Over many years, each legislative session in Texas has been more reactionary than the previous one. Texas has helped form the blueprint for assaults against workers’ rights that then gets exported to the rest of the country. The latest session exposes their billionaire-backed “smash and grab” mentality for what it truly is.
The most recent Texas legislative session wrapped up on Sept. 3. With several special sessions called under the guise of “flood relief,” the legislature obscured what this session was actually about: an open attack on workers’ rights from every angle. Let’s break down what they “accomplished,” as well as how many of these attacks are already being challenged.
1-Stealing billions from tax revenues for education, city, and county infrastructure (HB9)
A massively destructive set of bills passed involves so-called “tax relief,” which is in fact a cover for gutting the public funding base for cities, counties, and schools. HB9 raises the threshold for business personal property tax exemption from $2,500 to $125,000. Other bills passed lower property tax exemptions for homeowners.
This is being presented as Texas “spending $51 billion on property tax relief.” Put another way, Texas is manufacturing a massive budget shortfall by cutting into the tax base for public services like education. Schools and public infrastructure will be the ones to suffer when the legislature decides to no longer “spend” this money that they now aren’t collecting. And while some homeowners and small business owners will see some short-term gains, large corporations and the rich are the real benefactors.
2–Revenge on the encampments: An end to free speech on college campuses (SB2972)
SB2972 guts universities’ free speech policies, reversing a law that established all common outdoor spaces on a public campus as public forums: spaces where anyone can engage in free speech or expressive activity.
If this law is allowed to stand, college administrators could decide which areas of campus constitute a “public forum,” determining who can express themselves (and where) on campus. More often than not, that means that no part of campus is a public forum, and no members of the public are allowed to join in on a student or faculty demonstration. In addition, all expressive activities on campus from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. have been prohibited by this bill.
The list of actions this bill bans is long: no amplified sound or drums during class hours with the intention to “disrupt or intimidate”; no “disguises” or masks; U.S. and Texas flags cannot be lowered or replaced; encampments are banned; and students and staff must identify themselves to university officials if asked while participating in expressive activities. This can only be understood as retaliation against last year’s student anti-war movement.
3-Not just a ‘bathroom bill’: Putting transgender people in danger (SB8)
“The Texas Women’s Privacy Act” or SB8 bans transgender people from publicly funded “single-sex” restrooms, changing rooms, prisons and shelters of their identified gender, with a $25,000 first time offense and $125,000 second time offense fine for violation, the highest in the nation for such a ban. The bill relies on individuals to report when trans people are in “the wrong facilities.”
While commonly being called a bathroom ban, the bill bars trans people from all publicly funded ”single-sex” spaces, including shelters and prisons, requiring trans people to be placed in facilities corresponding to their assigned sex at birth. Trans inmates housed in prisons not aligning with their gender are up to 10 times more likely to be victims of violence and sexual assault than cis inmates. This also will affect trans people in ICE detention centers, a formalization of what ICE has already been doing in practice.
4-Abortion pill bans: a further assault on women’s rights (SB7)
SB7 allows individuals to sue manufacturers, doctors and anyone who mails any medication that induces abortion for up to $100,000. This law is the first of its kind in the U.S. and is being touted by the right wing in Texas as a blueprint for the rest of the country. Medication in the form of pills is by far and away the most common method of abortion.
In a similar strategy to the facilities ban, this bill encourages individuals to report on each other to carry out these crackdowns, promising what activists describe as “bounties” for those who report abortion pill usage; $10,000 out of the $100,000 providers can be forced to pay can go to the person who sues.
5-Racist redistricting marginalized Black and Latino voters (HB4)
As previously reported in Liberation News, Texas passed a racist redistricting plan increasing expected Republican seats by five. More than simply partisan gerrymandering, this is an assault on Black and Latino voting rights diluting the votes of non-white people across highly convoluted districts.
