Recap: The 88th Texas Legislative Session, Venture Bills & More

Legislation

May 30

Overview

The 88th Texas legislative regular session started January 10, 2023 and closed on May 29, 2023. While no session produces 100 percent positive results, the Texas Venture Alliance maintained a high level of engagement. Our leadership team stayed on call around the clock for lawmakers, lobbyists, organizations, and more, to advocate for the interests of startups and startup investors on several venture bill efforts. There were 8,000+ bills submitted, and 1,200+ passed. It was a tumultuous session and for more context, even when session ended, the biggest priority items and many of high importance and interest from Governor Greg Abbott were also not resolved.

There were a few bills that provided financial support for small innovative companies and/or incentivized investments in startups across the state. The summaries below share details on those bills and activities.

Texas Venture Alliance met with dozens of industry professionals to design, collaborate, and create something new including: venture capitalists, startup founders, lobbyists, state representatives, and other organizations. We provided testimony, dropped card, published a letter of support for the venture bills, and promoted regular bill tracking updates throughout session. The reach of the efforts via newsletters, webpage traffic, and letters of support totaled a combined reach of more than 20,000 views in just a few months.

We also created a review and collected feedback for the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (2005-2015) to provide and collect insight about the last big Texas legislation that helped us inform new efforts.

In the final section below, view a few selected photos from the various promotional activities and highlights from this session. Thank you to all the representatives who met with us, media and event panel organizers who gave us a platform to share our efforts, and our Texas Venture Board Members, Committee Members, and general members for their ongoing work with us.

Process

Bills are legislative proposals introduced by at least one state representative, and are assigned a number in the order they are introduced. Public committee or sub-committee hearings are hosted to then research, deliberate, and make changes to the bill. It’s then voted on by either the House of Representatives, and/or the Senate depending on which chamber it was introduced.

If a bill is successful in one chamber upon the required three readings, it moves through the other chamber. The bill is then passed on to the governor’s desk for final signing off. Unless the governor vetos it, or even if it’s left without a signature after ten days, it then becomes law.

The legislative session always ends on Memorial Day (May 29th this year) and only occurs every other year for 140 days in Texas. While most states meet and pass laws every year, because of Texas’ history and being such a large state, it was difficult to meet every year back in the horse and buggy days! We provide a summary of the process, but more information can be found here.