TYLER COUNTY – For the coming Nov. 4 statewide General Election, Texans will have the opportunity to either approve or reject 17 different constitutional amendments.
Those amendments run the gamut, from tax relief to bail reform to education. For the amendments on the ballot, if each measure earns a majority of votes, it will become codified as part of the state’s constitution, the Texan foundational legal document outlining the structure and functions of state government.
Voters will simply provide a “yes” or “no” vote for the amendments. According to the Texas Secretary of State, which drew the ballot order in June, the 17 separate amendments that will appear on November’s ballot are the largest number since 2003.
One of the hot topics of the slate of amendments deals with property tax cuts, billions of dollars worth of cuts, to be exact.
A two-thirds majority of the 89th legislature passed joint resolutions calling for the constitutional amendment elections, and the state’s operating budget for the next two years. In that was $51 billion in property tax cuts. According to a report from the Texas Tribune, for the past few years, lawmakers have utilized multibillion-dollar budget surpluses to pay for recent tax cuts. Those surpluses were the result of inflation and temporary federal stimulus dollars coming from the pandemic allocations.
Proposition 11, which on the ballot, “expands the value exemption on elderly or disabled homeowners’ homesteads for school district taxes” is set up to freeze some tax increases for seniors or disasters, and exempts livestock feed, business equipment and veterans’ homes. Propositions 7 through 10 also deal with taxes, from allowing surviving veterans’ spouses to maintain a homestead property tax exemption (Prop. 7) to a ban on “death taxes” (Prop. 8).
Proposition 13 expands the homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000, which means homeowners’ home values are shielded from school property taxes.
The legislature also seeded around $850 million from the general fund to boost technical school education. Proposition 1 creates two dedicated funds for this end – one for technical college infrastructure and another for workforce education capital needs. The accompanying ballot initiative would establish a permanent fund to build and equip technical schools without having to get approval on the state budget for it.
Proposition 3 is another hot topic, as it covers denial of bail in certain felony cases, where, according to the ballot language, prosecutors can demonstrate that a suspect poses a risk of flight or danger to the community. Essentially, it grants judges more power to keep serious offenders in jail prior to trial.
The early voting period for the coming Nov. 4 General Election begins on Monday, Oct. 20 and runs until Friday, Oct. 31.
The early voting location for Tyler Countians is the Tyler County Nutrition Center, located at 201 Veterans Way, in Woodville, behind McClure’s Furniture. The polls are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday through Friday (Oct. 20-31) and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Oct. 25 (Saturday). On Election Day, itself, the polls are open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
