Licensed professionals are still encountering bureaucratic red tape when they move to Texas with their servicemember spouses who have been transferred to the Lone Star State.
That is what some spouses told Texas House legislators earlier this month during a committee hearing held the University of Texas of San Antonio's downtown campus to learn more about challenges still faced by the military community.
Among the problems — a variety of professionals, including teachers and cosmetologists, need state-issued licenses to work. Getting a new one every time their military partner is transferred to a different state can be complicated.
They asked members of the Defense and Veterans' Affairs Committee to make it easier for them to navigate the bureaucratic red tape in Texas.
Corrie Weathers spoke to the committee about the struggles she has faced with transferring her license in Texas.
“But after months of not being able to get anyone to pick up the phone and getting two other states involved in order to get my license transferred to Texas,” Weathers said. “I finally at the end of five months heard from Texas, where they said they did not think I had enough experience to qualify for a Texas license.”
She said a Texas official told her she needed to attain the experience and contact a supervisor, even though, she said, in other states she has been a supervisor.
Weathers explained that she is an author and podcast host, and she has five professional licenses.
“You have an incredible opportunity to be a state that actually models what it means to hold your sovereignty as a state but also completely change the needs of your state by accepting the amazing talent that is coming into your state but also leaving your state,” Weathers added.
Weathers mentioned during the hearing that this was a matter of national security. She said people will not serve in the military if they feel their service will make life harder on their families.
In 2023, a woman won a lawsuit against Texas when she was told a new law passed by the Biden administration to make professional licenses portable across state lines would not apply to her or Texas.
Air Force spouse Hannah Magee Portée filed suit in May after relocating to Del Rio because of her husband’s military orders. Texas education officials refused to honor her school counseling licenses from Missouri and Ohio.
She was granted access to practice as school counselor after a court ruled that Texas couldn’t use a separate rule against Portée.
