TXLEGE 2021

Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Tuesday two bills meant to improve the state’s main power grid and change the governance of the agency that operates it.

Midnight was the deadline for the House to approve the legislation that would alter nearly the entire voting process, create new limitations to early voting hours, ratchet up voting-by-mail restrictions and curb local voting options.

Senate Bill 7 includes provisions to limit early voting hours, curtail local voting options and further tighten voting-by-mail. The upper chamber suspended its own rules to approve it after debating it for hours overnight.

The Texas Legislature’s two-year, roughly $248 billion state budget is headed to the governor’s desk after the House advanced the proposal Thursday, completing monthslong negotiations between the two chambers.

Sine die. Latin for “without a day,” it’s also Texan for “this once every two years simultaneous debacle and demonstration of democracy is almost over.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Wednesday is asking Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session of the Texas Legislature in June to advance three pieces of GOP-backed legislation that died in the Texas House at midnight on Tuesday.

After hours of debate Sunday, the Texas House moved to strengthen the state’s main electricity grid in the wake of February’s catastrophic power outages, giving preliminary approval to a proposal that goes further than the Senate’s in preparing for extreme weather.

Around 2 a.m. Saturday, the Texas Senate passed a new version of a house bill that some have touted as being anti-critical race theory — despite the fact that the phrase never graces the text of the bill.