Roads & Juvenile Justice Open Special Session

AUSTIN (AP) - The Texas Senate on Tuesday will consider bills on transportation funding and juvenile justice in the first hearings of the new special session.

Later in the day, the House holds the first hearing on the contentious abortion restrictions bill.

The transportation bill would use nearly $1 billion per year from the state's cash reserve fund to pay for building and maintaining highways. Transportation leaders say Texas needs to spend up to $4 billion more per year to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population.

Lawmakers are also considering moving Texas more in line with a U.S. Supreme Court decision banning mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole for offenders younger than 18. Current law only allows a life sentence without parole for 17-year-olds convicted of capital murder.

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