AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday set this Saturday as the start of a second special legislative session, but there is little that can be done to advance his conservative agenda with Democratic lawmakers still absent in Austin.
During the regular legislative session that began in January, Republican lawmakers pushed bills that would have reshaped voting rules in the Lone Star State. Democrats immediately fought against the legislation, saying the restrictions would disenfranchise voters of color and disabled voters.
At that time, Senate Bill 7 was at the center of the fight over voting. That bill would have banned 24-hour and drive-through voting, criminally penalized election officials for soliciting vote-by-mail applications and expanded the role of poll watchers. Provisions added toward the end of the session would have also limited hours for Sunday voting and made it easier for elections to be overturned if a candidate alleges fraud.
SB 7 died at the end of the regular session when Democrats walked out and broke quorum, killing the bill.
The bill was later revived during the first special session as Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 3. The bills were largely identical to their predecessors but dropped the provisions affecting polling location hours on Sunday and overturning elections.
Democrats labeled the special session the “suppression session,” for what they see as Republican efforts to suppress Texans' right to vote.
Five days into the first special session, Democrats again broke quorum and fled the state to halt movement on the election bills and stop any further action from taking place at the Texas Capitol. They took a chartered private plane to Washington and have remained there since, continuing their work to advocate for passage of federal voting rights legislation that would override restrictions at the state level.
Following the Democrats' exodus to the nation's capital, Texas House Republicans invoked a “call of the House,” giving state law enforcement the authority to arrest absent members and forcibly return them to the chamber.
During an interview last month with Austin ABC affiliate KVUE, Abbott threatened to keep calling special legislative sessions.
“I can and I will continue to call special session after special session after special session, all the way up until election day of next year," he said.
Making good on his assertion, the governor on Thursday called for a second special session with no quorum and Democrats outside of the state.
Just as with the first special session, the second must have a quorum in the House for legislative functions to resume. The Texas Senate may continue filing bills, holding committee meetings and sending bills to the House, but until a quorum is restored nothing is allowed to happen in the lower chamber.
In his latest order for Texas’ 150 state representatives and 31 state senators to convene over the summer, Abbott renewed agenda items from the first special session, but also included some new ones, bringing the number of specific items from 11 up to 17 for the second round.
The 11 items carrying over are election integrity, bail reform, border security, social media censorship, family violence prevention, transgender children in sports, limiting access to abortion-inducing drugs, teachers' retirement pay, critical race theory, restoring legislative funding and appropriations. The additional six new items are federal virus relief appropriations, education, primary elections, storage of radioactive waste, employment and changing state quorum requirements.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has voiced early support for changing the quorum requirements, saying on Twitter that he believes it “should be [a] simple majority plus one, like it is in most states to stop outrageous behavior by Dems.” The governor has now included quorum requirements to the agenda.
Caria Lopez, political director for the civil rights group Texas Freedom Network, said in response to Abbott's announcement of the second session that she hoped the governor would address Texas’ electrical grid issues, expand health care access and revive the economy.
“Instead, he has announced priorities that show we’re likely to get more voter suppression bills and more legislation that further censors teachers and white washes history,” Lopez said.
Meanwhile, civil rights groups have rallied across the state to voice opposition to the governor and Republican lawmakers' actions. Last week, former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke and the Reverend Dr. William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, led a 27-mile “Selma to Montgomery” style civil rights march from Georgetown to Austin. The march ended with a rally on the steps of the Capitol, calling on Congress to pass voting rights legislation such as the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Advancement Act.
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