Okay, Ms.

Fire, I think we're ready.

Yes, sir.

Good morning.

This is a work session of the El Paso City Council for Monday, September 29th, 2025.

It is 1031 a.m.

Mayor Johnson is present and presiding along with Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, Representative Madonado Rocha, Representative Nino, and Representative Canales.

Mayor, we have a quorum.

I think you represent Canales.

Would you lead us on the pledge?

To the flag.

That brings us to item number one on the agenda.

This is a presentation on the 89th legislative session wrap-up updates.

All right, good morning.

Good morning.

Jasmine Flores with Strategic and Legislative Affairs for the record.

So this presentation is gonna go over the 89th uh legislative session at the Texas legislature.

Um so this is a brief overview of some of the things we're gonna discuss today.

And for the record representatives, Acevedo and Alternate Mayor Proteo Piero have joined the meeting.

So look, we're gonna start with the timeline here.

So the regular session began on January 14th, lasting about 140 days, and concluded on June 2nd.

At that point in time, all indications were that the legislature had completed its business and would close after the governor's 20-day veto period on June 22nd.

However, Governor Abbott reconvened the legislature to re-legislate two priorities, uh the regulation as opposed to the ban of hemp deride products and the redrawing of congressional district lines in the state.

Therefore, the governor called the first special session on July 21st.

Um a special legislative session by law is supposed to last no more than 30 days.

Uh however, in an effort to block the attempts to redraw the congressional lines, uh over 50 Democrats fled the state to Democratic strongholds in other states.

Uh they were gone for over two weeks, halting all business from continuing in the House.

As a result, the lieutenant governor and the speaker closed the first special session on August 15th and reconvened the start of the second special that same day.

After congressional redistricting and disaster response bills were passed, uh the second special session closed on September 5th.

So the governor's regular session priorities, uh, he limited his priorities to seven major areas uh during the regular, notably property tax relief, uh, school vouchers, and water investments.

All seven priorities passed during the regular session.

Uh you see the highlighted items there and this slide and moving forward are identified as having potential um impacts to the operations of municipalities.

Uh the lieutenant governor's um priorities.

On the other hand, he came out swinging with about 40 items, 30 of which passed, namely school vouchers, increasing the homestead exemption, uh creating more affordable housing options in Texas and banning uh state lobbying.

Again, all the highlighted items are those with potential municipal impacts.

And for the record, Representative Boya Trejo has also joined the meeting.

In uh in his surprise call to reconvene the legislature for the first special, uh Governor Abbott issued a proclamation in which he listed those items on the screen as being his legislative priorities.

The July 4th flooding in Hill Country had just happened a few days after the veto announcement.

So items regarding disaster prevention and flood recovery were added to that list.

The items most pressing for municipalities again, municipal operations, sorry, were property tax reduction, banning lobbying, and law enforcement public discourse.

And because the House broke quorum, none of these priorities were able to pass during that first special, and they were recycled for the second.

The lieutenant governor wasn't too pleased with the governor's veto on his priority hemp ban.

So he issued his own set of priorities.

As you can see, the the real difference here from the governor and the lieutenant governor was banning THC, whereas the governor wanted to regulate it.

The governor's second special session priorities.

Most items passed, but of particular concern were the items related to property taxes reductions, lobbying bans, and law enforcement public discourse.

And a number of these passed as well.

So looking at the stats for the regular session, we see the bill filing record was surpassed by the 88th session, and I feel confident that every time I come before you, I'm gonna say this year's more bills filed than last year.

That's just the nature of these things.

And of that, approximately 1,200 bills were passed.

So that yields a bill passage rate of about 13.5%.

The average is between 14 and 18%, so it's just shy of the average.

For the first special, um, we see about 592 bills filed, and because it was came to an abrupt stop about halfway through, uh, none of those bills were passed, so bill passage rate of zero.

And the second special, um, most of these 395 bills that were filed were refilings from the first special.

Um, in total, about 12 bills passed.

So that's a bill passage rate of about 3.4%.

So moving on to dominant policy areas that we saw during the 89th for the regular session.

Um, these were the three big items that cities across Texas faced, uh, El Paso being no exception to that.

They were preemption of local authority, land use and housing affordability, and financial penalizations.

During the first and second specials, uh, these priorities shifted just slightly to property tax revenue cuts, the imposition of severe spending caps, and lobbying bans.