Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick discussed a potential special session for congressional redistricting, legislative wins and his own political future on Inside Texas Politics.
DALLAS — After what he described as the “most conservative session” ever, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick acknowledged that the fate of one of his top priorities, Senate Bill 3, which bans all products containing THC, remains uncertain for at least another week.
The House and Senate both passed the total ban, but Governor Abbott now faces pressure from vape shops and even some conservatives to veto it by the June 22 deadline.
“My job is to do the work and pass laws to protect Texans, and his job is to review all those laws and decide which ones he’s going to sign, and which ones he’s not,” Patrick told Inside Texas Politics. “It passed with overwhelming support of Republicans in both chambers. It passed with the total support of law enforcement everywhere.”
Patrick defended the bill as critics say it would drive THC products underground and benefit drug cartels.
“The opponents are the cannabis industry from Colorado and California, with ties to China and Mexico, very likely who have been importing these poisonous products into Texas. In the last three to four years, over 8,000 smoke shops and vape shops have opened up,” Patrick said. “Put this in comparison… that’s 8 times more than the number of McDonald’s we have in the state. We have about 1,100 McDonald’s or 1,300 Starbucks.”
The governor has three options: sign it into law, veto it by Sunday, June 22, or do nothing and it will automatically become Texas law.
Speaking to print reporters on Wednesday, Governor Abbott was asked directly what he would do with Senate Bill 3.
“I’m thoughtfully considering it,” Abbott said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “I haven’t made a decision about what action I’ll take.”
Lawmakers, including Patrick, are also waiting to see whether Abbott might summon them back to the Capitol for a special legislative session this summer.
The Trump administration reportedly wants Texas leaders to redraw congressional districts to help limit potential losses in next year’s midterm election.
“We’ll wait,” Patrick said, “and when the Governor makes the call, the Senate will show up, we’ll be there, and hopefully the Democrats don’t do what they did years ago, when they all left and went to Washington… and broke quorum.”
Looking ahead, Patrick said he would like lawmakers to look at ways to reduce the city and county portion of property taxes and find ways to address the ever-increasing costs of homeowners’ insurance.
But Patrick credited the new Speaker of the House, Dustin Burrows, for helping make this “the most conservative session ever.”
“Because for the first time, I had a speaker I could work with,” Patrick said. “Dustin and I sat down literally 15 minutes in February… and came to the conclusion of what we were going to do for property tax [relief]. And it’s the biggest property tax cut ever.”
Patrick has led the effort to regularly increase the homestead exemption for Texas homeowners.
“Back in 2015 and long before that the Homestead exemption was $15,000, meaning, if you lived in a $300,000 home, you paid school property taxes on a $285,000 home. Well, we raised that to $25,000. Then we raised it to $40,000 in the Senate. Then we raised it to $100,000 last year. Now it’s $200,000 for seniors, and $140,000 for those under 65,” Patrick noted. “The average senior in Texas will no longer, for the rest of their life, have to pay any property school taxes at all. That’s always been a dream of mine, and we finally made it happen because I had a speaker to work with.”
Though the Texas Senate passed all 40 of Patrick’s legislative priorities, the monumental Republican victory this session remains school vouchers. Lawmakers set aside a billion dollars in public money for parents to send their children to private schools.
“I passed school choice five times, and finally, on the sixth time, it passed the House,” Patrick said. “86 out of 88 [Republican members] voted for it. They listened to the voters finally, and they saw the results of the elections. And so that’s why it happened.”
But legislators also put more money in public schools.
“We passed the biggest funding bill for [public] education in the history of the state in one session, $ 8.5 billion new dollars,” Patrick said.
Almost half of it is for teacher pay raises.
“The average teacher salary, back six or seven years ago, was about $54,000. After this session, it’s] $69,000 plus incentives for those who really excel.
The lieutenant governor also noted that the legislature finally approved bail reform as a big success.
“Three or four sessions in a row, [it] never got a vote [in the Texas House of Representatives] Democrats killed it. Former speakers, let them kill it. But we passed significant bail reform to keep felons behind bars.”
Patrick said again that he will run for a fourth four-year term.
“I love what I do. We’re hitting on all cylinders,” he said.