where we're going to get future workers. What's going to happen a year from now, as some of these people get deported, or they feel so fearful they go back to their home country? Who's going to replace them? We need to have a program that lets people come in who can do the work, and then at the end of whatever the term is, they can go back home. They have a guest worker program in Canada that works significantly better than what we have here. Nobody pays any attention to the farmers, and we are the people who put food on the table every day. And the migrant workers, those are the hands that pick the crops that you eat. Josh Sneddon, Fox at the ForkMonee, Illinois I got into farming because I love to cook. When I was in New Jersey and I was getting my food from local farmers, ranchers and fishermen, the quality of the food was so much better that my spice cabinet became essentially salt and pepper, because the food was good enough [on its own]. I took my entrepreneurial spirit and applied it to my interest in building a local food system driven by higher-quality foods, greater accessibility, and a climate smart focus on our food system. Fox at the Fork is a 10-acre regenerative farm – we grow fruit and nut trees like pecans, persimmons and currants, while also stewarding approximately one acre of land intensively in annual vegetables. It's my fifth year in business. In prior farm bills and administrations, the USDA supported individuals like me who are considered 'beginning farmers'. That's one of their historically underserved categories. The USDA [formerly] created and reinforced programs that supported individuals who hadn't had the same opportunities – Bipoc, LGBTQ+, beginning, veteran farmers – to have an equitable shot at growing and establishing small-scale food businesses in their communities. Being considered a beginning farmer was part of the criteria that has helped me secure NRCS [Natural Resources Conservation Service] grants, one of them being a Conservation Stewardship Program contract. That's a five-year contract that recognizes all of the conservation practices we implemented. For us, that's about [protecting] native prairie; cover cropping; building bird boxes to bring back native kestrels and owls. Almost all federal grants require that some of the money spent is yours and is not reimbursed. So farmers have a stake in the game; it's not just the government giving out corn and soy subsidies. The other program that really helped our farm last year [that has been canceled under the current administration] is the LFPA, the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program. It was getting up to $25m [in Illinois] that had been obligated to the state for food distribution organizations like food banks, who provide food to the community and pay a fair market value to us farmers. I also have a Reap contract – the Rural Energy for America Program – which is another program that faced direct cuts. At the end of last year, I spent approximately $79,000 to install solar, having already received approval and signed paperwork. That grant is a 25% reimbursement through the USDA reap, which is for me, $19,784. I'm still waiting for that. Not receiving that $19,784 has slowed what investments I'm going to make for the year. It's hard to predict the long-term impacts, but the short-term impact is more anxiety, fewer investments on the farm, and likely greater effort trying to get my food placed in the community at a fair market price. Patrick Brown, Brown Family FarmsWarren county, North Carolina I'm a fourth-generation row crop farmer. My home farm is about 165 acres. I also grow industrial hemp fiber and produce – watermelons, leafy greens, tomatoes, sweet corn. We're an impoverished community, and we don't have access to a lot of food, so I try to get healthy options to children especially. We were participants for the past two years in a USDA project – which has just gotten terminated – providing fresh food to local schools. We also created a non-profit to help create a path for young kids that want to become farmers. And I also am a director of a non-profit called Nature for Justice, and we were awarded a USDA Climate-Smart contract to help farmers with conservation practices. All my projects that were funded by the federal government have been terminated during the current administration. It's caused us to pivot. We're so used to not having anything – as a minority farmer, that's the way things have always been. But when you sign a government contract, you feel some sense of, 'this can't be taken away.' I was doing two projects: one for cover crops and nutrient management, and the other one to plant trees to help with erosion and chemical drift, and to create habitat for wildlife. We did all this work and invested all this money, all for them to say, as of 29 January, the project is no longer in place. We were expecting to get over $65,000 this year from work we did in 2024. They claim that I will eventually get the money, but who knows how long that will be held up? Plus, the announcements made during this administration through the secretary of agriculture are not getting down to the rural community offices that represent small farmers. It's almost as if things are announced on social media, and then the offices hear about it. And our local NRCS offices and our Farm Service Agency offices are more understaffed than they've been in 20 years. The technical assistance is non-existent. The main thing we need right now is for our local legislators to speak up for us. A lot of them are being quiet. But we need to advocate against the wrongdoing that is being done to farmers.
The Hill
37 minutes ago
- The Hill
Sunday shows preview: Trump-Musk spat leaves admin reeling; ‘Big, beautiful bill' hits speed bump
President Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk's feud spilled out in public on Thursday, with the world's richest man and the world's most powerful leader trading barbs that engulfed news cycles in Washington and abroad. Musk, a Trump ally, was vocal about his disappointment with Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' currently sitting in the Senate. Musk, who spent millions during the 2024 presidential campaign to help elect Trump, called the massive piece of legislation a 'disgusting abomination.' Trump then weighed in on Thursday at the White House during German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's visit, saying, 'Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore.' The spat intensified, with Musk floating the prospects of creating a third party, claiming that without his political contributions, Trump would not be victorious against ex-Vice President Harris in November and accusing the president of having ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump threatened to cut off federal contracts awarded to Musk's companies. Later on Thursday, Musk signaled he might be open to brokering a truce with the commander-in-chief. After speaking with several news outlets Friday morning, Trump suggested he is ready to move on and indicated that he will not be speaking with Musk for a while. Trump told CNN Friday morning that he is 'not even thinking about Elon' and added that the SpaceX and Tesla CEO has 'got a problem. The poor guy's got a problem.' In the Senate, Trump's agenda bill, which passed the House chamber last month, has sparked concerns and criticism from GOP senators. The first group of GOP Sens., which consists of Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), are arguing they could vote against the bill if it slashes Medicaid benefits. Others, including Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) have previously said they would not back the legislation if it retains the current debt and spending levels. The GOP can have three defections total if all Democrats vote against the legislation. Sen. Johnson will be on CNN's 'State of the Union where he will likely discuss if any of his concerns regarding the 'Big, Beautiful Bill' have been addressed. As part of a push to root out waste, fraud and abuse within Medicare, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said this week that a bill sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), that would crack down on Medicare Advantage overpayments known as 'upcoding,' could be inserted into Trump's massive legislation. Cassidy will be on NewsNation's 'The Hill Sunday,' where he will likely discuss the latest on the reconciliation package along with his recent visit to the White House. NewsNation's 'The Hill Sunday': Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.); Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-Ma); U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief policy officer Neil Bradley. ABC's 'This Week': Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). NBC's 'Meet the Press': Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). CNN's 'State of the Union': 'Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), and Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.); Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.). CBS' 'Face the Nation': National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas); Save the Children U.S. President and CEO Janti Soeripto. 'Fox News Sunday': Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought; Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.); Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). Fox News' 'Sunday Morning Futures': Secretary Of Interior Doug Burgum, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.); House Ways And Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.); Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
