Abbott’s political muscle puts his agenda on fast track in Legislature

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After bringing the hammer down in last year’s elections on fellow Republicans who opposed his priority school voucher bill, Gov. Greg Abbott returned to this year’s legislative session more powerful than ever.

On Sunday, he unveiled an ambitious agenda that looks to the state’s future while also covering policies that appeal to all factions of a divided Texas GOP.

For business-minded Republicans, Abbott prioritized property tax cuts, a “generational investment” in the state’s water infrastructure and expanded vocational training opportunities. For social conservatives, he declared school vouchers a must-pass item; threw his weight behind further restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and stiffened his opposition to transgender Texans in public life.

Judging by the reaction among Texas Republicans who dominate both legislative chambers, Abbott is on track to getting most, if not all, of his priorities through the Legislature with little resistance.

“He has such sway over his party,” said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, adding that Abbott “has a tremendous opportunity to not just shape the Republican Party of Texas, but basically Texas as well, and shape its future.”

Praise came from often dueling GOP factions. Republican Party of Texas Chair Abraham George, a staunch social conservative, called the governor’s agenda “leadership at its finest,” while the new House Speaker, Dustin Burrows, the leader George opposed in the race to head the lower chamber, said the House is “clearly aligned” with the governor’s goals.

The state’s Legislature – which has been dominated by Republicans for 22 years – has been mostly supportive of Abbott in the past, backing him on his priority issues like immigration, barring cities from cutting police budgets and cutting property taxes.

But after Abbott followed through on his threat of targeting Republicans who crossed him on school vouchers, the little resistance there was to Abbott from GOP members in the legislative branch is all but gone.

Rep. Tom Oliverson, a Cypress Republican who leads the House GOP Caucus, said its members are in near perfect alignment with the governor.

“The caucus is relatively, uniformly pro-governor,” he said.

Abbott priorities look to the future

A clear theme in Abbott’s speech was keeping the state a national business leader and he prioritized items that the Texas business community has wanted for years.

Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, said Abbott “knocked it out of the park” with his agenda and praised his focus on water infrastructure, an expansion of vocational career training and property tax cuts.

“Governor Abbott's priorities neatly align with job creators in Texas,” Hamer said.

Hamer, who chairs the governor’s Small Business Freedom Council, which is focused on reducing business regulations, said Abbott’s agenda charted a course for the state to continue to be an economic leader.

Abbott’s two most controversial emergency items will likely be his push to allow the use of public dollars for private education in a voucher-like program and his call to stiffen bail laws.

But Abbott is confident that his school voucher legislation, which he refers to as school choice or “education savings accounts,” will be approved by lawmakers this session after he successfully campaigned to replace 11 House Republicans who opposed his legislation two years ago with lawmakers who have said they support the policy.

And Abbott made it clear that lawmakers should not expect to leave Austin without presenting him a bill, calling it a “must pass” item. Last session, he brought lawmakers back to the Capitol for four special sessions to try to get the bill over the line.

Even GOP lawmakers who survived Abbott’s attacks for their opposition to vouchers have said they want to get back on good working terms with the governor. Rep. Stan Lambert of Abilene said the governor’s staff reached out to his team after the primary to offer his endorsement and he has met with Abbott’s team to discuss his priorities this session.

“The primary is over with, we're moving on,” Lambert said. “It's important that we try to rebuild that relationship and have as good a working relationship as we possibly can, hopefully back to what it had been prior to this whole voucher issue.”

Lambert said he still needs to look at any school voucher bill but will likely continue to oppose it, a vote he feels comfortable taking after his district reelected him when the issue was front and center in his primary race. But he said he has previously supported Abbott on other priorities and wants to do so again, particularly on economic development issues around data centers in his district and on nuclear energy research at Abilene Christian University, which he represents.

Rep. Drew Darby of San Angelo also said he wants to work with the governor again if Abbott is willing to accept his opposition on school vouchers, which he maintains. After the election, Abbott said he had enough “hardcore” voucher supporters to pass his bill and may not need Darby’s support this time. But many of the top issues in Darby’s rural district overlap with Abbott’s agenda for this session.

“I have a lot of other priorities, too, in transportation and energy and water and health care and we’ll go on down the line,” Darby said. “But we’re going to have to work together to solve these problems. I’m not going to take anything off the table. I’m going to work with whoever can help those goals and, certainly, the governor is part of that.”

