Lawmakers will tackle variety of measures in special session

Abbott issues proclamation setting agenda that includes bathroom bill

AUSTIN — It’s officially game on at the State Capitol.

After weeks of speculation and political posturing, Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday issued a proclamation setting the agenda — and by the end of the day 83 bills had been filed on those issues and others.

A variety of bills were quickly filed, including proposals to give winners of the Purple Heart Medal a tax break, prohibit property owners’ associations from nixing Christmas displays and mandate school districts reimburse teachers for supplies they buy with their own money.

Another proposal would push for states to agree to elect the president and vice president only by popular vote.

It is unclear how many of these measures will be debated in the 30-day special session.

Abbott aides quickly noted that only those bills that fit the agenda topics listed by the Republican governor can be considered. The others, they said, will be little more than political window dressing, because Abbott is unlikely to add topics.

The special session is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. July 18.

First up is legislation to continue the operations of the Texas Medical Board, the agency that regulates doctors, as well as agencies that govern psychologists, marriage and family therapists, professional counselors and social workers.

That measure failed to pass during the regular session that ended in May, prompting Abbott to call lawmakers back to Austin for what many House and Senate members are anticipating could be Act II of the

politically rancorous regular session.

Lawmakers will again face two of the most controversial topics — a bathroom bill and property tax reform. The bathroom bill would limit the use of bathrooms and locker rooms to each student’s “biological sex,” barring transgender students from using the facility of their gender identity. The property tax proposal would allow ways to curb growing tax bills, including rollback elections.

Also on the list of bills is a pay raise for Texas teachers; new flexibility for school officials to hire and fire teachers; creation of a special commission to reform school finance; school choice for special needs students; caps on state and local spending; preventing cities from regulating treecutting and trimming, or changing permitting rules midway through a construction project; expediting local permitting rules, and reforming municipal annexation laws to give those being annexed more say-so.

Texting ban included

The laundry list of bills includes making a statewide ban on texting while driving the rule over local laws; a prohibition on union dues being withheld from government paychecks; a prohibition on local funding for abortion providers; tougher reporting requirements for abortions resulting in complications; stronger patient protections for do-not-resuscitate orders; stronger penalties to guard against mail-in ballot fraud, and extending the operation of a statewide maternal mortality task force.

On Monday, state Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, filed two nearly identical measures to forbid “political subdivisions, including a public school district” from adopting or enforcing measures to “protect a class of persons from discrimination” in regulating “access to multi-occupancy restrooms, showers or changing facilities.”

While some of Monday’s bills had nothing to do with Abbott’s topics, others did — sort of.

Rep. Mike Schofield, R-Katy, filed a measure to change how the state calculates the constitutional spending limit, which restricts how much the budget can grow from one biennium to the next.

Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, filed a bill to pay for the proposed $1,000-ayear teacher pay raise from the state’s so-called Rainy Day Fund, which is not what Abbott had in mind when he suggested school districts could pay that tab.

Bills run the gamut

Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, proposed in separate bills that some school taxes be abolished, and that more funding be provided to the teachers’ retirement system to cover additional health care costs.

Rep. Eddie Lucio, DBrownsville, filed a bill to authorize medical marijuana. Rep. Valoree Swanson, R-Spring, proposed abolishing property taxes and finding a replacement revenue stream to replace them, an idea that proved politically nightmarish decades ago.

Rep. Donna Howard, DAustin, had another idea: A constitutional amendment requiring the state to pay 50 percent of the costs of public schools, a change that analysts warned would break the state budget.

Sen. Borris Miles, DHouston, filed bills allowing the state to better track opioid use by pregnant women and to automatically enroll women who are eligible in state-funded health care programs.

Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, who filed legislation to prevent cities from regulating tree cutting and removal as Abbott wants, also filed a bill requiring the state to create a task force to study electromagnetic threat preparedness — the threat to the power grid from an electromagnetic pulse attack.

Such an attack from a hostile foreign power is not on Abbott’s list.