El Paso County refines priorities for 90th Texas legislative session, adds transmission-line item

El Paso County's Commissioner's Court spent much of its June 22 meeting reviewing and augmenting a draft agenda for the 90th Texas legislative session, asking staff and outside lobby partners to refine language and strategy before the session begins.

County Operations director Melissa Cario and governmental-affairs manager Elisa Tamayo led a presentation on how the county prepares a legislative package and asked the court to prioritize items that should receive active advocacy. The court approved two specific state funding requests for advocacy: increasing Comptroller payments that reimburse counties for disabled-veteran property tax exemptions and seeking state appropriations to finish a vocational training facility tied to juvenile probation services.

Commissioners pressed for clarity on dollar targets and methods. "We should advocate for the full amount; the prior request for funding fell far short of what the county qualified to receive," the county auditor noted when discussing a historic shortfall in Comptroller reimbursements.

Commissioner Butler presented a supplemental one-page packet of priorities from unincorporated areas, asking the court to add three items not previously captured: rules for allowable routes of high-voltage transmission lines through residential communities, more state funding for county roads, and targeted support for solid waste/illegal-dumping responses. The court voted to add the transmission-line routing item to its action agenda and to flag data-center regulation as a high-priority value item for active lobbying.

Public comment included a presentation by James Mononttoya on behalf of the district attorney's office proposing a DWI legislative package that would increase penalties for repeat offenders and consider vehicle forfeiture and other changes. Commissioners asked for more detail and discussion with justice-system stakeholders before the court adopts direct advocacy on some of those criminal-justice proposals.

Court staff and the GR team will schedule a workshop with external lobbyists (POMP) to refine whether proposals should be pursued as appropriations requests, bills carried by delegation partners, or administrative-rule efforts. Individual commissioners were named as contacts to champion specific items in Austin.

Next steps: county staff will consolidate requested language changes, invite the lobby team for strategy sessions, and return with a finalized legislative agenda for further approval before formal delegation outreach.