From the 88th – and now From the 88th 1st Special
The regular session ended at 6:40pm on Monday, when the Senate followed the House and adjourned. But it didn’t take long for Gov. Abbott to announce the beginning of what he called, “Special Session #1,” at 9pm. So, the legislature got about a 20-hour break before they reconvened at noon today, Tuesday, May 30th.
Quickly on special sessions, they are more limited in time and scope. They are in 30-day increments, and only bills that pertain to “the call” set by Gov. Abbott are permitted. For this first “call,” only bills dealing with property tax cuts and increasing the penalties for human trafficking are allowed.
Gov. Abbott has stated that he intends to call multiple special sessions, and we expect he will have additional topics included in subsequent sessions.
It is back to work for the legislature and the trade groups, associations, and lobby teams. And all signs are currently pointing in the direction that none of us better make any summer plans.
But before getting too far along in the specials, we are pleased to report that the TMHA supported bill, H.B. 2706, completely passed and is currently sitting on the governor’s desk.
This bill creates a limited licensing exemption when manufactured home community owners want to sell their community, which includes some community owned homes. Current law requires a person selling more than two homes in 12 months to have a retailer’s license. But when a “mom and pop” community is being sold that includes a few homes, this requirement is burdensome, unnecessarily expensive and adds complexity to a transaction. The bill also aligns state law with changes in federal regulations for clarity and consistency. And perhaps most critically, the bill would clarify the MH inventory lien perfection process to simplify the steps needed to secure a floorplan lien on inventory. The changes to inventory lien perfection are based on the input and requests to TMHA from our industry floorplan lenders.
TMHA thanks all those members of the House and Senate who voted for this important bill, and especially the House author, Rep. Shine, and Senate sponsor, Sen. Zaffirini. Sen. Birdwell also signed on as a cosponsor. Rep. Shine’s and Sen. Birdwell’s districts represent the Belton, Waco, and Burleson areas of Texas that comprise our highest concentration of MH factories.
We will have our full session recap out in the coming weeks as we get through the veto period. But an important takeaway from the 88th Session was that no legislation that would have a negative impact on our industry passed. Always a primary focus of your TMHA Lobby Team is to first protect our industry from adverse bills, of which there were many.
We are also pleased to announce successful efforts on serval bills we worked on and supported that did ultimately passed.
Two specific changes we will be talking about a lot in the near future is the new law restricting local governments and courts from imposing any sort of additional conditions, rights to cure, moratoriums or other limitations or restrictions on eviction proceedings. The law if it is not vetoed, is effective September 1, 2023, and will lock down only those eviction requirements in Chapter 24, Property Code, as the steps one must follow in an eviction action.
The other major win from this session is the massively impactful local preemption bill, H.B. 2127. Efforts to pass these changes date back more than seven and a half years, but it was finally passed this session. The law preempts from a state level all local laws, regulations or ordinances that touch the Agriculture, Business & Commerce, Finance, Insurance, Labor, Natural Resources, Occupations, or Property Codes. We expect years of litigation against local actions of cities in these broad areas of state law that will reshape the scope of local regulations in Texas.
More on all the regular session activity in the weeks to come, as well as updates on our summer of special sessions.
Thank you for your continued support of TMHA and our lobby efforts, and especially to those select members called on during the session to reach out to their House and Senate members on various bills to help our team advocate for or against specific bills.