Governor Greg Abbott announces special session
AUSTIN, Texas (FOX 26) - Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a legislative special session during a news conference Tuesday afternoon. The special session will begin on July 18.
"Considering all the successes of the 85th legislative session, we should not be where we are today," said Gov.Abbott. "A special session was entirely avoidable, and there was plenty of time for the legislature to forge compromises to avoid the time and taxpayer expense of a special session.As Governor, if I am going to call a special session, I intend to make it count."
Gov. Abbott announced the following items will be included on the special session agenda:
- Sunset legislation
- Teacher pay increase of $1,000
- Administrative flexibility in teacher hiring and retention practices
- School finance reform commission
- School choice for special needs students
- Property tax reform
- Caps on state and local spending
- Preventing cities from regulating what property owners do with trees on private land
- Preventing local governments from changing rules midway through construction projects
- Speeding up local government permitting process
- Municipal annexation reform
- Texting while driving preemption
- Privacy
- Prohibition of taxpayer dollars to collect union dues
- Prohibition of taxpayer funding for abortion providers
- Pro-life insurance reform
- Strengthening abortion reporting requirements when health complications arise
- Strengthening patient protections relating to do-not-resuscitate orders
- Cracking down on mail-in ballot fraud
- Extending maternal mortality task force
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick released this statement after the special session announcement: