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Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) and his adding machine.

With more money to play with this session, lawmakers in both chambers have already approved sending more dollars to public schools and women’s health providers. On Tuesday, House members tried to make sure businesses get theirs too.

House Bill 500, which passed this evening, would effectively hand back $667 million to Texas businesses with a slew of changes to the franchise tax—$270 million of which came from amendments tacked on during hours of debate on the floor. The plan is in keeping with Gov. Rick Perry’s call for business tax “relief,” though the Texas Tribune notes the bill will be a tough sell in the Senate.

The much-maligned business tax has never raised as much as it was intended to, saddling lawmakers with an $8 billion deficit at the start of each session since the tax was reworked in 2006. House members dug that hole a little deeper today.

Rather than rework the tax law in a streamlined fashion, House Ways and Means Chairman Harvey Hilderbran (R-Kerrville) proposed a series of tweaks aimed at particular businesses. Lawmakers—mostly Republicans, some Democrats as well—dropped in amendments adding $20 million at a time, one after another. Most defended their proposals as relief for small business owners. Rep. Angie Chen Button (R-Garland) threw in a $20 million break for corporations with federal contracts, mentioning defense contractor Raytheon as a particular inspiration.

Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) brought an abacus to the back microphone to remind lawmakers he was watching what their amendments cost. He kept the heat on Hilderbran all afternoon. Hilderbran and Turner talked in circles about just who benefits from lowering the tax on businesses, building to a fiery exchange.

Hilderbran: “The small businesses, the mom-and-pop employers, get a tax break in this bill, and their employees will be better off.”

Turner: “Is there a tax break in HB 500 for mom and dad who do not own a business?”

Hilderbran: “If they work for those businesses they benefit from this too, because those businesses thrive, they’re more competitive and they’re gonna grow and then they’re gonna be in a position to elevate wages and hire more people.”

Turner: “Let me telll you my concern here with this bill and some of the others, we talk about—”

At the sound of the speaker’s gavel, signifying his time was up, Turner dropped his head, gathered his papers and stepped aside. Hilderbran sighed, “Daggum, Sylvester.”

On Twitter through it all, the Center for Public Policy Priorities’ tax and budget experts Dick Lavine and Eva DeLuna Castro groused about the ham-handed show of policymaking like they were watching from the Muppet Show balcony. Castro noted the debate showed the “difficulty of cutting business taxes when they’re so low to begin with.” Lavine poked at lawmakers claiming their tax exemptions would only cost a few million, naming school programs the state could fully fund with the difference.

Facing criticism that their cuts would cost the state too much in the next two years, some lawmakers just bumped their cuts back a few years. Lavine called one amendment, from Houston Republican Jim Murphy, a “time bomb” for the 2016-17 budget.

Dallas Democrat Yvonne Davis struck a grave note about the tax reform effort, recalling what a mess the margins tax was when lawmakers created it seven years ago.

“It had an $8 billion hole in it when we passed it. It never performed the way they thought it was going to perform, and what we’re doing today is not fixing that problem,” Davis said. “This has become just a pork barrel add-on attempt to get money for your special interests and special projects.”

The national sport of Texas could get a little safer for kids under a bill passed today in the Texas House. Harlingen Democrat Eddie Lucio III’s House Bill 887 would create a pilot program for public schools to offer concussion insurance, but it stops well short of the protections Lucio had originally hoped for.

Lucio’s original bill would have limited full-contact drills and practice games in public schools to no more than an hour each week. Now he says he’d rather leave it up to the University Interscholastic League to handle those regulations. Lucio said his main safety concern is preventing chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in Texas youth.

CTE is a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head. CTE can lead to headaches, loss of concentration, short-term memory loss, depression and suicidal thoughts. Recent studies show that small hits to the head, or subconcussive hits, can have a cumulative effect on the brain.

The UIL’s Medical Advisory Board recently recommended that schools limit team practice to 90 minutes of full-contact practice per week as a CTE prevention measure, as reported by the Dallas Morning News. That proposal still needs approval from the UIL Legislative Council and Education Commissioner Michael Williams before it can take effect. Some die-hard football fans don’t like the idea.

“The way concussions and health-related issues that derive from concussions manifest themselves are not immediate,” he told the Observer Tuesday. “Sometimes it’s six months or a year after the concussion has been discovered.”

Currently, public schools have insurance programs that will pay a nominal amount for any immediate injury that a kid sustains in school sports. This new, optional insurance program would help cover the cost of things like a visit to the neurologist for any traumatic brain damage caused by football or soccer at school.

“What the family will do is be able to buy in for a nominal fee—like $5—and get $25,000 worth of insurance that’s tailored to concussion-related health issues,” Lucio said.

Even if the Senate goes on to pass the bill, the pilot program would be funded by a rider in the budget bill’s “wish list” that may or may not get included in the final budget.

Lucio said on the floor that TEA would control most of the control of the program. The agency would decide where to try it out, and which private insurer would get the final bid for the contract. He said he’d look into creating a state-funded scholarship for low-income families that wished to participate.

