In the waning days of the Texas Legislature’s 84th Session, House and Senate leaders proposed a constitutional amendment, to be voted on by Texans in November, that would dedicate a portion of all future motor vehicle sales taxes to the state’s highway fund, starting in 2019. If voters approve the measure, 35 percent of all automobile sales tax revenue beyond $5 billion would go into the highway fund, with an additional $2.5 billion of the state’s sales taxes going to support the state’s highways. Auto sales tax funds currently flow into the state’s all-purpose general-revenue fund. Texas Governor Greg Abbott had previously proposed dedicating two-thirds of the state’s sales tax revenue to the highway fund.
In other Texas transportation news, another in a long string of efforts to institute a statewide ban on texting while driving has died in the legislature. Texas is one of only a few remaining states that has yet to enact a statewide ban