The Texas Legislature’s first special session is set to end without the passage of key funding bills. How can those bills return?
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Senate passed key bills this week that would create new requirements for county disaster preparedness, require and fund flood sirens, and provide $200 million to help with disaster relief in Hill Country communities devastated by the July floods.
The bills are sorely needed after the Independent Day flooding that tore through multiple Texas counties.
But come Friday, those bills will be considered dead.
“They’re gone. They’re dead. Just hit the delete button and start again,” said Jon Taylor, political science chair at UTSA.
On Thursday, dozens of Texas Democrats were still holed up out of state to prevent the Texas Legislature from redrawing congressional maps and give Republicans more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. As the stalemate continued, Taylor said, Gov. Greg Abbott decided he would pull the plug early on the state’s first special session of the year.
On Friday, the Texas Legislature will end that special session and then immediately start a second one. But the Senate bills not passed by both chambers will remain dead.
Fortunately, it’s not too hard to resurrect those bills in a second special session. These are pieces of paper we’re talking about.
But it does mean Texas lawmakers will again have to go through the ritual of bringing bills up in committee, sending them to the floor and bringing together enough lawmakers for a few quick votes.
And even if there is no new testimony or debate to delay the process, that’s only half the battle. The Senate bills then need to go through the same process in the Texas House of Representatives. The Texas House is closed for business until Texas Democrats come back.
Now the bargaining has begun.
House Democratic Caucus Chair State Rep. Gene Wu (D-Houston) said Democrats will come back if Republican leaders end the current special session and if California creates legislation to redistrict and counteract what Texas is doing.
“Trump thought he could easily get his way in Texas with compliant Republicans, but Democrats fought back ferociously and took the fight to Trump across America,” Wu said. “When the legislature adjourns sine die and California introduces its maps, we will return to the House floor and to the courthouse with a clear message: the fight to protect voting rights has only just begun.”
Taylor’s opinion, however, is that “Wu’s fight to protect voting rights” is actually closer to being over. Texas Democrats were successful in bringing national attention to Texas’s redistricting and in getting California to potentially retaliate.
That may be all they can do.
“In the end they are going to lose this thing,” Taylor said. “With all due respect to the Democrats, they can fight as much as they want on this, they can oppose this as much as they want, they can go two or three special sessions, but ultimately they will be forced into a situation where they will have to allow for a vote (on redistricting) and the redistricting plan will go forward.”
At the same time, Taylor said it would be better for both parties if they focused on flood relief and siren funding bills first, rain checking the fight over redistricting for a later date. It doesn’t look good for either party to use flood relief as a bargaining chip. It would also be better for Texas, as local governments are still trying to rebuild and need more resources.
But, in practice, Taylor doesn’t believe that will happen. Republicans don’t want to pass flood relief bills only to have Democrats leave again, and Abbott is expected to bring the exact same priorities as before in a second special session.
Taylor says that if Republicans try to ram through redistricting again, those critical bills the Hill Country still needs could be delayed even further.
“It depends on how aggressive they are with the redistricting stuff,” he said. “That really does color the rest of the legislative agenda.”