Latest news with #SB293
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Lawmakers reach last-minute deal on pay raises for Texas judges
AUSTIN (Nexstar) – Lawmakers worked into the final hours of the legislative session to reach an agreement to provide pay raises for Texas judges. The legislation led to a sharp divide between the House and Senate over how the raises would affect pensions for lawmakers. Senate Bill 293 calls for raising the pay for judges to $175,000 per year. That's a 25% increase from the current $140,000 salary. The legislation comes amid concern that Texas lags behind other states in judicial pay. 'Texas cannot afford to continue to lose talent due to a lack of appropriate compensation,' the analysis for SB 293 states. The idea of raising pay for judges has bipartisan support. The division comes over how those raises affect funds for retiring lawmakers. Currently, pensions for lawmakers are calculated as a percentage of the base pay for judges. Raising judges pay would also raise retirement benefits for lawmakers. Some House members believed that amounted to unethically approving a benefit for themselves. Their legislation included an amendment to keep decouple lawmaker pensions from judicial base pay, instead keeping it linked to the current level of $140,000. 'I do not believe, speaking for me that this is the right way for us to consider and/or pass increases to our legislative retirement,' Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, said Friday, explaining why the House added the amendment. He called on the Senate to accept the House amendment. 'I can tell you that if they want judges to get a pay raise, then they should move to concur with the House changes to Senate Bill 293, and in the interim and next session, we can have and should have a conversation about legislative compensation, including our retirement benefits,' Leach said. When the legislation came before the Senate Friday night, Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, raised a point of order, saying that the amendment was not germane to the legislation. He agreed that legislation to revamp how lawmaker pensions are calculated should happen separately from SB 293. The point of order was sustained, potentially killing SB 293 and pay raises for judges. Senators called on House members to remove the amendment. House members pushed to keep the measure to decouple judicial pay from pensions for lawmakers. With the House and Senate deadlocked, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock weighed in with a potential compromise. On Saturday, he sent a memo to members of the legislature, including proposed language for the bill. Blacklock's proposal would maintain the link between judicial pay and legislator pensions, but the impact of a pay raise approved this session would not immediately affect those pensions. Instead, Blacklock proposes that the next legislature would determine the effect. 'As you know, judicial salaries in Texas currently rank 49th in the Nation – an embarrassment that is making it harder and harder to attract and retain qualified, hard-working judges capable of delivering a high quality of justice to Texas families and businesses across our State,' Blacklock wrote. He added that he fears the long-range impact, should the impasse keep judges from getting a raise. 'If that happens, it is not the judges themselves but our Texas justice system – which should be the envy of the world – that will suffer most, along with the thousands of Texans who seek justice in our courts every day,' Blacklock wrote. Monday afternoon, word of the agreement was announced in the Senate. 'The House and the Senate came together, and the result of the conference committee report and the legislation will lead to the judges getting this raise,' Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, said as she laid out the conference committee report. 'I don't think I've ever worked so hard on a bill that wasn't mine,' Sen. Menéndez said, acknowledging the difficulty of the negotiations that started after his point of order, then stretched into the final day of the session. 'We went over and met with our House colleagues, and all 10 of us signed the conference committee report, because every person in the state of Texas recognizes that our judiciary and our judges needed a much needed raise so we can continue to attract competent persons to our judiciary,' he said. Senators did not discuss specifics of the agreement on the floor. In the House, Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas asked Rep. Leach to give further details. 'The bill raises the judicial base pay, salary, 25% to $175,000 along with that, the legislative retirement is linked, at least initially, to that $175,000,' Leach explained. He said going forward, the Texas Ethics Commission will decide how much legislative retirement pay should rise. 'We are requiring the Texas Ethics Commission every five years to adjust the legislative class retirement accordingly, taking into account various factors. Of those factors they're allowed to consider all statewide elected official judges from all branches of government, judicial, legislative and executive,' Leach said, responding to Anchia's question. Leach said the changes allow the legislature to increase judicial pay, and in the future do so without worrying about it affecting the pensions of lawmakers. 'That's, I think, the real big win in this bill,' he concluded. The measure passed 114-26. The legislation now goes to Governor Abbott for approval. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Down to the wire: Setback for Paxton, no deal on voting bill ahead of final session's day
Sunday was the second to the last day of the 2025 legislative session, and more importantly, the final day to push legislation over the finish line and onto the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott. Much of the action in both chambers focused on measures not identified as priorities of either Abbott or legislative leaders. But a few pieces of significant legislation were debated and a couple of priorities of top state leaders fell by the wayside. Typically, the final day of the legislative session is mostly ceremonial. Legislation that would have granted state district judges their first pay raise in a dozen years has appeared to fall victim to a House-Senate standoff in closing days of the session. But some members of the House and Senate spent Sunday trying to put a deal together in the effort to pass on the final day of the session. It would require suspending several rules, but it could be done. Senate Bill 293 passed the House last week without much controversy after the sponsor, state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, made clear that members would not be voting themselves a backdoor increase to the pensions they earn for extended service in the Legislature. Lawmakers' pensions would still be calculated as if judges' pay remained $140,000 per year, and not at the $175,000 the bill would have paid judges. Under state law, lawmakers are paid only $7,200 a year. However, once they reach eight years of service, they are eligible for state pension that is in line with a salary-linked pension that judges can draw. The more years of service, the more valuable the pension of judges — and lawmakers — is. When SB 293 returned to the Senate, the upper chamber sought to nullify the decoupling of judge-lawmaker pensions without consulting the House. With the legislative session ending Monday, the two chambers would have to agree on SB 293 by midnight Saturday. That deadline came and went with no deal on the bill. Stay tuned. A proposal that would have granted Attorney General Ken Paxton new powers to enforce Texas' election laws died on Sunday after House and Senate lawmakers failed to reach a compromise. The Senate's expansive version of House Bill 5138 would have empowered Paxton to prosecute any election code violation at any time. In contrast, the House version allowed the attorney general to take on election fraud cases only if the local district attorney waited more than six months to prosecute. The legislation was all but certain to face legal challenges if it went into effect. The all-Republican Texas Court of Criminal Appeals struck down a similar law in 2021, ruling that the state Constitution forbids the executive branch from taking on the judicial-branch duty of prosecuting crimes. District attorneys are considered to be part of the judicial branch, while the attorney general is not. Legislation that would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote was left languishing as the clock was running out of the session. Though state and federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting, Senate Bill 16 filed by Mineola Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes would have required voters to prove their citizenship to their local voter registrar. The bill sought to create a bifurcated voter registration system and would require applicants and already-registered voters to provide a document like a birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate to be eligible to cast a ballot in state or local elections. If a voter does not provide citizenship documents, they would be able to vote only in federal races. Legislation to broaden the umbrella of the state's medical marijuana program to including chronic pain and Crohn's disease was sent to the governor. If signed into law, House Bill 46 would allow patients eligible for the state's medical marijuana program to use products like cannabis patches, lotions, prescribed inhalers and vaping devices. The list of qualifying conditions would also expand to include chronic pain and terminal or hospice care. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas legislative session ends Monday. Here's what's left to finish
