The state's top three elected officials — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows — said Tuesday the Legislature will adjourn its current overtime session on Friday, and the governor will immediately call another special session with an agenda that could include more conservative items.
Lawmakers are poised to finish the session without passing any new laws after Texas House Democrats left the state last week to stop the passage of a new congressional map drawn with an aim of netting five more GOP seats in the U.S. House. Republicans argue they are allowed to redraw the lines for partisan gain at any point — even in a rare mid-decade redistricting pushed by President Donald Trump — while Democrats argue the process amounts to an attack on marginalized voters in the districts that would be reconfigured.
The quorum break has left the Capitol at an impasse. While the Senate has continued passing bills and House committees have met, the lower chamber can’t pass laws without the minimum number of present members.
The legislative casualties include legislation in response to deadly Central Texas flooding over the Fourth of July weekend, with both parties blaming the other for the inaction. Democrats have accused Republicans of playing politics by pushing redistricting instead of focusing solely on flood response, while the majority party accuses Democrats of abdicating their responsibilities by decamping to Illinois and other states.
Speaking on the House floor Tuesday morning, Burrows said the chamber will reconvene on Friday and end the session if a quorum is not present. Patrick, who presides over the Senate, said he would follow suit in the upper chamber, predicting the cycle would “continue in perpetuity” until Democrats return.
The special session began July 21 and can last up to 30 days, meaning the two chambers are planning to gavel out several days early.
Abbott, who has the sole authority to call special sessions and decide what items lawmakers can consider, said he would “call the Texas Legislature back immediately” and suggested the agenda could be expanded.
"The Special Session #2 agenda will have the exact same agenda, with the potential to add more items critical to Texans,” Abbott said in a statement. “There will be no reprieve for the derelict Democrats who fled the state and abandoned their duty to the people who elected them. I will continue to call special session after special session until we get this Texas first agenda passed."
Beyond redistricting and flooding, Abbott’s agenda for the current session includes an assortment of socially conservative priorities that didn’t pass during the regular session earlier this year, including proposals to require people to use bathrooms that align with the sex they were assigned at birth and crack down on the manufacturing and distribution of abortion pills.
As Democrats continue their quorum break, Abbott in recent days also has teased the possibility of proposing an updated congressional map with the intent of gaining as many as eight Republican seats instead of the five that the GOP is currently aiming for.
“What we are doing is looking at all options,” Abbott said in an interview with CBS 11 in Dallas.
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