San Antonio city leaders were bracing for another brutal state legislative session this year, as Texas Republicans signaled plans to build on their 2023 Death Star bill and floated a host of ideas to further restrict municipal spending.
But when state lawmakers wrapped up their 140-day sprint on Monday, proposals to rein in cities’ borrowing authority, make it tougher to raise taxes and approve bond elections and prohibit changes to local election procedures were among the thousands of ideas that failed to gain traction.
“[This year] there were just as many, if not more, bad bills that would have hurt San Antonio,” Assistant City Manager Jeff Coyle said of the 89th Legislative Session. “But fortunately, the vast majority of them did not advance.”
Two years ago a flurry of local government bills had San Antonio leaders racing up to Austin to lobby against a proposal that would have inadvertently upended their revenue-sharing model with CPS Energy, while another — the sweeping anti-regulatory law authored by now-House Speaker Dustin Burrows — is still tied up in the courts after San Antonio and other cities sued to stop it.
In 2025, local government leaders’ primary source of panic was a bill capping the amount of debt local governments can take on — something San Antonio city leaders said would have severely limited their bond program and jeopardized the roughly $4 billion sports and entertainment district known as Project Marvel.
Local officials across the state pushed back and were joined by an array of trade associations, bond lawyers, engineers, architects and contractors that also have a vested interest in publicly funded capital projects.
“Everybody benefits from good infrastructure, and clearly legislators heard from both the public and private sector that it was a bad idea to stop the community from investing in itself,” Coyle said.
Other bills seeking to change the rules for approving bond elections, like raising the voter support threshold or requiring them to appear on a November ballot, also failed this year. One of the proposals even sought to put those changes into effect before a proposed November infrastructure bond for Project Marvel.
With those looming threats now cleared, City Council will meet Wednesday to discuss Project Marvel’s funding framework.
While major municipal finance and anti-regulatory bills came up short this session, a number of bills tamping down on blue cities’ efforts to address social issues, like abortion access and gun safety, though their city budgets were successful.
Here’s a look at how the bills San Antonio officials were watching fared in the 89th Legislative Session.
Dangerous dogs
San Antonio lawmakers once again sought legislation to make it easier to investigate dangerous dog cases and increase penalties for owners of aggressive or dangerous dogs.
The legislature approved a bill aimed at those changes in 2023, bracketed to apply just to San Antonio, but it was vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott.
According to WOAI, Abbott’s office was involved in reshaping the proposals this session, but lawmakers from elsewhere in the state were skeptical about why San Antonio needed the changes, and the proposals died in committee.
Bond elections
A handful of bills sought to change the rules for approving bond elections, raising the required voter support to 60% and requiring them to appear on a November ballot.
The changes would have applied to school districts as well, which have already faced bigger challenges approving bond elections in recent years.
Despite some high-profile supporters of the idea, the proposals never made it out of committee.
Cyber Command
Abbott surprised some local leaders when he announced plans for a San Antonio-based Texas Cyber Command in his State of the State address at the beginning of the session. A bill to create it sailed through, and Abbott signed it Monday.
The $135 million command will be attached to UTSA. It’s tasked with identifying and stopping cyber threats, as well as coordinating government responses when an attack occurs.
Abortion travel funds
A bill outlawing the use of public dollars to fund out-of-state abortion travel is headed to Abbott’s desk.
The San Antonio City Council approved plans for a $100,000 abortion travel fund in April, with plans to distribute the money later this year. The move drew an immediate lawsuit from the state, and weeks later, on May 22, the Texas House passed state Sen. Donna Campbell’s bill to outlaw such spending.
Reached later that evening for comment, the City Attorney’s office said that San Antonio is “continuing to go through the solicitation process that the council authorized, and monitoring the legislation and ongoing litigation.”
Gun buybacks
A bill preventing cities or counties from taking part in gun buyback programs, as San Antonio has done in the past, is headed to Abbott’s desk. Not only would it prevent city money from being used for such a program, but local governments would be prohibited from sponsoring or organizing the events.
Custom license plates for Central Catholic
A bill to create custom license plates for Central Catholic High School is headed to the governor’s desk. If signed, the elite, private all-boys school will be one of just a handful of Texas high schools with its own vanity plates.
