San Antonio Democrats file bills on Medicaid, immigration enforcement, minimum wage ahead of 2027 session
San Antonio Democrats were among some of the first to file bills for the 2027 legislative session, as lawmakers Monday flooded the Texas House and Senate with 1,262 suggested pieces of legislation.
The longtime minority party has more power at the Texas Capitol than it has in decades, and has an opening to both push legislation that had little shot in previous years, and to unwind Republican efforts.
But their power won’t be as total as it was for Republicans. While Gina Hinojosa is set to become the first Democrat in the governor’s mansion since Ann Richards left in 1995 and the party has a majority in the Texas House for the first time since 2003, the Texas Senate has a Republican majority, even though Lt. Gov.-elect Vikki Goodwin (D) will preside over the upper chamber.
And they’ve only got 20 weeks in the regular session once it starts Jan. 12.
The first day of bill filing Monday resulted in 1,262 bills on an array of issues: marijuana legalization, raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid, regulating data centers, scrapping the school voucher program, and repealing a requirement for some sheriff’s offices to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Several of those were filed by San Antonio-area lawmakers.
Sen. José Menéndez (D-26) was second in line in the Senate to file dozens of bills Monday morning, including a longtime Democrat goal of expanding Medicaid.
“The issue is that it makes no sense,” he said of Texas being one of 10 states to have not adopted the expansion. “$9 billion to $10 billion of our tax dollars coming back into our community to go to work, just because the Affordable Health Care Act was passed by President Obama? ”
Menéndez also filed a bill to repeal of the state’s new voucher program, though he talked to KSAT about the need to examine the statistics of the program and seemed to suggest parts of it could be saved.
“Are there families that have kids with disabilities that maybe can’t be served as well in the public school system where maybe it might make sense?” he said. “So we have to study things, we have reopen things and make sure we’re doing things right.”
He and Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-116) also filed identical bills to repeal a law requiring some sheriff’s offices to collaborate with ICE.
“Let local police officers and law enforcement do their jobs,” Martinez Fischer said. “We don’t work for the White House. We work for the people.”
Martinez Fischer was one of several lawmakers to submit bills about data centers. In his case, it was about scrapping tax breaks for the projects.
“There’s a way to do this fairly, but we’re not going to put this on the back of mom and pops to foot the bill when data centers could be paying their part as well,” he said.
Asked if he had any concern the Democrats may overreach in their new power, Martinez Fischer said voters spoke “loudly and clearly” about the issues that mattered to them.
“We can’t get everything done, but if we prioritize the people’s needs, that’ll be a hell of a start,” he said.
Read more about the bills filed at the Texas Capital from the Texas Tribune.
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