AUSTIN — Legislation supported by State Representative Brooks Landgraf (R-Odessa) to offer performance-based funding to ensure that institutions such as Texas Tech University are not only competitive across Texas, but nationally, passed out of the Texas House of Representatives on Tuesday.

“HJR 3 and HB 1595 are huge wins for Texas Tech, our Texas Tech medical school in Odessa, and the entire state of Texas,” Landgraf said. “We want our public universities to be competitive on and off the field, and HB 1595 and HJR 3 are big steps towards that goal. Additional research funding for Texas Tech will allow the university to attract the best and brightest students and professors, and the research that will be done will benefit generations of Texans.”

House Joint Resolution 3 proposes a constitutional amendment to redesignate the National Research University Fund as the Texas University Fund (TUF) and make a $3.5 billion appropriation to increase the corpus of the fund. House Bill 1595, the enabling legislation for HJR 3, would allocate appropriations from TUF to provide a dedicated, independent, and equitable source of funding to enable Texas Tech University and other Texas general academic teaching institutions to achieve national prominence as major research universities and drive the Texas economy.

“This will help ensure Texas has an educated workforce and research-driven solutions necessary to tackle our biggest challenges,” Landgraf continued. “I’m proud to support this effort along with anything else I can do to empower higher education institutions in West Texas.”

HJR 3 and HB 1595 passed out of the Texas House of Representatives with overwhelming support and now head to the Texas Senate for consideration.