School vouchers, THC ban, property tax cuts: Here’s what Texas lawmakers did in the 2025 regular session

Texas GOP lawmakers exit the 2025 legislative session having taken care of their top two education priorities: private school vouchers and funding for public schools.

Senate Bill 2, the voucher bill, will allow families to use $1 billion in taxpayer funds to pay for their children’s private school tuition and home-school expenses. House Bill 2, the school finance package, will send a roughly $8.5 billion boost to public schools to fund employee salaries, operational expenses, educator preparation, special education, campus safety and early childhood learning.

Passage of both bills marks a 180-degree turn from the 2023 session, when vouchers failed to move forward and billions for public schools were withheld as a consequence, with Abbott saying he would only approve school funding once lawmakers passed vouchers.

SB 2’s voucher program will launch at the beginning of the 2026-27 school year, with state officials expected to begin building the structure in coming months. HB 2 will soon allow Texas public schools to begin addressing some long-standing challenges, though advocates warn the money will likely not stave off budget deficits and campus closures.

— Jaden Edison

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In a major win for Patrick, lawmakers approved a ban on products containing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, fulfilling the lieutenant governor’s priority of eradicating Texas’ booming hemp industry.

Under legislation sent to the governor last week, Senate Bill 3, hemp retailers and recreational users would be allowed to sell and consume only the non-intoxicating, non-psychoactive cannabinoids known as CBD and CBG. The potential ban on THC, the psychoactive element in marijuana, comes six years after lawmakers inadvertently touched off a boom in hemp-based products when they authorized the sale of consumable hemp in a move aimed at boosting Texas agriculture.

The measure has met bipartisan resistance from veterans and activists in both parties, who say an all-out ban is a heavy-handed way of cracking down on the more than 8,000 loosely regulated retailers selling THC-laced edibles, drinks, vapes and flower buds across Texas.

Hemp industry leaders and advocates have flooded Abbott with calls to veto the bill; the governor has stayed neutral on the issue this session and declined to say whether he plans to use his veto pen or let the bill become law.

Proponents have sold the ban in part by touting the Legislature’s planned expansion of its limited medical marijuana program. Separate legislation sent to Abbott’s desk would significantly expand the list of qualifying conditions and allow for more licensed medical marijuana dispensers.

— Jasper Scherer

The Legislature adopted a sweeping package ushering in a crackdown on the state’s bail laws, a longtime priority of Abbott. Senate Joint Resolution 5 will appear on November’s ballot, asking voters to amend the state Constitution to require judges to deny bail, in certain cases, for the most violent offenses.

The Texas Constitution currently grants almost everyone who is arrested the right to be released on bail, except for those charged with capital murder or accused of certain repeat felonies or bail violations. According to the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court, bail cannot be excessive, and pretrial detention largely should not be considered the default, as criminal defendants are legally presumed innocent.

Proponents argued that stricter bail laws were necessary to protect the public from crime committed by dangerous defendants out on bail.

The Legislature also passed Senate Bill 9, which limits who is eligible for a cashless bond. But two more stringent proposals — which would’ve automatically denied bail to all unauthorized migrants accused of certain crimes and to some people previously accused of certain felonies — died in the House.

— Kayla Guo

Texans will no longer be able to buy their lottery tickets online or through apps known as couriers, cutting down one of the only legal forms of online gambling in the state. The Legislature’s session-long scrutiny of the Texas Lottery Commission culminated in Senate Bill 3070, a sweeping overhaul of the game and the abolition of the commission as lottery oversight moves to a new agency.

The banning of couriers was a bellwether for the Legislature’s appetite for gambling this session; not a single bill expanding casinos or sports betting in any form was heard in either chamber. A March letter signed by a dozen Republican lawmakers killed any hope for constitutional amendments on gambling making it out of the House — a hurdle one such proposal barely jumped in 2023.

The lottery itself is ending the session on unstable footing, as SB 3070 will require a review by the state’s Sunset Advisory Commission in 2029 that may put a permanent end to the games.

— Ayden Runnels

Lawmakers reached a deal on investing billions of dollars to stave off a looming water crisis. Senate Bill 7 and House Resolution 7 dedicate $1 billion a year for the next 20 years, beginning in 2027. The money will be split evenly between fixing the state’s fragile water infrastructure and projects to create new water supply. This includes desalination, repairing old water infrastructure, conservation and flood mitigation projects.

Texas voters will have the chance to vote on the proposed dedicated funding this November.

There were water-related bills that had support, but failed to make it across the finish line. This includes House Bill 1400, which would have established a fund for groundwater research, science and innovation. This fund would have been used to improve groundwater models used for water planning, among other research to improve groundwater conditions in Texas.

— Jayme Lozano Carver

Two bills passed this session give religion — specifically, Christianity — a more prominent role in Texas public schools, barring potential legal challenges.

Senate Bill 10 requires that every public school classroom display the Ten Commandments in a visible place. The posters must be 16 by 20 inches, and can’t include any other text. The bill builds on a 2021 law that requires “In God We Trust” signs to be displayed, though those were only required to be displayed if donated by a private group. A similar law to the Ten Commandments bill was ruled unconstitutional in Louisiana, and freedom of religion and civil rights groups in Texas said they plan to sue as soon as the governor signs it.

