Abbott vows to call sessions until Dems return

Austin—The Texas Legislature will stay in session until House Democrats, who left the state to deprive the House of a quorum to stop consideration of a controversial mid-decade redistricting map, return to Austin, Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement Tuesday. 

“I will continue to call special session after special session until we get this Texas First agenda passed,” he wrote. 

The governor is empowered by the state constitution to call as many 30-day sessions as he wishes, and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said the Senate will pass the session agenda laid out by Abbott as many times as it takes. 

“Let me be clear: the Texas Senate will pass the bills on Gov. Abbott’s special session call over, and over, and over again until the House Democrats return from their ‘vacation’ to do the people’s business,” Patrick said in a statement. 

This comes after the House again failed to reach quorum on Tuesday, with only 95 members present, five short of the 100 required to transact business. House Speaker Dustin Burrows said that if the House cannot reach a quorum on Friday, he will gavel the session out and immediately gavel in the second called session of the 89th Legislature. 

“The second session is coming,” Burrows said from the House rostrum. “It is time to get home and take your seats.” 

As Patrick promised, the Senate continued passage of the special session agenda Tuesday, starting with the proposed redistricting map. SB 4, by Weatherford Senator Phil King, is intended to increase the number of Republican held seats in the US House of Representatives by five, moving the delegation from a 25-13 Republican/Democratic split to a 30-8 split. 

King said that in drawing the map, he took no race-based data into consideration, and that the proposed map meets all applicable voting laws. The bill was passed 19-2, as nine of eleven Senate Democrats staged a walkout in protest of the measure. 

Other bills passed Tuesday include SB 6, by Senator Bryan Hughes of Mineola, which would allow Texans to sue manufacturers and distributors of medical abortion pills in the state. SB 14, also by King, would shield certain information pertaining to law enforcement officers, like hiring information and unsubstantiated complaints, from disclosure under open records requests. 

The Senate also passed a flood relief package in the form of three bills. SB 1, the omnibus relief bill by Lubbock Senator Charles Perry, would require summer camps located in flood-prone areas develop, implement, and practice evacuation plans. 

Those plans would require evacuation to higher ground and would be triggered in the event of a local flash flood warning. It also promotes better coordination between the various public safety and law enforcement agencies regarding flood monitoring and response. The bill directly addresses local emergency operation management, requiring training for county officials, and creating a clear line of succession for who is in charge in an emergency event. SB 2, by Senator Paul Bettencourt of Houston, would put the Texas Water Development Board in charge of identifying the most flood prone areas in the state and requiring the installation of warning sirens in those areas. 

Counties and cities will build and maintain the systems, but the state will pay for it. Those funds are part of SB 3, by Senator Joan Huffman of Houston, which set up a $50 million grant program for the siren program, but also $200 million in relief funds to draw down three times that amount in federal funds. Other programs in the bill, all paid for out of the state’s Rainy Day Fund, include $24 million to develop better, more accurate weather forecasting systems and $20 million for a new swift water rescue training center. 

Should the House fail to reach quorum Friday, all these bills will die when the session is gaveled sine die. Abbott has said, however, that he will present the same agenda for consideration by lawmakers in the second special session, so these bills will get a second chance to become law. 

SOURCE Texas Senate News