By Terri Hall
Founder/Executive Director
Texans Uniting for Reform & Freedom (TURF) &
Texans for Toll-free Highways
Four other priority bills to curb or reform toll roads also failed to pass. HB 1333 by Rep. Brian Harrison (and SB 137 authored by Hall in the senate) to cap toll fines and fees at $48 a year and remove the criminal penalty for unpaid toll bills never got a hearing in either chamber. HB 2323 by Rep. Matt Shaheen (and SB 2324 authored by Senator Angela Paxton in the Senate) to remove the tolls once the debt is paid off got a hearing, but failed to be brought up for a vote in committee, effectively killing it. Shaheen demonstrated he had the votes to get it out of committee on the day the bill was heard (March 31), yet there it sat for two full months as the House Transportation Committee Chair Tom Craddick allowed it to die.
One of the reasons this bill needs to pass is to stop unelected toll bureaucracies from misusing the surplus toll revenues (on things that have nothing to do with maintaining the road or retiring the debt). But the most significant reason Texans need this bill is to end the practice of combining toll projects together into one financial system called ‘system financing.’ By tying toll roads together into one ‘system,’ toll bureaucrats can use it to keep pushing out the pay-off date by endlessly expanding the toll system with new extensions and adding new toll roads to the system in order to be able to claim no toll road is ever paid for. Think of it like taking out a second mortgage on your house over and over again so that it's never paid off. Perpetual tolling violates the Texas Constitution Art. I, Sec. 26 that prohibits perpetuities. It also violates RPT Platform Plank #51 that calls for tolls to be abolished. We must pass this bill in order to ever see an end to toll roads.
In contrast, the progress this session can be measured on what we stopped versus what was passed. SB 2722 by Senator Paul Bettencourt (and HB 5177 by Mano DeAyala) nearly passed, which would have further codified the use of surplus toll revenue into law, effectively allowing the practice to continue. The bill merely sought to split the surplus revenues made off the toll users to pay for various road projects among the various commissioner precincts and to pay the city of Houston for policing the toll roads. That’s hardly an improvement for toll weary drivers facing escalating forever tolls. It passed the Senate and nearly made it to the floor of the House. We expect this battle is far from over given the lobbying power of Harris County local governments. Houstonians need to pressure their public officials to remove the tolls, not split the kitty!
We also stopped a pair of bad bills by Rep. Will Metcalf. The first, HB 5347, would allow an existing freeway to be tolled and leave non-toll frontage lanes as the new non-toll option. It would undo the protection that Hall and Senator Lois Kolkhorst helped us put into law in 2017 that prevents non-tolled highways from being converted into toll roads. Tolling existing free lanes is a DOUBLE TAX scam and cannot be put back into law.
The second Metcalf bill, HB 5346, would keep extending tolls for five year increments by a public vote. While this may sound good at first, it’s a sneaky way to bypass the Texas Constitutional protection against perpetuities by extending the toll in short increments. Plus, politicians and the special interests who want toll roads are very adept at slick ad campaigns to convince voters they should keep the tolls to pay for things government won’t prioritize using your existing tax dollars. Bottom line is, once the debt is paid off, a road should become a freeway not stay a tollway that charges tolls, literally, forever. This bill also violates the RPT Platform Plank #51 that calls for tolls to be removed once the debt is paid off.
But the worst toll bill of the session was a proposed Constitutional Amendment, HJR 144 by Rep. Eddie Morales, bypassing state approval to allow any local government to form its own toll authority, known as a Regional Mobility Authority (RMA), effectively unleashing an unlimited number of new toll roads across Texas. It would also give cities the ability to do an end run around Governor Greg Abbott’s no toll pledge. The actual wording of the amendment said nothing about the possibility of toll roads or higher fees that could be imposed by an RMA. This would intentionally mislead voters about the tax implications of voting for it.
TURF sued the state of Texas for similar intentionally deceptive ballot language and prevailed at the Appellate Court. Rather than abolish toll roads (as RPT platform calls for), this amendment would unleash scores of them in every corner of the state. Despite us having several points of order to call on the bill, no rep would call one, and it passed, 104-32. One hundred votes are needed to pass a constitutional amendment in the House. Thankfully, it died in the Senate. The fact it got that far with so much Republican help, so blatantly against the party platform, reveals the rift between lawmakers and the people they represent.
Extension of foreign-owned toll road halted
If there’s one thing Texans have a visceral disdain for it’s foreign control over Texas infrastructure. HB 2876 by Stan Gerdes would extend the SH 130 private toll contract an additional 20 years, amending the current Comprehensive Development Agreement (or CDA, known as public private partnership). Read more about SH 130’s breaches of contract, pavement defects, egregious taxpayer subsidies, loan guarantees, non-compete agreement, & bankruptcy here. The bill adds insult to injury since the concession fees the private corporation would pay the state for the 20 year exclusive right to gouge Texas drivers with more tolls would be used to build more free connectors to SH 130 from I-35, further benefiting the private operators.
Incredibly, despite all off this information being given to every lawmaker prior to the floor vote, HB 2876 passed by a vote of 88-42. However, thanks to Senate Transportation Committee Chair Robert Nichols, the bill never got a hearing over in the Senate. When it was clear HB 2876 would not pass, Gerdes took the opportunity in the dark of night to attach an amendment to an otherwise innocuous bill, SB 3047 to create a management district in Travis County, to find another avenue to get the private toll road connector built. Thankfully, Gerdes was forced to remove his amendment on 3rd reading after we pummeled the House members with calls and emails in opposition. It demonstrates the lengths the special interests and the politicians beholden to them will go to in order to gouge Texas drivers with more toll taxes!
Photo enforcement bills quashed
One of the first big battles of the session was to kill the resurrection of a photo ticketing scam by Senator Donna Campbell (SB 744) and Rep. Tom Craddick (HB 3034), but instead of red light cameras, it would be cameras on school bus stop arms. TURF and our coalition of grassroots groups flooded the committee with opposition and did a major press push to alert Texans to the threat. TURF brought up the camera company, Bus Patrol a rebranded version of Force Multiplier Solutions, and its Dallas County Schools multi-billion bribery scandal resulting in several key players going to prison.
Rep. Mitch Little followed-up by interrogating the Bus Patrol witness, revealing the nepotism, corruption, and graft behind the school bus photo ticketing happening in other states. In just Suffolk County, Virginia, there were 250,000 tickets issued — the equivalent of one out of every 9 residents receiving a ticket. The companies keep 70% of the $200 tickets, which Little called a ‘bounty.’ In just two years, the company made $20 million in revenue off of a single county’s school district. In Florida, in just one school district, there were 11,500 warning tickets issued in just the first two weeks.
Yet, over the most recent 10 year period in Texas, no school-aged children were killed by a car illegally passing a school bus. Nationwide, there were 4 fatalities, with the chance of a child being killed by a car illegally passing a school bus at 1 in 22.75 billion. So it’s abundantly clear these bills were a solution in search of a problem. Truly, these ticketing scams are policing for profit, not about safety. Though both the Senate and House versions were heard two days apart, our opposition was so overwhelming, we managed to kill both bills in committee, never to be heard from again.
After seeing the opposition to photo ticketing, the construction work zone camera bill, HB 3309, managed to get out of the House only after some tight guardrails like requiring in-person law enforcement officers issue every ticket were firmly in the bill. But even that wasn’t enough to go anywhere in the Senate. Texans have spoken loud and clear — they do not want camera ticketing programs.
89th Session Wrap-Up:
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