FIRST CALLED SESSION ENDS, SECOND BEGINS

(AUSTIN) — After failing to meet a quorum on Friday, the House gaveled the first called session of the 89th Legislature sine die, followed shortly by the Senate. At noon, both chambers returned for the second called session, which will feature an agenda virtually identical to the first called session. That includes a controversial redistricting map, the measure over which Texas House Democrats broke quorum, effectively killing the first special session. That bill would create five new Republican performing congressional districts in Texas and sparked a national debate over mid-decade redistricting.

The Senate moved through the new agenda with speed, sending bills already passed by the Senate in the previous session quickly through the committee process. That includes a three-bill flood relief package that would set new safety requirements for summer camps that lie in flood prone areas, installation of flood warning systems, and the more than $200 million in state money to pay for it and other flood relief efforts.

The THC ban bill is back, unchanged from last session, that would bar the presence of any amount of any form of the psychoactive chemical in hemp-derived consumables, but would still permit products containing CBG and CBD. That’s the bill vetoed in June by Governor Greg Abbott and the issue that led to his call for a first special session. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick noted that Abbott seems to be calling for legalization of some products containing THC, far less restrictive than the total bans passed by both houses of the legislature in the regular session and the Senate in the first special session. Though the governor sets the agenda, said Patrick, legislators write the laws. “It is well established that the governor may set the topics for a special session, however he may not limit the specific language of any proposed legislation. That is up to the Legislature,” he said. Patrick has been adamant all year that any law regulating hemp in Texas must include a total ban on THC.

Also advanced were bills to require individuals to use sex-segregated facilities that match the sex on their birth certificate, phasing out STAAR end-of-course exams in favor of a three-test regimen administered at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the year, and a bill that would create a private cause of action against anyone who distributes, manufactures, or otherwise provides medical abortion pills to women in Texas.

Other bills would ban the use of public funds for private lobbyists, allow victims of human trafficking more latitude to argue that crimes they committed were compelled through duress, and protect certain background information outside of a law enforcement officer’s personnel file from public disclosure.

While the rest of the first called session agenda passed through committee on Friday, a hearing for the new congressional map in the Senate is scheduled for Sunday at 4 p.m. That map, and all other bills on the agenda, could be considered by the full Senate when it reconvenes on Monday at 5 p.m.

The Senate is on track to finish passing the full agenda early next week. Then, it will await action in the House. Speaker Dustin Burrows told House members Friday he intends to complete passage of the special session agenda quickly. “I have been told, and I expect, we will re-establish quorum on Monday,” the Speaker told members from the House rostrum. “My goal will be to have this body accomplish this and adjourn sine die before the Labor Day weekend.”

###