From the 89th – TMHA Priority Bill Heads to Gov’s Desk

TMHA’s advocacy efforts had a great week last week. Our priority bill this session, S.B. 1341, passed out of the full House on Friday afternoon. The bill had already passed through the Senate, so when the voting bell rang and the final 3rd-reading votes tallied, S.B. 1341 headed to Governor Abbott’s desk.

S.B. 1341 allows for the electronic storage of records and eliminates the “brick and mortar” in-state physical location requirement for retailer record storage. Additionally, the bill eliminates the initial delay in providing consumer notices.  The notices are still required, but the simplification eliminates the 24-hour waiting period.

TMHA is grateful to our House author, Rep. McQueeney, and Senate author, Sen. Hancock, for their support and work this session. 

A major victory for this tough session for sure, and in record time, especially compared to the other 8,700+ bills. But TMHA is not done by a long shot. 

We are still working hard for our zoning bills, H.B. 1835 and S.B. 785. These bills are controversial and are meeting resistance, as anticipated. We still have a steep hill to climb on these bills, but the bill is in the House Calendars committee. This is the waystation in the process after a bill is passed out of its respective jurisdictional committee, before it goes to the full House floor. 

However, there are thousands of bills in Calendars all competing for the extremely limited time and space on the full House Calendar. For many bills, the Calendars Committee will ultimately be the end of the line.

If we are able to get SB 785 to the House floor, TMHA will be asking all our members to a “Call to Action.” We will ask you to contact your respective House members in support of this critical bill that would help create more opportunities in Texas cites for us to bring much needed housing supply. The bill would also afford our industry the chance to showcase our modern, new homes as we continue to innovate, change perceptions, and gain growing market acceptance for our homes.

But as always, it isn’t all offense. 

In fact, the heavy tilt and focus with 30 days left is on our diligent defense. There are still bills we are working to either change into acceptable forms or voice our opposition. 

Finally, as in every session during the waning days, the biggest concern from our defensive perspective is on last-second amendments. A trap for the unwary to ever assume any bill or disastrous language is dead just because it didn’t pass out of committee on its own merit. The last 30-days of the session are when bill authors can attempt to amend moving bills and revive their bills on life support.

Stay tuned, and if our zoning bill does get set to the floor there will be a full court press for all members to contact their representatives as we give it everything we got right up to the final day.