Bill Filing Day One Passes 1,160 Measures: a Divorce-While-Pregnant Bill, a Blue Envelope Program and a Data Center Repeal Lead the Evening Ledger
The first day of filing for the 90th Texas Legislature ended the way it began — at a sprint. More than 1,160 bills were in by mid-afternoon, and the evening's named measures range from a blue envelope for drivers with disabilities to a data center tax repeal carrying 23 senators.
AUSTIN — The first day of bill filing for the 90th Texas Legislature closed with the counter still climbing: more than 1,160 bills and resolutions had been filed by 2 p.m., the Texas Tribune reported, up from almost 970 at noon — a first-day pace in a session that does not convene until Jan. 12, 2027, with filing open through March 12.
The evening's ledger is specific. Rep. Lopez-Resendez's HB947 would allow women in Texas to divorce while pregnant. Incoming Rep. Sethi's HB765 would create a blue envelope program to help law enforcement officers identify drivers with autism or a disability. On the Republican side of the data center fight, Sen. Joan Huffman's SB293 would repeal data center tax breaks — and 23 senators signed on to it on day one, a measure of how far the issue has moved in both parties.
The repeal theme ran through the day: six bills would repeal the year-old school voucher program, and seven would raise the state minimum wage to somewhere between $15 and $17. The day's most prolific filers were all Democrats — Lalani with 68 bills, Zaffirini with 66, Austin's John Bucy with 58 and Menendez with 54 — filing, as the day's roundups put it, like a majority party in the chamber Democrats now control.
Almost none of it becomes law in a normal session, and everyone at the Capitol knows it: day-one filings are priority statements, the opening bid of a 140-day argument. The Texas Desk tracks the measures that draw hearings when committees form in January.
