From Cape You news in Austin,
you're watching Texas this week
with Ashley Good oh good Sunday morning.
There are just nine days left in
the 88th Texas Legislative Sessn
and this week Speaker of the Hoe
date feeling seemingly came up h
the property tax relief plan toe
both the House and Senate happy.
We'll have more on that in just a minute,
but first, let's get to the three things
you need to know in Texas polit.
Texas added a new location to te
list of Democratled cities where
the state is bussing migrants.
Denver, Co Governor Greg Abbott's office
announced Thursday 40 migrants e
dropped off near Civic Center P,
less than half a mile away frome
Colorado State Capitol building.
Governor Abbott started bussing
migrants from the border to othr
parts of the country in April 2.
Since then,
more than 19,000 people have ben
taken to cities across the coun,
including New York, Washington,
DC, and Chicago.
The latest drop off comes just o
days after Governor Abbott sent
letters to every governor in the
country asking them to help secure the
southern border through the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact tt
allows states to share resourceo
respond to disasters and emergencies.
The senior US senator from Texas
weighing in on the 2024 presidential race.
On a call with Texas reporters Thursday,
US Senator John Cornyn said he doesn't
think former President Donald Trump can win,
Senator Cornyn told journalists.
Quote, I think President Trump's
time has passed him by,
He went on to say, quote,
I don't think President Trump understands
that when you run in a general election,
you have to appeal to
voters beyond your base.
The four term Republican did not
endorse any of the other candid.
The Lone Star State is now home to four
of the largest cities in the country,
and three Central Texas suburbs are among
the fastest growing large cities in America.
The US Census Bureau
released new data this week,
and Austin now joins Houston,
Dallas and San Antonio in the list of the
top 10 most populated cities in the country.
It was #11,
and when it comes to the fastest
growing large cities in the US,
Georgetown tops the list again this year.
Kyle Leander and three other Texas cities
also made the list of fastest growing.
For just about five months now,
we've watched Lieutenant Governor Dan
Patrick and Speaker of the House Dade
feeling feud over property tax relief,
from a Lieutenant Governor Dan
Patrick posting memes on Twitteo
speaker feeling putting togethen
ad against Patrick to laying don
the gauntlet in news conference.
I don't like to say the Speaker
is wrong in his plan,
but the facts are the facts.
We can negotiate on just about everything,
but I do not negotiate on bad m.
Well,
this week Speaker Feeling and the House
of Representatives came up with a solution.
Pass both plans.
Hannah Norton,
State Politics reporter for
Community Impact Join me to talk
about the new Senate Bill Three.
Both chambers passed their own, you know,
plans to offer property tax rel.
Tell us a little bit about the differences
between those two ideas. Definiy
so. Both chambers have agreed that they
want to decrease school property tax rates,
and they've also agreed that they want to
extend property tax relief to businesses.
Particularly small businesses to help
benefit them in similar ways tht
homeowners benefit from property tax relief.
On one hand, the House wants to
cut in half the appraisal cap,
which would limit how much the taxable value
of property could increase every year.
And the Senate, on the other ha,
wants to raise the homestead exemption,
which is the amount of someone's residential
property that is not eligible to be taxed.
After all of the back and forth,
you know, between the Lieutenant
governor and the speaker of the House,
I mean, they've been kind of hag
a battle on Twitter. There's ben
harsh words said in news conferences.
But this week, Dave Feeling said he would
just pass essentially both the plans.
And that's exactly what the Houe
did Thursday and Friday, right? Yeah.
So the House essentially combind
both the House and Senate's pla.
In a new version of Senate Bill,
So that bill includes a 5% appraisal cap.
The appraisal cap right now is .
So every year someone's residential property,
the taxable value can increase
by 10% from the year prior.
Under this new plan,
it would only be able to increase by 5%,
which would just give Texans a better idea
of how much their property might increase,
how high their property tax bill
might be for the next year.
And that would also extend
to all types of property,
including businesses and land.
And then it also includes the Senate's side,
which is the homestead exemptio.
Right now, Texans get a
$40,000 homestead exemption.
Texans ages 65 and older and pee
with disabilities get $50,000.
The Senate wanted to increase the exemption
to $70,000 for homeowners and $100,000
for seniors and those with disabilities.
