June 8, 2025 8:04am CDT

The Texas legislative session is in the books, and it was full of action.

As Gov. Greg Abbott signs bills passed by the Texas legislature, members from both parties talked about the big wins and losses.

One of the most heated topics of this session was Senate Bill 3.

The bill currently sits on Gov. Abbott's desk awaiting his approval.

Abbott has said it is one of several bills on his desk and that he will give the legislation the "consideration and time" that it deserves.

State Senator Royce West (D-Dallas) and Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Waxahachie) were on different sides of the vote, but both say they are confident in how they voted.

What they're saying:

"I think the evidence is kind of overwhelming in terms of we're seeing THC stores pop up on every corner with THC as one of the main products of those stores. We're seeing kids utilizing THC products. The fact is do we want them to pop up on every corner like liquor stores? I don't want that," said West.

"I agree with the goal of protecting children from potentially dangerous products. Everybody agrees with that, but that's not what this bill did. This bill bans all these hemp products that stop what Texas adults, many either want or rely on these products, and what it's going to do, it's going to have a devastating impact on our economy. It's going to shut eight, nine, 10,000 small businesses are going to have to close their doors. 40 to 50,000 jobs are going to get laid off and millions of Texans are going to be faced with a choice and basically pushed into either a completely unregulated, dangerous black market or to much more fatal and addictive pharmaceuticals. Why would we do such a thing?" Harrison argued.

The session did not feature many wins for Texas Democrats.

Sen. West believes one of those wins was a bill providing $8.5 billion for public school funding.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill on Wednesday.

What they're saying:

"You can always argue about the basic allotment, but the Senate's approach was restructuring the way that we finance public schools. We added additional allotments. One of the biggest issues we heard about, aside from making certain that teachers were able to get a adequate raise, was making certain that schools were able to take care of some of their fixed costs, their operational costs. And so we put an additional allotment in to make certain that every legislative session, we've got to look at the operational costs of districts and make certain that we put money into that allotment. And when I say allotments, into that bucket and that money then is spread throughout the entire state of Texas," he said.

Rep. Harrison was concerned about the amount of money that will be spent due to the actions in this session.

"Texas legislature this session basically said they are happy to continue taxing Texans out of their homes to fund a continuation of the Biden agenda to to burn the $24 billion surplus instead of giving it back to taxpayers in the form of property tax relief or to start eliminating property taxes to fund every left-wing progressive ideology under the sun," Harrison said. 

"On school choice, what they're not telling you, the people that are bragging about this so-called universal school choice program, they're telling you that it only applies to 1% of Texas students. They're also not telling that they had to give the teacher unions a $9 billion bribe just to get this little $1 billion small school choice program off the ground," he continued.

You can watch Texas: The Issue Is on Sunday nights on FOX or anytime on FOX LOCAL and the Texas: The Issue Is Podcast.

The Source: Information in this article comes from FOX interviews with State Senator Royce West and State Rep. Brian Harrison.

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