Excerpted from a Dykema Blog by Katy Jo Richards
In March 2025, House Bill 2466 (HB 2466), also known as the “Ban the Box” law, was referred to the House Workforce Subcommittee. If passed and signed into law, HB 2466 would take effect September 1, 2025, and prohibit employers from asking about an applicant’s criminal history on initial job applications; instead covered employers would consider criminal history only after the applicant has been found to be “otherwise qualified” and has been given a conditional job offer or invited for an interview.
Excepted from HB 2466 are positions for which consideration of criminal history record information is required by law—including law enforcement, healthcare, childcare, and financial services. HB 2466 applies to private employers with at least fifteen employees and public employers. The protections of HB 2466 would not extend to independent contractors, gig workers, or freelance labor.
If passed, Texas would join 37 other states, the District of Columbia, and more than 150 cities and counties in enacting ban-the-box protections. Such protections already exist in some Texas cities and counties, including Austin, San Antonio, Travis County, Dallas County, DeSoto, and Harris County, all of which were effectively nullified by the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act (TCRA), otherwise known as the “Death Star” bill, passed in 2023. Although a district court in Travis County ruled in August of 2023 that the Death Star bill was unconstitutional, the State of Texas appealed that ruling. The Third Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on April 23, 2025, so a decision by the Court should follow within the next several months.
If HB 2466 were to pass and be signed into law, businesses should review their hiring policies and practices to ensure they are in conformance with HB 2466. This likely includes adjusting when and how individuals are asked about their arrest and conviction history, if at all.
Passage of HB 2466 would be in line with the trend toward implementation of ban-the-box laws and policies at both the federal and state levels. In 2023, the EEOC issued several workforce reports focusing on workers with histories of arrest or conviction in support of President Biden’s Executive Order 14035, which called for the expansion of federal employment opportunities for individuals with arrest or conviction records and the evaluation of barriers to federal employment faced by these individuals. Employers should be aware that the EEOC found that following the implementation of ban-the-box laws for state and local public employers, more workers filed EEO complaints, and the EEOC found reasonable cause to believe that discrimination had occurred in more of those complaints.
Although federal employment opportunity laws do not generally prohibit the consideration of arrest or conviction records in making employment decisions, the EEOC has issued policy statements on appropriate consideration of arrest or conviction records in employment decisions, stating that the use of such records can have a disparate impact on certain protected groups. In 2012, the EEOC provided examples of best practices for employers who are considering criminal record information when making employment decisions.
Finally, HB 2466 is not free of ambiguities. Under Section 5.082(b)(1), an employer may inquire into or consider an applicant’s criminal history record information after the employer has determined that the applicant is otherwise qualified. “Otherwise qualified” is not defined in HB 2466. As a result, employers should keep an eye on the status of HB 2466 and, if it is passed, be aware of interpretations of HB 2466, including those that may further define “otherwise qualified.”
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