Copyright The Austin Chronicle
While the city of Austin’s defeated tax hike, Prop Q, took the forefront in conversations and lawn signs across our city this election cycle, statewide the focus was on 17 proposed amendments to the state constitution, which all passed on Tuesday. The green light down the ballot isn’t unusual; Texas voters have historically signed off on constitutional amendments, despite them enacting longstanding rewrites of the state constitution, and have now passed 547 out of the 731 amendment propositions ever up for vote. Not surprisingly, many of the amendments have roots in conservative agenda items heard during the legislative session: censoring public school teachers and library books, creating barriers to medical care for young people, and incentivizing border wall infrastructure, to name a few. Bucking state trends, Travis County voters pushed back against 10 of the 17 propositions, including Prop 16, which excluded immigrant communities from representation in elections by reinforcing the citizenship requirements that already existed, but voted with the majority on propositions that funnel tax dollars toward specific projects and research across the state. Prop 4 While our state is growing, the state water supply is draining, and water bills are increasing. Prop 4 proposed a significant investment in the future of water availability in Texas and was widely approved by 70% of voters. Even in the Texas Legislature, our basic need for water had united lawmakers across partisan lines. “Today’s vote shows that Texans understand that we cannot afford to waste water and want to invest in solutions that will protect our water for generations,” Jennifer Walker, director at the National Wildlife Federation, told the Chronicle. The amendment will dedicate $1 billion a year, from 2027 through 2047, in state sales tax revenue toward water projects. Such projects include water and wastewater reuse, fixing leaky pipes, marine water desalination, and purifying water used in oil and gas fracking back to potable quality. Experts also warn that the funds should be used responsibly, i.e., not dumping the brine from desalinated water into biodiverse coastal habitats. “Prop 4 provides consistent and predictable funding that can be used for a wide variety of projects, from creating new supplies to repairing aging infrastructure,” Sarah Rountree Schlessinger, CEO of the Texas Water Foundation, said on Nov. 4. “Both will be necessary for a secure water future, particularly in Central Texas.” Prop 11 + Prop 13 Around 80% of voters statewide also approved two significant homestead property tax exemptions: Prop 13 raised the exemption (the home’s value that can’t be taxed) from $100,000 to $140,000 for all Texas homeowners, and Prop 11 added another $60,000 exemption on top of that for Texans over 65 years old. That decreases the amount of property tax revenue paid to school districts, including Austin ISD, which heavily depends on that revenue. And those payouts to school districts are likely to be delayed this month due to the election, according to AISD Superintendent Matias Segura. On Oct. 30, district trustees approved a $19 million emergency loan (with another $250,000 in interest and fees), the minimum amount needed to be able to make payroll for district employees at the end of November. “You have a statewide tax rate election for homesteads, and all of the revenue slows down,” Segura explained to trustees. Voters evidently want less property taxes and a burden shift onto the government, with the state committing to cover the lost revenue for school districts. The success of these amendments means significant tax breaks, and Texans over retirement age could see no property taxes at all on their bill. But now, moving forward, school districts are leaning on that check from the state every month to keep operating, and if there isn’t enough surplus revenue, public schools will need to tighten their budgets even further. Written into the constitution, the amendments “reduce local capacity, increase state control, and create pressure for future statewide budget cuts in classrooms when the economy slows,” Heather Sheffield, a former Eanes ISD trustee, wrote on Oct. 30. Prop 15 Prop 15 now constitutionally makes parents the “primary decision makers for their children,” further opening a pathway for conservative parents to wield total control over their child’s medical care and education. The passage of Senate Bill 12, with similar language to Prop 15, followed a conservative push for “parental rights” to be able to censor any learning around gender, race, and sexual orientation in public schools. When SB 12 was made law, school nurses were suddenly afraid to put Band-Aids on students, books were taken off of school library shelves, the state launched a Christianity-infused curriculum, and cultural and LGBTQ+ affinity groups were banned. Texans passed Prop 15 in every county except for Travis, with 70% of voters statewide approving the amendment and 58% of Austinites voting against it. In a letter co-signed by Texas teachers against the amendment, they emphasized that parents already had “robust rights” within the public education system to make choices for their children, whether that’s taking Tylenol or checking out a certain book. Prop 15 opens the door for that parent’s choices to be imposed on other peoples’ children, they wrote. “I’m not surprised that … most saw ‘parental rights’ as an agreeable measure, not realizing how it would affect students’ civil rights, due process, and the rule of law,” Cameron Samuels, a student and director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, wrote to the Chronicle. “But the choices individual families make should never supersede other families or students’ rights to learn freely and fully.” Prop 2: Capital Gains Tax Ban For: 42.2% / Against: 57.8% Prop 3: Denial of Bail for Certain Offenses For: 38.8% / Against: 61.2% Prop 5: Animal Tax Feed Exemption For: 45.2% / Against: 54.8% Prop 6: Securities Tax Ban For: 33.1% / Against: 66.9% Prop 8: Inheritance Tax Ban For: 48.7% / Against: 51.3% Prop 9: Business Inventory Tax Exemption For: 42.1% / Against: 57.9% Prop 12: State Judicial Conduct Commission Changes For: 35.2% / Against: 64.8% Prop 15: Defining Parental Rights For: 41.6% / Against: 58.4% Prop 16: Citizen Requirements for Voters For: 43.0% / Against: 57.0% Prop 17: Property Tax Exemption Near Border Wall For: 31.2% / Against: 68.8% This article appears in November 7 • 2025.
