LIVE: House committee may vote on 'consequential' education legislation

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — After the House adjourns on Thursday, the House Committee on Public Education will meet and vote House Bill 2 and Senate Bill 2- two of the most consequential pieces of legislation this session- to the full House floor. The pair of bills will increase funding to public education while establishing an education savings account (ESA) -- allowing parents to pay a portion of the cost of private school with tax dollars.

While these bills will determine how billions of state dollars are spent, Texans across the state will have to show up in-person to hear the deliberation due to a committee decision to not livestream the meeting.

"These are the two most consequential bills in this legislative session -- this voucher bill will defund public schools across the state of Texas, and there have been last minute changes made to these two important pieces of legislation," State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, said. "But instead of live streaming this important conversation to the public, the Chairman (State Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado) has chosen not to have a live stream, even though we have the AV equipment ready to go, it just takes a flip of a switch."

On Tuesday, the committee's clerk's office told KXAN the meeting is not required to be streamed because it's a "formal meeting" and not a "public hearing." Under the 89th legislature House rules, all public testimony is required to be streamed, but formal meetings - where votes are allowed to happen - don't require it.

KXAN and Nexstar Texas plans to stream the entire formal meeting. However, the right to record audio and video is at the discretion of the committee according to Texas House rules.

"We do have formal meetings where all we're doing is voting out a bill. Many times those formal meetings, because of the pace of session, have to happen on the floor at a member's desk, or they have to happen in the (agriculture) museum because there's not a hearing room available, and so the technological capabilities are constrained," Talarico said. "That is not the situation we're facing today. We are going to be in the same committee room with the same AV equipment. All it would take is a flip to the switch."

While no public comment will be taken, several concerned Texans are waiting outside the John H. Reagan hearing room to try and make their voices heard however possible.

"Nobody is even going to see this testimony if they don't let the public get involved for more than two minutes at 3 a.m.," retired University of Texas professor Herb Krasner said. Krasner put together a 12-slide poster board highlighting his concerns with how ESAs have affected states who have already implemented the programs.

The 3 a.m. meeting Krasner referenced was a public hearing three weeks ago on HB 3, the first version of the ESA bill discussed in the House. That meeting started at 8 a.m. on March 11, not ending until 6:30 a.m. on March 12.

"We had 700 Texans show up in person to voice their opinions about this bill. 70% of that 700 were against the voucher bill. We had over 12,000 Texans submit written testimony. 90% were against this voucher bill," Talarico said.

HB 3 has since been set aside in favor of an amended version of SB 2 - a dramatically different ESA bill, which the Senate already passed.

"There have been significant changes made to these bills, and they're going to be heard in a closed door meeting that is not accessible to the public, no live stream, no public comment, no opportunity for Texans around the state to hear about the billion dollar changes that have been made to these two bills," Talarico said.

Buckley's office has not responded to repeated attempts to explain the livestream decision over the last three days. They did not respond to immediate requests for this story.