On March 16, the Texas House Elections Committee heard testimony about HB 1288, which would abolish the straight-ticket device.  See this story, which ways that Democratic and Republican Party officials testified against the bill.  The fact that the bill has had a hearing this early in the session suggests it has a reasonable chance of passing.

The same hearing took testimony on HB 464, which would force minor party nominees to pay a filing fee.  Current law requires candidates who run in primaries to pay a filing fee.  The rationale for the Texas filing fee was originally that the money should be used to pay for some of the costs of holding the primary, but the U.S. Supreme Court has said the only reason that filing fees can exist is to keep ballots from being too crowded.  Therefore, the purpose of the filing fee now is to keep primary ballots from being too crowded.  Smaller qualified parties nominate by convention in Texas, at their own expense, so there is no obvious reason to require their candidates to pay filing fees.  The newspaper story linked above doesn’t describe the testimony on HB 464.  If anyone can report on that, please comment.