A look at which bills passed and which failed during the 2023 legislative session.
May 2023
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Texas Legislature 2023
Texas lawmakers find consensus on bill banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices in public universities
Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill on June 14, making Texas the second state in the country, after Florida, to ban DEI offices at public universities.
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Politics
14 U.S. House Republicans from Texas vote against raising the debt limit
Joined in opposition by four Texas Democrats, the “no” votes weren’t enough to sink the proposal, which next heads to the U.S. Senate.
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Politics
Ron DeSantis plans 3-day fundraising swing through Texas next week
The Florida governor’s events in six cities are drawing some of the state’s biggest Republican donors.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Tension over property taxes produces rare public clash between Dan Patrick, Greg Abbott
Always happy to castigate the Texas House, Patrick breaks form to criticize the governor as misinformed and unsympathetic toward homeowners.
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Ken Paxton Impeachment
Abbott taps John Scott, former Texas secretary of state, as interim attorney general
Scott, a former deputy attorney general, will run the agency because Ken Paxton has been suspended from office until his impeachment trial before the Texas Senate.
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LGBTQ+ Texans
This class president is the model of a successful Texas teen. After a ban on trans health care, she can’t wait to leave the state.
For one Round Rock teen, getting accepted to Harvard was her ticket out of a state that she says is hostile to trans youth. Now Texas will ensure young people like her no longer have access to gender-affirming care.
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State Government
Across Texas, a slow and sputtered rollout of foster care privatization
Lawmakers were assured that outsourcing management of foster care services would fix the state’s troubled child welfare agency. But the rollout of the new model, set to be completed by 2029, has been complicated by setbacks.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Abbott backs Phelan’s property tax cut plan, spurring ire from Patrick
The House passed a bill without Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s preferred increase to homestead exemptions — then abruptly adjourned for the special session. That basically tells the Senate to take the House bill Gov. Greg Abbott backs or leave it.
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Uvalde school shooting
Watch a documentary about the Uvalde shooting from The Texas Tribune, Frontline and Futuro Investigates
The film, “After Uvalde: Guns, Grief and Texas Politics,” was broadcast nationally on PBS and is also available for streaming on The Texas Tribune and Frontline’s websites.
