HB210

HB210 creates a criminal offense for a vendor bidding on or receiving a school-district or open-enrollment charter-school contract when specified financial, family or gift-related conditions involving a board member exist. It took effect September 1, 2025. The new section places the offense on the vendor; it is not simply a new disclosure form or a rule saying the board member may abstain from voting. Final act

The covered conditions are that a board member has a substantial interest in the vendor or a subcontractor hired by a vendor; is related “in the second degree” by blood or marriage, as determined under Government Code Chapter 573, to someone with a substantial interest in the vendor; or “has received or has been promised a gift or in-kind services with a value of more than $250.” The gift clause is stated broadly and does not itself identify the giver or a time window. This summary does not invent exceptions or resolve that wording by treating every unrelated gift as a proven crime. Section 11.067(b)

A substantial interest means ownership of more than 10% of voting interests or a direct or indirect participating interest in more than 10% of profits, proceeds or capital gains, with or without voting rights. Exactly 10% is not “more than 10%.” The family-relationship provision uses a legal degree calculation, not a general ban covering every relative: for example, siblings and grandparents/grandchildren are second-degree blood relatives under Chapter 573. Section 11.067(c) · Relationship rules

“Vendor” includes companies, individuals, contractors, subcontractors and professional-service providers entering the listed kinds of goods-or-services arrangements, including contracts, memoranda of understanding, interlocal agreements, fee schedules and retainers. A first offense is a Class C misdemeanor; a second is Class B, a third Class A, and a fourth or later offense a state jail felony. Any offense is a state jail felony if the vendor directly or through a third party compensates the board member with money, gifts or in-kind services in exchange for the school entering the contract. That exchange-for-contract provision is distinct from the separate gift-over-$250 clause. Section 11.067(a), (d) and (e)

The act does not expressly specify a culpable mental state. Texas’s general criminal-law rule normally still requires one unless the offense plainly dispenses with it. The text should therefore not be summarized as automatic conviction whenever a vendor discovers a relationship after the fact. Penal Code Section 6.02