May 21, 2019
A major mental health bill prioritized by the state’s top leaders as a way to help prevent school shootings was killed by a procedural maneuver Tuesday evening in the Texas House.
State Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, raised a “point of order” on Senate Bill 10, which would’ve created a Texas Mental Health Consortium aimed at bringing together psychiatric professionals from Texas medical schools and other health care providers to connect children to mental health services. The bill also would’ve promoted the use of telemedicine to treat mental health patients, expanded mental health research and grown the state’s mental health workforce.
Stickland’s point of order contended that an analysis of the bill provided to lawmakers was inaccurate. After the House recessed for nearly an hour and a half so parliamentarians could analyze the technicality, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, somberly announced a ruling in Stickland’s favor.
SB 10 was one of several proposals that the state’s GOP leaders championed in the wake of the deadly shooting last year at Santa Fe High School. Gov. Greg Abbott named it an emergency item in his State of the State address earlier this year, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick designated it one of his 30 legislative priorities. Abbott’s office did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday night.
Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, the bill’s author, told senators earlier this year that it was her “best shot” at helping students in the aftermath of school shootings. It had bipartisan backing and cleared the upper chamber unanimously more than two months ago.
“I think it was a well-intentioned bill that had some very bad unintended consequences,” Stickland told the Tribune by phone Tuesday night, an hour after his point of order knocked the bill out of contention. “I think it could have been stronger on parental rights to make sure our constitutional rights are protected in the bill.”
When he introduced the bill on the House floor, state Rep. John Zerwas, the House sponsor of the legislation, said he planned to add an amendment that parents would have to give “informed written consent” before a child could receive mental health services.
Stickland’s successful maneuver to halt SB 10 came hours after both chambers advanced other pieces of legislation aimed at increasing school safety — and just days after the one-year anniversary of the Santa Fe shooting.
Asked if he was bracing for backlash from leadership over killing such a high-profile bill, Stickland said, “I expect it.”
As it became clear Tuesday that Stickland’s point of order would indeed torpedo the legislation, key players who worked on the legislation moved quickly to figure out next steps. Zerwas, a Richmond Republican, walked across the Capitol rotunda into the Senate, where he spoke with Nelson, presumably about news of the bill’s fate.
“It’s unfortunate that there were some people who were getting some negative comments from their constituencies that felt the need to vote against this bill or somehow kill this bill,” Zerwas told the Tribune. “And one of those happened to be Jonathan Stickland, who’s pretty adept in finding points of order and calling them, and he wins some, he loses some, and unfortunately, he happened to win one with Sen. Nelson’s bill.”
Asked if the bill could get revived in the waning days of the legislative session, Zerwas said he was unsure. Some have floated the possibility of adding SB 10 as an amendment to House Bill 10, a similar bill still moving in the state Senate that concerns mental health research. The legislative session ends Monday.
“There’s a lot of moving pieces in which there’s not a whole lot of time left to do anything,” Zerwas said. “I think we’ll just have to see if there’s a willingness on the part of the Senate to revive and rescue this bill.”
Nelson and members of her Senate staff did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.
Stickland has built a reputation for being a thorn in the side of House leadership, under both Bonnen and former House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio. A former member of the hardline conservative Freedom Caucus, which he resigned from earlier this session, Stickland cast the lone “no” votes on several high-priority bills this year, including the House’s school finance reform proposal.
On a number of occasions this session, Stickland has tried to kill legislation ranging from the controversial to the uncontested. In April, for example, he successfully knocked several measures off of that day’s local and consent calendar, which is typically reserved for uncontroversial legislation. Stickland’s reasoning? Liberties were under attack.
On Monday, he used a point of order to successfully halt a bill that would have made it illegal to leave an unattended dog tied up in an inhumane manner.
SB 10’s demise doesn’t mean mental health services for Texas students are entirely imperiled this legislative session. An omnibus school safety bill that the House tentatively approved hours earlier Tuesday includes a provision that requires educators to be trained on interacting with students coping with trauma. It also gives districts an unspecified amount of state money they can put toward mental health initiatives. Stickland also called a point of order on that legislation, Senate Bill 11, but was overruled, and the chamber approved the bill in a preliminary vote.
It was one of two school safety bills that advanced in the Legislature within hours of each other. The Senate also approved a House bill that would abolish the cap on how many trained school teachers and support staff — known as school marshals — can carry guns on public school campuses.
The nonprofit Mental Health America ranks Texas last among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., for youth access to mental health care. According to its 2019 report, The State of Mental Health in America, 71.3% of youth in Texas with major depression go untreated, compared with the national average of 61.5%.
State Rep. Garnet Coleman, another House sponsor of SB 10, said he’s hopeful the measure isn’t dead.
“This is one that can be salvaged,” he said. “… There are many vehicles it could be attached to.”
Acacia Coronado, Emily Goldstein, Alex Samuels, Aliyya Swaby and Alexa Ura contributed to this report.