Texas Legislature 2023

We now know most of the results of the November 8 election and the story it tells is that Texas Republicans are very good at gerrymandering districts for partisan advantage. Their highly refined map drawing allowed them to pick up one seat in the state house, one seat in the state senate, and two congressional seats even though the statewide partisan vote split is approximately the same as it was in 2018. It’s amazing how well you can stick it to the other side when you control the rules of the game.

The state legislature will begin the 2023 session in just 7 weeks and they’ll have less than 5 months to pass a budget and get the rest of the people’s business done for the next two years. Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar has stated that record-high tax revenues over the last year will give Texas lawmakers an extra $27 billion to spend in the 2023 legislative session. Let’s see if our legislators and governor will allocate significant additional funds to public education where it is sorely needed or if they spend foolishly on fake border security as Greg Abbott did when he re-allocated funds from other important state responsibilities to continue and expand the National Guard presence on our southern border.

There are numerous other issues that the legislature really should address including action on the Texas power grid which is still in danger of failing when it is needed most at least in part because the model that utilities are required to use to determine whether or not they are prepared for extreme weather events doesn’t include the conditions we experienced in February 2021. Texas electricity users will be paying increased utility bills for a decade just to cover the outrageous rates that generators were able to charge for less than a week. The extra you’re paying on your bill doesn’t go toward improvements to prevent the same disaster in 2023 or further in the future.

It is way past time for Texas to make at least medical marijuana legal, the pathetic potency of the material legal in the state currently is little more than a placebo. There are clearly documented studies showing the value of marijuana for pain relief, something my wife would really benefit from. Presently she is using prescribed opioids which of course have numerous bad side effects including addiction and gastro-paresis, a condition in which the intestines don’t pump food and waste properly. The treatment for gastro-paresis is another drug which isn’t covered by many insurance plans and costs about $1000 a month so it isn’t really affordable at all. When we were out of state she was able to use medically approved marijuana edibles that relieved her pain and allowed her to function better than the drugs available here in Texas.

If the Republican leadership took a look at how successful decriminalizing recreational marijuana has been in states like Colorado where the sales taxes from it have been used to augment public school funding they might shift their perspective. I don’t really expect that to happen any time soon as it would take away one of the ways that Republicans generate fear in voters.

Various groups have been lobbying for changes to state marijuana law for years now and all we can hope is that our legislators will begin to see the light in 2023.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 23, 2022