HB4486

HB4486 appropriates money for an itemized list of state debts, refunds, settlements and legal fees. It was signed and took effect June 20, 2025. This is payment authority for listed obligations—not a new general claims program or proof that every recipient has already been paid.

The fixed dollar amounts in the enacted text total $152,782,056.58, before any applicable interest and excluding a separate, unpriced contingent Google-case fee appropriation. Major parts are:

• $142,652,122 for outside lawyers’ fees and expenses in the specified Texas case against Meta: $96,648,243 to Keller Postman and $46,003,879 to McKool Smith, from the designated suspense account.
• $9,283,107.54 in other general-revenue claims, including replacement of void payment warrants, unpaid services, a $4,238,727.36 Educational Testing Service contract-dispute judgment, a $1 million wrongful-death settlement and a $416,000 unpaid-services settlement.
• $63,750 to Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. for salary not received during his impeachment period. This provision expressly applies notwithstanding the act’s general claim-verification section.
• $624,544.84 from the State Highway Fund, $73,028.34 from Coronavirus Relief, $84,292.02 from the Economic Stabilization Fund, $711.84 from the Federal Disaster Fund and $500 from the Sales Tax Guaranty Trust Account for the specified smaller claims.

Separately, the act appropriates the amounts necessary for Norton Rose Fulbright’s fees and expenses under two identified Google-case contracts, contingent on a final judgment or settlement and compliance with Government Code Chapter 2254’s contingent-fee requirements. The source is money transferred from the designated suspense account into general revenue. This is not an unrestricted payment authorization or a stated dollar award.

Ordinarily, the relevant fund administrator must verify and substantiate a listed claim, and the attorney general and comptroller must approve it by the act’s second anniversary—June 20, 2027—or it cannot be paid from this appropriation. Supporting documentation must explain the debt; replacement warrants require certification that the debt remains outstanding. The Paxton provision is the express exception to that section. The Economic Stabilization Fund item required two-thirds of members present in each chamber; the recorded passage and concurrence votes met that threshold.