6-Forcing the Ten Commandments into classrooms (SB10)
This bill requires that all public grade schools display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, with requirements in regards to language and sizing. Schools can use taxpayer funds to purchase these displays, or must accept privately donated ones. A U.S. district court judge temporarily blocked some school districts from enforcing this bill, including Austin and San Antonio.
7-Government-mandated prayer time (SB11)
This bill allows school districts to require a daily period of prayer or reading of religious text, and to encourage attendance at these prayer times. The prayer times would require a consent form from the student’s parent to participate, and the forms would waive the parent’s right to sue the district over the policy. The author of the bill, Texas Senator Mays Middleton, stated incorrectly, “There is no such thing as ‘separation of church and state’ in our Constitution.”
8-Book-banning in school libraries (SB13)
This bill allows school boards to create “advisory councils” for their libraries with a laughably low threshold: only 10% of parents or 50 parents, whichever is fewer, need to petition for for council it to be created in an entire school district. These councils have no requirement to include librarians and can remove any material they deem harmful, profane or going against community values. A very small group of people could now control which books are allowed in libraries for entire metropolitan school districts, weaponizing the idea of “parents’ rights” to deny other families’ rights to access books.
9-Erasing transgender and intersex people (HB229)
This bill codifies a binary and transphobic definition of sex and gender, mandating that all government paperwork and identification reflect the individual’s assigned sex at birth and cannot be updated. Texas will be the 14th state to enact such a law, and directly references segregationist logic stating: “In the context of biological sex … separate is not inherently unequal.”
HB229 contradicts modern science by claiming that intersex people, who make up 1.7% of the population, do not exist, thereby erasing any legal protections for them as a recognized group. It also opens transgender immigrants for further discrimination, with inconsistent documentation posing many at risk of deportation.
10-Opening up LGBTQ youth to child abuse (HB1106)
This bill removes refusal of gender affirming care and rejection of LGBTQ identity as forms of child abuse. This essentially gives a greenlight for parents to abuse or harass their children for being LGBTQ, with the state preventing CPS from intervening, placing LGBTQ youth at risk.
11-Punishing insurance companies for providing health coverage (SB1257)
This bill attacks trans people’s healthcare by encouraging insurance companies to stop covering gender-affirming care. It requires that any plans that include coverage for gender-affirming care also cover an unlimited liability for any costs related to “detransitioning.” This greatly increases the cost of insurance for trans people and will lead to insurance providers ending their coverage, deeming trans people as “too much of a risk.’” We need to understand what Texas is doing: giving insurance companies a gift by providing them an excuse to stop paying for people’s medication. What is denied for trans people today, could become the basis for larger medication denials tomorrow.
12-Banning abortion support (SB33)
This bill bans cities’ and counties’ use of public funds to provide any support services relating to abortion. This means a ban on public financial support of travel, lodging, food and childcare that would aid someone in accessing abortion care inside or outside of Texas.
Why is this happening? How can we fight back?
While Texas has been at the center of reactionary legislation, the state has also been at the center of massive struggles against war, mass deportations, and for workers’ power, with union membership reaching a 10-year high in 2025. While many of these struggles are still seen as “single issues,” more Texans – especially younger Texans – are seeing that the state government represents the anti-democratic will of an extreme minority of the rich and powerful. The ruling class has a real fear of the power of the people, and that fear is reflected in these bills.
It has also become apparent that the Democrats are completely incapable of providing a real resistance to the billionaire agenda. Their antics of fleeing the state to break quorum, allegedly to stop the special session where many of these bills were passed, only to return two weeks later revealed how devoid of ideas the party is.
With Texas determined to undermine its healthcare, educational and legal infrastructure, it is more clear now than ever that we need a new system. We must organize for system that guarantees healthcare, education, and an end to the exploitation of the entire working class. This can only be achieved through a popular movement that stands in solidarity for all working people, and organized for true liberation.
Feature image: Texas state capitol. Credit: Wally Gobetz. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