Senate Bill 11 requires school boards to vote on whether to have a period for staff and students to pray or study a religious text — and to allow students that time in the school day either way. Opponents raised concerns before the bill’s passage that this could lead to teachers or staff members attempting to indoctrinate students.

— Sameea Kamal

Texas now strictly defines man and woman based on reproductive organs. The full implications of this bill remain to be seen, but trans people fear it means the state won’t recognize amended drivers’ licenses and birth certificates. It may also be used to limit what bathrooms someone can use, the prisons or shelters they’re put into and the discrimination protections they can call upon.

The Legislature will also require health insurance companies that cover gender-affirming care to pay for detransitioning; mandates someone’s birth sex be noted on their medical records; and says it can’t be considered child abuse for parents to not affirm their child’s gender identity.

The “bathroom bill,” requiring people in government buildings to use the bathroom that matches the sex they were assigned at birth, did not pass, despite widespread support from both chambers.

— Eleanor Klibanoff

After at least three women died as a result of being denied medically necessary abortions, lawmakers approved a narrow clarification of the state’s near-total abortion ban. The new law does not expand abortion access, but aims to empower doctors to perform life-saving abortions, even if death is not imminent. It also requires doctors and lawyers to take continuing education classes on the nuances of the law.

Lawmakers also banned cities from paying for out-of-state abortion travel, although a more significant anti-abortion bill, cracking down on pills, failed to make it out of a House committee.

— Eleanor Klibanoff

A raft of vaccine hesitancy bills that put greater restrictions on vaccine use while giving parents and individuals more leeway in filing conscientious exemptions so they or their children can opt out of immunization requirements were filed but only a handful made it across the finish line.

Chief among them was House Bill 1586, which will allow parents to print out copies of the state’s conscientious exemption form instead of waiting weeks for one to be sent by the Texas Department of State Health Services. Critics argued that making exemptions easier will cause more childhood viruses to spread like the current West Texas measles outbreak.

Other vaccine-related bills that passed included HB 4076, which bars discrimination on an organ transplant list based on a patient’s vaccination status, and HB 4535, which requires health care providers administering the COVID-19 vaccine to obtain informed consent from patients, notify them in writing of benefits and risks and inform them how to report complications to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

— Terri Langford

State lawmakers greenlit a fresh round of property tax cuts for Texas homeowners and businesses that voters must sign off on at the November ballot box. If passed, Texans who own their homes would get a bigger break on the taxes they pay to school districts via a boost in the state’s homestead exemption to $140,000 from $100,000. Homeowners 65 or older or those with disabilities would see an even bigger bump.

Business owners stand to see breaks on the property taxes they pay on their inventory. Lawmakers exempted up to $125,000 of businesses’ inventory from being taxed by school districts, cities, counties and other taxing entities. Voters in November will decide whether that takes effect.

In all, Texas plans to spend $51 billion on property tax cuts — a whopping figure state budget watchers and some lawmakers worry is unsustainable.

— Joshua Fechter

Lawmakers enacted a spate of bills intended to tackle the state’s high home prices and rents, mainly by allowing more homes to be built. Among the most prominent were bills to allow smaller homes on smaller lots as well as apartments and mixed-use developments in more places, such as along retail and commercial corridors, in the state’s largest cities. They also approved a bill to make it harder for residents to stop new homes from being built.

Other measures to make it easier to build additional dwelling units in the backyards of single-family homes and allow houses of worship to build homes on their land died.

— Joshua Fechter

Texas lawmakers wanted to give parents more say over what children are taught and which activities they join. A key part of this push is Senate Bill 12, which will ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices in K-12 schools. The ban prohibits school districts from considering race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation in hiring and training. Lawmakers say DEI programs promote ideology over quality education. Parents can file complaints if they believe a school violates the ban, which can be escalated to the Texas Education commissioner.

In addition, schools will be banned from authorizing or sponsoring student clubs based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill also requires parents to give consent for their children to participate in extracurricular clubs.

Critics say the law could negatively impact LGBTQ+ students and encourage self-censorship among teachers. Lawmakers proposed amendments, allowing educators to opt out of teaching what goes against their personal beliefs and ensuring students still learn the “uncomfortable truths” of U.S. history, but they failed.

— Sofia Sorochinskaia

Alarmed by last year’s “disruptive” and “hate-filled” pro-Palestinian demonstrations, conservative lawmakers pushed to exert greater control over public higher education. They passed Senate Bill 37, giving political appointees — not subject-matter experts — the authority to review and reject courses and the hiring of a provost or the chief academic officer. That bill creates an office to investigate complaints against universities and recommend funding cuts.

Lawmakers also rolled back campus free speech protections with Senate Bill 2972, which gives politically appointed university regents the power to designate protest locations and prohibits students from erecting encampments, wearing disguises or protesting noisily in certain situations. A proposal to eliminate in-state tuition for undocumented students advanced out of a committee for the first time in a decade but stalled before a full vote.

— Jessica Priest