But the house version of SB3 gives all
homeowners a $100,000 exemptiond
110,000 for seniors and the disabled.
House leaders estimate this will
save the owner of a $350,000 hoe
about $2800 over the next two y.
Property tax relief has become a point
of contention in the Texas capi.
All of the lawmakers want to get it done,
but the House and Senate have
different ideas on what to do.
Reduce appraisal caps or increae
the homestead exemption will.
This week,
Speaker of the House date feelig
said let's do both in a new
version of Senate Bill three.
Let's continue our conversation
about the bill with Hannah Nort,
state politics reporter for Community Impact.
You know, Senate Bill 3 passed e
House was really little debate.
Everyone seemed to be on board.
It passed 140 to 5.
Have we heard any response from
Dan Patrick about the plan?
So Dan Patrick hasn't said anything new
about this new property tax plan so far,
but he has made some comments
in the past that have just been
fiercely opposed to appraisal c.
He has said that appraisal caps
are more of a California style
plan and that they wouldn't wor.
As well in Texas.
So he does not want to change
that appraisal cap.
He told reporters last month tht
appraisal caps are essentially bad math.
He said that he can negotiate
on pretty much everything,
but can't negotiate on bad math.
You know, Texas lawmakers are
constitutionally required to do just one
thing each session that's passed a budget.
Talk to us about how this propey
tax relief plan and the fight between
the chambers is holding that up.
Both chambers and their
versions of House Bill One,
which is the budget for this ye,
are planning to reduce property taxes.
Both chambers are planning to ue
about $5 billion in state fundso
cover existing property tax cuts which
were approved in previous sessi.
And so they do need to pass this
property tax relief right now ad
find some sort of middle ground
in order to pass the budget.
And now the last
word in three days, on May 24th.
We will memorialize the 19 children and
two teachers who were brutally gunned down
inside Rob Elementary School last year.
For a year now, we've watched Se
Senator Roland Gutierrez try tot
the Senate to consider or even t
hold a committee hearing on a pe
of his gun legislation aimed at
preventing another mass shootin.
It hasn't happened Thursday.
The Senate debated House Bill 24
to make it a felony for someoneo
buy and give a gun to a person o
is not legally allowed to have .
Democrats offered a red flag law amendment,
a waiting period,
Amendment One to raise the age.
All were killed with points of order.
The senators didn't even get a
chance to vote on those ideas,
and Senator Gutierrez again spoe
to his colleagues about Uvalde.
But this time it felt different.
I want to warn you,
the video you're about to see
contains graphic descriptions.
I need to apologize to all of y.
I need to apologize to the Lieutenant
governor because I started out.
I tried to be nice,
and then I got angrier and angr.
And I've been angry for a long .
I've been angry for a long time.
I've been angry because I saw.
Everything that the Department of Public
Safety gave me in a hard drive this big,
and I had to see it because
there was tremendous failure.
As Steve Mccraw suggested,
it was abject failure,
2 terabytes of information.
I needed to see the failure.
But what I saw was a lot of faie
and what I saw was little
children with no faces.
What I saw
was bodies just riddled,
riddled
blood everywhere.
3 piles of kids, two of them wee
teachers draped over them in one room,
kids in another room pile togetr
because that's what we train them to do.
We train them to go huddle toge.
I know you think that we have
done some good things on school
hardening and we have the senat,
the chairwoman has passed a good piece of
legislation and hopefully in a few minutes,
but it is hardly, hardly enough.
We don't get to pat all ourselves on the
back for mirroring federal legislation.
You have to tell those fringe pe
and you're party
that they are wrong,
that she didn't. She didn't
infringe on their gun access.
Someday you're going to have to tell them
that there is no way in hell mentally
ill people should have these th.
You're going to have to tell thm
that you have to have some restrictions on
people on how they access these weapons.
You're even going to have to tel
them that an 18 year old shouldn't be
able to buy an AR15 like he's buying.
Go to pop at 7:11.
I
sure am sorry to all of you.
The way that I behave this sess.
I am anger. It's hell.
So many of us are angry,
grieved, defenseless.
But there is hope.
It's you. In Texas,
we can protect our children.
We just have to take action from
speaking up if you see somethin,
to advocating to voting.
That's the last word,
and this has been Texas this we.