Rep. Zwiener offers legislative update at fall town hall

Rep. Erin Zwiener, who represents House District 45, held a fall town hall to provide a legislative update to her constituents on Thursday.

During the event, Zwiener discussed the 86th Legislative Session — her first session as a representative — and focused on the highlights, as well as shortfalls of the session.

Zwiener said that in the previous legislative session, there were 55 Democrats and 95 Republicans, whereas during this year’s session there were 67 Democrats and 83 Republicans.

“And so having a more balanced legislature, having the question of who’s in control of the body in the future be a little bit more up in the air, put everyone on their best behavior, which is good,” Zwiener said. “We should be on our best behavior, we’re public servants. And so because of that, because we were on our best behavior, we actually worked on material issues that affected everyday Texans, most notably, public education.”

Zwiener said that since 2009, the State’s amount of funding for education has remained stable. However, with the passage of House Bill 3, the Legislature increased funding.

“So we passed House Bill 3,” Zwiener said. “House Bill 3 has been billed as a comprehensive education funding reform package. That once-in-a-generation bill. I’ll be honest, I think that goes a little far. I think it was the biggest Band-Aid we could buy for our public school finance system. And I’m glad we bought that band aid. We needed it. But we still have more work to do. We still have more work to do to make sure funding for our students is equitable. We still have work to do to make sure our funding for our students is sustainable. And we need to continue to increase the state’s share of funding.”

HB 3 allocates $6.5 billion of state money for public education funding and $5.1 billion for property tax relief.

“Last school year, the state paid 38% of the public education costs,” Zwiener said. “This year, under the previous law, we were on track to be paying 34%. So with House Bill 3, with the additional funds we invested, the state’s now paying 44% of the cost of public education.”

Zwiener said San Marcos CISD received about $670 more per student in funding, increasing the basic student allotment from $5,140 to $6,140 per student. The bill also brings raises to teachers, librarians, counselors and nurses, and allows free, full-day pre-K for certain children.

Zwiener also discussed legislation regarding sexual misconduct.

“We brought a piece of legislation that’s designed to try and get an idea of how many sexual assaults that are recorded are actually being prosecuted in the state,” Zwiener said.

By working with Rep. Donna Howard, Zwiener said they were able to amend the budget and require the State Auditor’s office to review sexual assault investigation and prosecution practices.

Zwiener said she also filed a piece of legislation in partnership with Texas State Senator Judith Zaffirini to expand sexual harassment protections to more Texas workers. Currently, she said individuals must work with an employer with 15 or more employees to have any sexual harassment protections.

“So we, with Zaffirini, filed legislation to change that definition from 15 or more employees to one or more employee,” she said.

Though the piece of legislation did not pass due to a missed deadline in the House, Zwiener said she is hopeful it will pass next legislative session.

Zwiener brought up healthcare shortfalls during the session.

“I was disappointed that we didn’t do the biggest thing that we should have done — and it’s still stuck in partisan politics no man’s land — is expanding Medicaid,” Zwiener said. “The Affordable Care Act passed back in 2009 provided extra dollars to expand Medicaid in states like Texas and cover more individuals. Right now in the state of Texas, Medicaid covers very poor children, very poor pregnant women and very poor severely disabled people. Nobody else has coverage.”

Zwiener noted that expanding Medicaid in Texas would bring $6 billion of federal money every year and insure another one and a half million Texans.

When asked about her thoughts on the situation occurring with Rodney Reed, a man was slated to be executed on Nov. 20 but an appeals court suspended his sentence indefinitely, Zwiener said she joined 25 other members in signing on to a letter to Governor Abbott to ask him to stay the execution.

“I support the elimination of the death penalty,” Zwiener said. “And I think the Rodney Reed case is a good example of why the death penalty is a bad idea in a civilized society.”