“If the season ends or you graduate, [and] you have a health-related issue that’s derived from your participation in contact sports, you’re not covered,” Lucio told the Observer. “What this would do is give families broader coverage.”

Houston doctor and GOP donor Steven Hotze

Flanked by 25 Republican legislators at the Capitol this morning, a conservative lawyer announced his plans to file a privately funded challenge against Obamacare in federal court.

Lawyer Andrew Schlafly is representing Steven Hotze—a GOP donor and Houston “wellness” doctor whose website is currently promoting “Hormonal Balance: The Best Mother’s Day Gift of All”—in a complaint arguing that the Affordable Care Act violates both the Fifth Amendment and the Origination Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Schlafly is perhaps best known for creating Conservapedia, a conservative response to Wikipedia. His mother is Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly.

Texas, which joined a coalition of states in a challenge that reached the Supreme Court, is not a part of this lawsuit. But Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was good enough to set aside the Senate press room so two dozen lawmakers could help lend some gravitas to Schlafly’s effort—a little unexpected political theater to lighten the mood in the Legislature’s busy last few days.

His suit, which he’ll file in U.S. District Court in Houston, is not the only attempt to torpedo the Affordable Care Act based on the Origination Clause, which says any bill that would raise revenue must originate in the House of Representatives. His challenge based on the “takings clause” of the Fifth Amendment isn’t novel either—he’s general counsel for a group that’s already suing on that point.

“Rather than providing affordable care to patients, what [the ACA is] really doing is causing a redistribution of wealth,” Schafly said. “It’s forcing Dr. Hotze, his company, thousands of other businesses and individuals to pay money to insurance carriers under the threat of penalty if they don’t do it.”

Schafly said even Democrats agree the law is a train wreck, though no Democratic legislators were there to help him introduce the suit.

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) pulled an amendment—requiring four years of math, science and English from all high school students—after a weeks of tough negotiations.

The Senate finally passed House Bill 5, the session’s big education bill, on Monday afternoon after weeks of waiting and a last-minute delay over the weekend. The bill limits the number of end-of-course exams required in high school and alters high school graduation plans to emphasize career skills.

The bill’s unanimous passage came only after hours of debate on amendments today, and back-room negotiations that stalled the legislation on Friday. Opponents of high-stakes testing rejoiced because, like the House version, the bill reduces the exams high school students must pass from 15 to five.

The bill also creates four endorsements, or focuses, that students can choose in 9th grade, and allows students to graduate with the more basic “foundation” diploma if they get a parent’s signature. Students who complete any of the diploma plans qualify for admission to a state university, which isn’t the case today.

Advocates of the bill, like Senate Education Committee chair Dan Patrick (R-Houston), said that change should quell concerns that the plan isn’t rigorous enough.

“The goal is for our students to graduate ready for college and career and hopefully both, but we know not every student’s going to college, not every student is going into a career so we designed a system, I think, where every student has that opportunity and … we’re going to let their passion lead them instead of a system lead them,” Patrick said.

Under an amendment tacked on by Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo), students on the foundation plan must complete four years of science and four years of math with Algebra II to qualify for automatic admissions to state universities under the Top Ten Percent Rule.

That means some students who graduate with the career endorsement may not qualify for automatic admissions, depending on which math classes they choose. Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio), who led Friday’s negotiations, introduced an amendment that would have required Algebra II for all students.

“I tell ya, I find it quite insulting,” Van de Putte said of people who insinuate that some students just can’t succeed in Algebra II, which is considered a college-ready indicator.

Van de Putte said her amendment would reduce the possibility of reverting to an old system that tended to steer minority students into career and technology fields instead of college—a concern that prompted groups like the National Council of La Raza to agitate against the bill. Van de Putte said today’s system already funnels minority students into the lower degree plan.

“I want to make sure with this amendment that we’re not failing our kids because we’re so afraid with failing ourselves,” Van de Putte said.

However, Van de Putte ultimately withdrew her amendment so lawmakers could discuss her idea in conference committee.

In a statement after the bill passed, she explained her lingering concerns with a graduation path that isn’t built for college readiness. ”I worry that some ninth-graders, especially from families without a history of higher education, won’t realize what they can achieve. I fear that choosing the minimum plan will lead to a minimum wage job,” she said.

Van de Putte also tried, unsuccessfully, to require multiple notifications to students reminding them that choosing the career endorsement may disqualify them from automatic college admissions. “If we’re going to let 15-year-olds decide what their endorsements are, we need to let them be fully informed,” Van de Putte said.

Several legislators from both parties said one notice would be enough, and Patrick raised his voice saying that he didn’t want blue collar work to be stigmatized.

Among Van de Putte’s successful amendments was an option for school districts to offer a seal of bi-literacy on qualifying students’ diplomas, and another protecting dropout recovery schools from being penalized for low test scores.

The bill now moves to conference committee where lawmakers members will negotiate differences between the House and Senate versions.