Making the state’s bail laws tougher will also be a tough hurdle. In recent years, Abbott has pushed the GOP-controlled Legislature to change the state Constitution to give judges more discretion to deny bail outright, even making it an emergency item twice before. Currently, defendants are largely guaranteed the right to pretrial release except in limited circumstances, for example when charged with capital murder.

The effort has died repeatedly in the House, failing to secure the two-thirds support needed to pass a constitutional amendment or hitting end-of-session deadlines. The Senate has enough Republicans to push past that threshold but the House’s 88 Republicans are a considerable ways away from it, dooming the effort without any Democrats crossing over.

Nod to conservatives

Abbott also indicated support for policies favored by the right wing of his party which has sometimes been critical of him.

There was no such criticism this time around with George, the Texas GOP Chair, saying he was pleased with Abbott’s priorities and could get behind all of them.

“I think it’s going to be a very successful session,” he said. “This is starting to look really good for the party, for the grassroots and for Texas.”

Conservatives have been particularly pleased with Abbott’s strong push for school voucher legislation. George said he was confident some form of the bill would get passed.

“What that looks like is what we're all watching to see,” he said.

Abbott also said he supported firing teachers who express support for transgender Texans and played to social conservatives’ concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion programs – which they say take the focus away from merit.

“The governor has made these comments in the past but he may not be the most vocal out there,” George said. “He went out there and started off with that. It's very promising.”

Jonathan Saenz, the president of the conservative faith-based advocacy group Texas Values, said Abbott was setting out an agenda that reflected the wins of conservative voters in last year’s elections.

“The election results indicate that this is what the people want,” he said. “The momentum is on our side.”

Democratic opposition and the session ahead

Abbott’s opponents, however, said they won’t be rolling over.

On Monday, Texas House Democrats held a news conference at Parmer Lane Elementary School in Austin, where Abbott signed a landmark school finance bill six years ago, but which is now at risk of closure because of lack of funding from the state. Surrounded by parents and teachers wearing shirts that read “Public Dollars belong in Public Schools” and “Say NO to voucher scams,” Democratic lawmakers criticized Abbott’s education priorities.

Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat, said Abbott was pushing school vouchers because he was beholden to donors like Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass, a school voucher proponent who gave the governor a $6 million political donation last year.

“Greg Abbott broke his promise that he made here at Parmer Lane Elementary,” Talarico said. “He's no longer working for the nearly 6 million Texas schoolchildren. Now he works for billionaires who can write a $6 million check.”

Talarico also tried to cast doubt on the likelihood of a school voucher bill’s passage, saying Abbott was “declaring victory prematurely.”

“The devil is in the details in these bills, and I look forward to a robust debate on the floor of the house,” he said. “I wouldn't count us out yet.”

Advocates for labor groups and LGBTQ Texans also criticized Abbott’s agenda.

Rick Levy, president of the Texas AFL-CIO, said Abbott was prioritizing “his billionaire buddies over Texas workers” and pledged to work to replace the three-term governor.

“Our school teachers, our energy workers, our union members build this state,” Levy said in a statement. “And together, they’re building power and organizing to take down out-of-touch oligarchs like Abbott.”

Brad Pritchett, interim CEO for Equality Texas, blasted Abbott for threatening to fire teachers who express supportive views of transgender people.

“Governor Abbott talks a big talk, but he doesn’t know the first thing about freedom,” Pritchett said in a statement. “For Abbott, freedom is conditional. If any teacher dares to give hope to young LGBTQ+ students, Abbott will fire them. That’s not freedom.”

But with GOP majorities in both legislative chambers and nearly universal acclaim for the speech from Republicans, Abbott seems on track to delivering on much of his agenda.

Last week, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said at an event for The Texan news outlet that the Senate would pass a school voucher bill on Wednesday if Abbott declared it an emergency item. And on Monday, Sen. Joan Huffman, a Republican from Houston, filed a bill requiring stricter bail rules that the chamber almost immediately referred to a committee.

And in the House, Burrows’ statement indicated he wants to move quickly and pass Abbott’s agenda without a need for a special session.

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“I appreciate Governor Abbott’s advocacy on these issues,” he said, “and look forward to working with members across both chambers to pass these items into law before the Legislature adjourns sine die.”

Disclosure: Equality Texas, Texas Association of Business and University of Texas at San Antonio have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.