Third Special Session Begins: Not Even Trying to Solve Problems

The special session has one goal – to increase rancor and division among Republican legislators. Even if – especially if – nothing passes, the state will be worse off.

(Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. If you enjoy reading it, please let me know by 1) hitting the Like button at the bottom, 2) subscribing to this newsletter, and 3) recommending it to others. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.)

         But first, your moment of Zen …

(The monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, transplanted to the Texas Trans-Pecos in Marathon. Photograph: Deece Eckstein, September 17, 2023.)

---

Tuesday, October 10, 2023, 4:00 p.m.

         The third special session of the 88^th Texas Legislature kicked off yesterday in Austin. Most special sessions are greeted with dread, in line with Judge Gideon Tucker’s aphorism that “no person’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” But the dread is turned up to 11 in Austin these days, for a simple reason: this session will not be dedicated to solving problems, but to worsening them.

---

         Abbott’s proclamation invoking the special session lists four items (as of now – governors can add items to the call during a session):

• vouchers (current euphemism: “education savings accounts”);

• border security, a perennial favorite for a governor who has shipped over 50,000 migrants to other states;

• prohibiting private employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccines of their employees; and

• Colony Ridge, about which I will write more on Friday.  

  ---

         Here’s how you can tell when the Legislature is serious about solving a problem: A couple months or more before the anticipated start of a session, the governor and legislative leaders try to negotiate the outlines of a compromise on the major issues. This will make the 30 days more productive.

         But that has not occurred this time; in fact, the run-up to the call has featured increasingly bellicose language from Cosplay Governor Greg Abbott threatening to “primary” rural legislators who have steadfastly opposed vouchers in their various incarnations for a generation now. The grandstanding began last summer, when Abbott inexplicably vetoed bills by rural legislators with the none-too-subtle warning that the legislation “can be reconsidered at a future special session only after education freedom is passed.”

         If that weren’t bad enough, the relations between the House and the Senate are as bad as they’ve been in recent memory. The House impeachment and Dan Patrick Senate acquittal of Twice-Indicted, Impeached, and Otherwise Disgraced Attorney General Ken Paxton led to accusations of corruption or, at a minimum, crass political partisanship on both sides. Dan Patrick has explicitly called for Speaker Dan Phelan to resign; Phelan has returned the favor.

         The squabbling got worse over the weekend amid reports that infamous antisemitic neo-Nazi poster child Nick Fuentes had visited the offices of the Defend Texas Liberty PAC on Saturday.

         DTL-PAC, an adamant supporter of Ken Paxton in his impeachment troubles, is primarily funded by West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks and donated $3 million to Dan Patrick this summer as he was preparing for the Ken Paxton trial. Phelan condemned the meeting and called on any legislator who’d received contributions from DTL-PAC to return the money, and insisted Dan Patrick take the lead. For his part, Patrick said Phelan’s comments were politically motivated and that Phelan should resign.  

         The next 30 days are going to be fun!

---

         Assuming they can turn down the temperature enough to get anything done – and that is a big assumption – here are the outlines of what the Legislature hopes to accomplish.

         Vouchers – Abbott’s proclamation is clear, calling for “education savings accounts for all Texas schoolchildren.” This is the focus of the session, but most observers think ESAs are going nowhere unless they’re combined with more dollars injected into the public schools via teacher pay raises and money for increased operating expenses. Thus, Senator Brandon Creighton (R-You Kidding Me?) has proposed both SB 1, the voucher bill, and SB 2, a school finance bill to inject $5.2 billion additional dollars into the public schools. But SB 2 is technically not on the call yet, and Abbott is sure to hold it hostage until he sees progress on the ESA bill.

         The real issue is, particularly in light of the bad will between the House and the Senate now, is whether 76 members of the House will ever agree to a voucher bill. With a couple exceptions, the 67 Democrats are united and fierce in their opposition. That mean that, if push comes to shove, they need only 10 Republicans to kill a voucher bill, a threshold that has been easily met in the past. But the House GOP Caucus is in turmoil now, with some members mad about Phelan’s leadership in the charge against Paxton and others determined to stick with Phelan in light of Patrick’s and others’ attacks.

         My take: The anti-voucher coalition will hold for this special session, fueled by House-Senate animosity and resentment at Abbott’s threats. But the filing period for next spring’s legislative primary elections runs from November 11 – December 11, and may be reconsidering their options if Abbott calls another special during that period.

         Border security – Abbott basically wants two things. First, more money for his Operation Lone Star border barrier initiatives, including the wildly popular border buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande watercourse and concertina razor wire strung at the water’s edge. Second, he wants expanded criminalization of being in Texas illegally or helping others to get here.

         My take: Abbott will pretty much get what he wants. The Legislature has no stomach for cutting off the Operation Lone Star spigot, much less holding officials accountable for where the money goes. And the “catch and jail” program that arrests undocumented immigrants for trespass on private property has filled up South Texas jails and given Abbott impressive boasting fodder.

         Ban on COVID-19 mandates for private businesses – Senate Bill 7 would prohibit any private employer from requiring an employee to get a COVID-19 vaccine or booster. A Morning Consult pollfrom last May shows that only 11% of adults think COVID poses a severe health risk to their community, although 50% think employers should be able to mandate vaccines for their employees. And although many oppose vaccine mandates, a majority of the national population – 54% -- plans to vaccinate themselves against the latest COVID-19 variants.

         My take: Once upon a time, the GOP believed in meddling with business as little as possible. Actually, it still believes that, but COVID-19 and vaccines generally bring out the statism in GOP leaders, with broad-based national opposition in the political class to mask or vaccine mandates.

         The bottom line is that Texans, like their national compatriots, think that COVID-19 has become manageable, like the flu. Senate Bill 7 or something very like it will pass.  

         Colony Ridge – Colony Ridge is an unincorporated subdivision in Liberty County, northeast of Houston. Colony Ridge covers nearly 33,000 acres and is home to over 10,000 people.

         It has become infamous in the fever swamps of the nativist right as a “magnet for illegal immigrants.” It got onto Greg Abbott’s radar screen – perhaps because of developer Trey Harris’s $1 million-plus in contributions to Abbott’s campaigns – and he recently decided to add it to the call for the special session.

         My take: I will write more on Friday, but here’s the problem: everything they’ve done in Colony Ridge is legal under applicable local, state and federal laws. It’s just that Colony Ridge seems to have permitted an excess of “those people” to move into the ‘hood.

---

         In summary, we have a special session agenda that promises no improvement in the quality of most Texans’ lives. If the process somehow yields more funding for our public schools and a teacher pay raise, that will be a net good, but remember: those subjects are not on the call.

         The targets for the session are clear: moderate Republican who oppose vouchers. Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick are coming for them, lining up primary challengers and millions of dollars for the spring. Whether a bill passes or not, Abbott, Patrick and their billionaire backers will have more ammunition to pus the Texas Legislature even further to the right.