2025 LEGISLATIVE SESSION

After the Gavel: Texas

Republicans hold 20 of 31 Senate seats and 88 of 150 House seats this session. Not a two-thirds supermajority in either chamber, but comfortable working majorities in both.

After the Gavel analyzed the bills that passed the 89th Texas Legislature's 2025 regular session, organized into 13 posts. Some are grouped by theme, because a single bill rarely tells the whole story and several related bills, read together, usually do.

This is our read of the bill. We encourage every reader to read the legislation for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

Every post links to the enrolled text, the fiscal note, and the roll call it draws from. Every claim here traces to the enrolled bill, the roll call, or a named outside source. Projections are labeled as projections until they're checked against the fiscal note.

HB2674 · HB2757 · HB4848 · SB1728 · SB462
Five Barriers Between a Texas Family and an Education

Five bills, none of them a new agency or a new tax, each one removing something standing between a Texas family and an education.

5 Bills, One Pattern HB1443 · SB1621 · SB441
Three Bills Against a Threat the Law Never Named

The law was built for photographs and physical objects. AI doesn’t need either anymore. Three bills tried to catch up.

3 Bills, One Pattern HB3512 · SB2373 · SB2514 · SB667
Your Government’s Workforce, Your Grandmother’s Phone, Your Teacher’s Pension

Texas’s exposure to AI-enabled and foreign-adversary threats runs through four very different doors.

4 Bills, One Pattern HB1403 · HB1422 · HB1871 · HB210 · HB2217 · SB1349 · SB2143
Seven Bills, Three Different Jobs

Some protect a specific group from a specific harm. Some raise the price of misconduct Texas was punishing too lightly.

7 Bills, Three Jobs HB1661 · HB521 · SB1470
More Paper Trail, Not Less Access

Three election bills. In every one, the goal was verification, not restriction. Nobody’s right to vote shrank.

3 Bills, One Pattern SB1233 · SB2165 · SB226 · HB5149 · HB5394
Where the System Almost Failed a Family

Five moments where a Texas family was already in crisis, and the system had one more chance to make it worse.

5 Bills, One Pattern SB2587 · SB379 · HB5061 · HB2765 · SB1194
Five Bills About Taxpayer Money. Not All Five Are Finished.

Two are clean. One is clean with a clause that needs narrowing. Two aren’t done yet.

5 Bills, Three Grades HB4163 · HB4215
One State Rule Instead of a Patchwork, Twice

A farmer and a delivery driver don’t have much in common. Texas protected both from 254 counties writing their own rules.

2 Bills, One Pattern SB1362
Texas Never Had a Red Flag Law. This Bill Makes Sure One Can’t Sneak In.

No local red-flag ordinance, no federal grant money for one, and a felony for anyone who tries to enforce one anyway.

1 Bill SB17
Texas Just Banned Adversary Nations From Buying Land Here. Expect a Lawsuit.

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea barred from Texas land, with citizens and lawful residents fully exempt.

1 Bill SB571
Seven Business Days to Report a Predator Was Always Too Long

The reporting window for serious educator misconduct drops to 48 hours, with a felony for intentional concealment.

1 Bill SB1333
A Squatter Isn’t a Tenant. Texas Just Stopped Treating Them Like One.

A faster path to reclaim a property from a squatter, with real safeguards against a false sworn complaint.

1 Bill SB835
No Contract Should Buy a Predator’s Silence

Trey’s Law voids any contract clause used to silence a sexual abuse survivor, old agreements included.

1 Bill

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