Two House Bills Would Require Local Governments to Hold Meetings in or Near Their Own Boundaries

Two bills filed Nov. 9 for the 90th Texas Legislature would add a new section to the state's open-meetings chapter requiring the governmental body of a political subdivision to hold its meetings at a designated location in or near the community it serves. Both measures are introduced only. The official bill histories for HB 913 and HB 694 list a single last action on each, "H Filed" on Nov. 9, 2026. Both bills would take effect Sept. 1, 2027, and only if they were later enacted.

House Bill 913, authored by Rep. Stan Gerdes, would require a governmental body of a political subdivision to hold its meetings "at a designated meeting location inside the boundaries of the political subdivision." The only exception in the introduced text is for meetings held by telephone or video conference under Subchapter F of Chapter 551, Government Code. Even then, the bill says, "The physical location requirements for a meeting by telephone conference call or video conference call must comply with" the inside-the-boundaries rule.

House Bill 694, authored by Rep. Cody Vasut, uses the same caption and would also add a new Section 551.008, but the rule is different. Under Vasut's bill, the designated meeting location would have to be either inside the political subdivision's boundaries or "within 10 miles of the boundaries." Like Gerdes' bill, it would still allow telephone or video conference meetings under Subchapter F, provided those physical location requirements comply with the geographic rule in the bill.

Vasut's bill also includes an evacuation exception that Gerdes' bill does not. If "an evacuation order is in effect for the entire county in which a political subdivision is located," the governmental body "may conduct a public meeting in the county closest in proximity to the political subdivision, provided that county is not also subject to a mandatory evacuation order."

The two bills are not companions. They propose different versions of the same new section number. If lawmakers wanted a single statewide rule, they would have to choose between the drafts or write a substitute. The introduced text of each bill names a single author: Gerdes on HB 913 and Vasut on HB 694. The official House membership directory lists Gerdes as the member for House District 17 and Vasut as the member for House District 25.

The bills would apply to a "governmental body of a political subdivision." The added section does not define those terms, and the introduced texts do not amend other parts of Chapter 551. They do not, by their terms, change notice, posting, or voting rules, and they do not say whether a workshop or retreat counts as a meeting. Those questions would still turn on the rest of the Open Meetings Act and on the final language of any bill that actually becomes law. This report relies on the introduced bill texts and the Legislature's bill records; it does not treat the official statutes website as a source.

As filed, the new location rule would be limited to the governmental body of a political subdivision. The introduced texts do not extend that rule to state agencies. Both bills would leave telephone and video meetings available under Subchapter F, but they would require the physical location associated with those meetings to meet the same geographic limits. Under the Gerdes draft, that physical site would have to be inside the subdivision's boundaries. Under the Vasut draft, it would have to be inside the boundaries or within 10 miles, unless the evacuation exception applied.

The bills themselves do not name a particular city or meeting that prompted the filings. Filing a bill in November does not place it on a House calendar. The same is true of other pre-session filings, including four bills filed this week to ban or limit automatic license plate readers. Each measure would still have to be referred, heard, and passed by both chambers, and signed or otherwise enacted, before the Sept. 1, 2027, date in Section 2 would have any effect. Until then, the introduced texts are proposals, and they differ on the two points that matter most in the drafts: how far outside the boundary a meeting may be held, and whether a countywide evacuation order creates an exception. "Let all things be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:40).