The 88th Texas Legislature adjourned earlier today (Monday, May 29), but — just as Speaker of the House Dade Phelan warned, telling lawmakers not to pack their bags just yet — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has already called the first of what he says will be multiple special sessions to address issues that went unsettled during regular session.
In a statement announcing this first special session, Abbott said it would focus first and foremost on cutting property taxes “solely by reducing the school district maximum compressed tax rate in order to provide lasting property-tax relief.” The agenda will also focus on “increasing or enhancing” penalties for “smuggling people or operating a stash house,” The Texas Tribune reports.
While the agenda for the first special session includes only those two items, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had earlier sent Abbott a letter today in which he urged the governor to include a number of “conservative bills” in the special session call. Those included SB 1601 which would ban “Drag Queen Story Hour” as well as SB 16 to ban critical race theory in higher education, SB 1396 to establish prayer time in public schools and SB 1515 which would force schools to post copies of the Ten Commandments.
Lobbyist Mike Hendrix, who worked with bars from Dallas and Houston in the Texas Arts and Commerce group to get language specifically targeting drag eliminated from SB 12 before it was sent to Abbott’s desk, predicted earlier in the day that Patrick would again go after the drag community during special sessions this year.
But Hendrix also predicted that efforts to ban some or all drag performances in Texas would not be included in a special session agenda until sometime in the fall.
Hendrix said he expected that Abbott would “call a 10-day special session to deal with property taxes and then later a 30-day session on school vouchers.” But he suggested that a special session on school vouchers — one of Abbott’s pet issues that is unpopular with the public and was voted down repeatedly in the state House during regular session — won’t happen until sometime in September, and that any drag bans would be included in that session “as a red meat issue to soak up all the attention” and divert attention away from the unpopular school vouchers measure.
— Tammye Nash