Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows of Lubbock recapped this year’s legislative session and highlighted important constitutional amendments on next Tuesday’s ballot – saying brand new laws are highly consequential for improving education in Texas, lowering property taxes, securing strategic investment in Texas Tech and West Texas and improving public safety and national security.
“We passed the largest school finance bill in the history of Texas,” Burrows told the Rotary Club of Lubbock Wednesday at First United Methodist Church in downtown Lubbock.
“It was the single largest investment in public education in the history of Texas, even after adjusting for inflation,” Burrows repeated just to emphasize the point.
House Bill 2 put $8.5 billion into Texas public schools primarily for salaries, safety, special education and early childhood learning.
“We made sure that the bulk of that went to our school teachers. … I want to be real clear. We did not mandate one-time bonuses. We baked in pay raises for them that will be built in perpetuity.” Burrows said.
“But if you talk to our educators, that was not their number one issue,” Burrows said.
“The number one issue, why they were leaving the classroom, … or why they didn’t want their children or family members to go into the profession, was because … they felt they could be disrespected by one or two students and there was nothing they could do about it,” Burrows said.
“We passed a big bill called the Teacher Bill of Rights,” he said.
Teachers have a much greater right to keep a disruptive student out of class, which LubbockLights.com covered here. The state banned cell phones in schools during class time, which turned out to be surprisingly popular.
Burrows said he was told by someone, “We actually like the bill because now we go to lunch and we talk to our friends.”
One other big change; the STAAR Test. One “high-stakes test” will be replaced by three smaller tests – a change scheduled for the 2027/28 school year.
“The bill I was the most lobbied for – I mean, I could not go home and not get lobbied for it – was in the STAAR test,” he said, referring to his three sons.
Speaking of being in his hometown, Burrows – who graduated from Monterey High School and has an MBA and law degree from Texas Tech – said he thought he knew how busy he’d be as speaker – but he’s even busier as he comes close to a year in one of the top political positions in Texas.
Channeling Waggoner Carr
Burrows was elected speaker in January over the objection of some in the Texas Republican Party. See our previous coverage in the links below. That led to talk in the Texas House during the legislative session he should be removed.
“Once you become Speaker of the House, other than death or voluntarily resigning, there’s only one way to remove the Speaker – that is to actually have a motion to vacate the chair,” Burrows said.
And why would any speaker recognize someone to make that motion? So, it almost never happens.
“Waggoner Carr and I are the only two speakers who actually recognized somebody for a vote for removal of the chair,” Burrows said.
Burrows and Carr (1957–1961) are also the only two speakers from Lubbock.
“There were some stories in the paper that were not flattering to Mr. Carr when he was Speaker of the House,” Burrows told hus audience.
So, Carr addressed the Texas House.
“If anybody would like to make a motion to vacate him, he would recognize him from the front of the mic at this time – left the front microphone open for 15 to 20 minutes. Nobody came up,” Burrows said.
“Okay, let’s move on then,” Burrows quoted Carr as saying.
In April Representative Brian Harrison (R)-Waxahachie made such a motion against Burrows.
“This one gentleman made this decision that he was going to start telling the world that he was going to vacate the illegitimate Speaker – being me,” Burrows said.
“Much to his surprise, one morning I … said, ‘I’ll recognize you. Come up here and make your motion,’” Burrows said.
The House voted 141-2 to table the resolution. It wasn’t 20 minutes of an empty microphone, but Burrows’ job was still secure.
‘Go vote, if nothing else’
There are 17 constitutional amendments on the ballot for the November 4 election – all worth voting for, he said.
Proposition 3 allows a judge to deny bail for persons accused of certain crimes.
“Y’all have the power to change the Texas Constitution to make sure if somebody is arrested for murder, for rape, for the most violent crimes – we’re not going to let them back out immediately to go do more of those crimes,” Burrows said.
It’s a public safety issue, he said, adding nothing stops a murder suspect in Houston from traveling to Lubbock to commit more crimes. Prosecutors would have to give a judge good reason to deny bond, for example the safety of the community.
Proposition 9 allows the Texas Legislature to provide a tax exemption for small business. A business could claim up to $125,000 of equipment and machinery for property tax exemptions over the current $2,500 limit.
Small businesses can use the savings to hire people, he said.
Proposition 4 creates a water fund. State Senator Charles Perry of Lubbock fought to get this item on the ballot. It puts up to $1 billion a year of sales tax into the Texas Water Fund.
“For some reason, people are against having a long-term water supply in Texas right now. The majority are still in favor of it, so I’m told, but it’s only polling about 55-45,” Burrows said.
Estimates vary but Texas loses tens of billions of gallons of water from cracked or broken pipelines every year.
“That is a staggering amount of water that we are losing. If we will spend some of the money fixing that, we will have better long-term ability,” Burrows said.
“Please go vote, if nothing else, to do that,” Burrows said.
Strategic investments
The legislature made major strategic investments in Texas Tech and West Texas infrastructure, he said.
“Texas Tech did fantastic this session. It’s a laundry list of successes, helping with starting a cancer center at the Health Sciences Center,” Burrows said.
He also referenced a recent series of grants and agreements as Texas Tech positions itself as a national security research hub.
Some of that work including pulsed power research will be done at the Texas Tech University Reese National Security Complex (formerly called Reese Technology Center). Pulsed power means storing power for quick release, which can have both civilian and military applications.
“We’re redoing Reese – $320 million. … We are going to be at the forefront of national defense research. We’re redoing the runways. You’re going to see the big C-130 planes from the military landing there to do classified research, especially on pulsed power. Really, really big things,” Burrows said.
That also includes a SCIF – a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. It’s a secure place for sensitive or classified information.
Burrows took questions from the audience and LubbockLights.com asked what the priorities are for Texas Tech and for the City of Lubbock in the next legislative session.
He said it’s too early to talk about it, but he gave hints as what’s coming – especially at Reese.
“We’re going to see – 5 to 10 years from now – big, big, big things happening there. And it is going to be big for the area and it’s going to be huge for Tech. It is going to be huge investments of dollars that’s going to count towards their research and their accreditation,” Burrows said.
Agencies like DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) see something special at Texas Tech, he said.
“They look at Lubbock and Texas Tech as patriotic as it gets for a big state school,” Burrows said.
