Leadership tensions, potential special session loom as Texas legislative session hits uncertain end

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The 2021 Texas legislative session is heading into its final weekend fraught with uncertainty and tension between the two chambers that could lead to a special session.

After three of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priorities effectively died Tuesday night in the House, the Senate presiding officer called for a special session to pass them, jolting the final several days of a session that was already on track to be the most conservative in recent memory. The last day of the session is Monday, and procedural deadlines have been increasingly cutting off opportunities to hash out key issues.

In some ways, it is a familiar story from past sessions: Tensions between the two chambers are peaking, and Patrick is putting pressure on Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session for unfinished business on conservative priorities. Patrick got his way in 2017, forcing a special session in an ultimately failed push to pass legislation to regulate bathroom use by transgender people.

Patrick specifically wants a June special session — prior to the special session that Abbott is widely expected to call this fall to address redistricting and COVID-19 relief funds. Abbott indicated Wednesday he was not immediately on board with Patrick’s demand, and he put a finer point on his resistance Thursday afternoon during an unrelated news conference in Fort Worth.

“That’s pretty goofy because everybody knows there’s only one person with the authority to call a special session, and that’s the governor,” Abbott said of Patrick’s push for a special session, adding that those agitating for a special session should be careful what they wish for.

During special sessions, lawmakers are only allowed to consider legislation on subjects selected by the governor. Abbott said that if he initiates a special session, he would not load up the agenda with multiple items for lawmakers to address at once but would “go one item at a time.”

“So if anyone tries to hold hostage this legislative session to force a special session,” Abbott said, “that person will be putting their members, in the Senate or the House, potentially into a special session for another two years because I’m gonna make sure that we get things passed, not just open up some debating society.”

Patrick appeared caught off-guard by Abbott’s “goofy” comment later Thursday, asking a TV interviewer multiple times if the governor had really said it. Patrick went on to say it was “not goofy” to request a special session, arguing it was the only option left to him at this point in the session, despite Abbott’s insistence that there is still time to salvage the three items.

Also in TV interviews Thursday afternoon, Patrick denied that the Senate was purposely sitting on legislation to trigger a special session. Speculation ramped up around that possibility overnight when the Senate missed a deadline to consider a seemingly must-pass bill to extend the life of state agencies.

“I support the governor but I'm pointing out that, and clearly he's the person that can call it, only person, but I have a right and so does everyone else to ask him to call it and that's what I'm doing,” Patrick told Spectrum News in Austin. “And there was a reference about holding hostage, I'm not holding anything hostage.”

At the Fort Worth news conference, Abbott insisted he “strongly” supports the three incomplete priorities that prompted Patrick’s call for a special session: Punishing social media companies for "censoring" Texans based on their political viewpoints, outlawing transgender students from playing on sports teams based on their gender identity and banning taxpayer-funded lobbying. The issues cap a session that has already seen a slew of long-sought wins for conservative activists, including permitless carry of handguns and a “heartbeat” bill that could ban abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

Despite the high-stakes staredown with Patrick, Abbott downplayed any perceived disunity among the state’s leaders, saying the back and forth was to be expected in the final days of a session.

“If the leaders in the Legislature will stop fighting with each other and start working together,” Abbott said in Fort Worth, “we can get all of this across the finish line."

Abbott and Patrick traded comments as lawmakers Thursday afternoon sent Abbott a roughly $248 billion spending plan for the state for the next two years, which is the only legislation constitutionally required to pass during a regular session.

But the comments between the two also came after tensions had been simmering inside each chamber for days. Last Thursday, the House stopped work for the week out of frustration that the Senate wasn’t passing enough of its priority bills.

Patrick hardly concealed his disdain for the House in remarks to the senators from the dais on Wednesday night, speaking hours after his special session demand.

"As you all know, the House was not here Friday,” Patrick said. “The House was not here Saturday. The House has already quit for today. So we're working hard, we're passing bills— they weren't here for two days in the last five. They're gone now. They killed key bills of yours last night, because they weren't here.”

The Senate ended up working hours past midnight Wednesday.

As the senators worked, House Speaker Dade Phelan attempted to enter the chamber to watch proceedings but was denied entry because he did not have a wristband proving he had tested negative for the coronavirus, as Quorum Report first reported. Members, staff and the general public have been required to have a negative COVID-19 test before entering the chamber floor or gallery as part of the Senate’s pandemic protocols that have been in place throughout session.

Phelan “ is always welcome in the TxSenate and was not denied entry [tonight],” the lieutenant governor’s office tweeted early Thursday morning. “Messengers offered to get him a wristband, but the Speaker declined and left.”

In a jab at the Senate later that morning, Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican and top lieutenant of the speaker, rattled off statistics comparing the number of House bills and Senate bills the two chambers have taken action on in a series of questions from the chamber’s back microphone.

Is it true, Burrows asked Phelan, that “less than 50% of the House bills that we sent over were passed by the Senate, are you aware of that?"

“The chair is not advised,” the speaker replied.

“By comparison,” Burrows said, “of those bills considered and passed, is it true that we passed 75% of the Senate bills sent over to us?”

“75% is a lot of Senate bills and sounds accurate, Mr. Burrows,” Phelan said.

Burrows’ line of questioning seemed to reflect the frustration felt by some House members such as Rep. James White, a Hillister Republican, who told the Tribune on Thursday that the Senate had not yet acted on three of his legislative priorities for the session.

White, who chairs the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee, said his committee “did not delay one damn Senate bill” this session.

“Tension is good sometimes,” White said. “We’re all working hard, and I’m proud of the work my committee did.”

Other House members were not afraid to take shots at the Senate on Thursday, including Rep. Lyle Larson, a San Antonio Republican.

“The GOP senate bashing the GOP house last night for not working late,” Larson tweeted, referring to Patrick’s comments made in the Senate the night before. “DP Ego .. ugh.”

House Democrats had been most focused on killing Senate Bill 29, which would require transgender student athletes to play on sports teams based on their sex assigned at birth instead of their gender identity. Waving blue and pink transgender pride flags, Democrats celebrated when the midnight deadline to pass the bill came before a vote had been held.

In a radio interview the next morning, one Senate Republican vowed that the issue of transgender student athletes would remain front and center.

“It’s not going away,” Sen. Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills said, speaking minutes before Patrick issued his call for a special session. “You can delay this, but this is not going away.”

Abbott has not been outspoken about bills targeting transgender youth this session, though he said during a Fox News appearance last month that he would sign a bill like SB 29.

Like in 2017, Abbott again finds himself facing intraparty pressure to call a special session ahead of a reelection year. This time, though, Abbott is facing more opposition from his right: He has already drawn a primary challenger in former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas, and Texas GOP Chairman Allen West and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller have not ruled out bids against Abbott.

Huffines said Wednesday he backed “calls for an imminent special session,” while West voiced support for a special session as long as it addresses the state party’s legislative priorities. One of those priorities is abolishing taxpayer-funded lobbying.

Miller, meanwhile, said in an email to supporters Wednesday that a special session to pass Patrick’s three unfinished priorities “now looks likely.”

Reese Oxner contributed reporting.