Abbott turns up the heat
House GOP urged to be sponsors for his must-pass bills
AUSTIN — As he keeps up the pressure to get his agenda approved, Gov. Greg Abbott was accused Tuesday of strong-arming conservative House Republicans to sign on as sponsors for his must-pass bills during the special legislative session.
During a Monday meeting with about four dozen conservative House Republicans, Abbott made it clear he wants them to sign on as sponsors by Friday as the governor continues an aggressive approach to get the legislation approved by the time the special session ends in mid-August. He provided them with a list of the bills he wants them to sign onto, participants said.
Abbott earlier took a rare step of lining up sponsors for his bills in both the House and Senate, despite outspoken opposition from House Speaker Joe Straus to several proposals including the controversial bathroom bill.
Privately, Abbott aides denied the governor pushed too hard for sponsors. But Abbott himself has been clear that he intends to aggressively get as many of the 20 bills passed as he can, and could call lawmakers back into another
special session if they don’t pass enough of his agenda during the first one.
“The governor had a productive meeting with the members and he looks forward to working with them to advance his special session agenda,” Abbott press secretary John Wittman said in response to questions about the meeting, first reported by Quorum Report, a political insiders’ newsletter in Austin.
In a statement, Straus said that “the House appreciates the opportunity to work with Gov. Abbott to do what’s in the best interest of Texas on education, property tax relief and other challenges facing the state.”
More pressure
House support is a key to ensuring success for Abbott’s agenda, much of which Straus a month ago criticized as horse manure. He suggested that the Legislature should be addressing school finance reform and other larger issues rather than bathrooms.
During the early parts of the every-other-year regular legislative session that ended in May, Abbott was at times criticized for taking a hands-off approach to getting some legislation passed. He and his aides said he wanted to let lawmakers work through their own differences, but toward the end of the session both he and his aides were much more heavily involved in pushing to get acceptable final versions of many bills passed that he could sign into law.
Before he convened the special session, Abbott made it clear that he would set the agenda and intended to aggressively push for passage of the topics he wanted to see addressed.
‘The responsible thing’
State Rep. Larry Gonzales, a Round Rock Republican who did not attend the Monday meeting but was briefed by GOP colleagues on the discussion, expressed frustration with what sounded to him as a heavy-handed approach by Abbott.
“A responsible member listens to all the debate, listens to all the testimony, takes into consideration all the amendments before you make that decision. That’s the responsible thing to do,” said Gonzales. “I’m not going to ‘Nancy Pelosi’ this thing and say we’ve got to pass it to know what’s in it. I will vote for something when it’s on my desk, having been fully vetted by witnesses and the body, (and) then I’ll vote.”
Gonzales, like other House Republicans who spoke privately with a reporter Tuesday, said they may not sign on as sponsors even though Abbott has told them they need to.
“What happens is you put your name on something, and here come the amendments. All of the sudden the bill’s different and your name is on it. No way. A reasonable member waits, you wait,” he said.
Some House members have said they have been under pressure from unnamed House leaders in recent weeks not to sponsor Abbott’s bills that Straus does not support. At the same time, some Senate Republicans have complained privately they felt pressured by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to quickly pass all of Abbott’s bills, which Patrick has said he fully supports.
Sugar, not vinegar
Despite the complaints about political pressure from both chambers, Texas governors — and legislative leaders — have a long history of using their clout to get their way. They have killed or held up the passage of other bills, even withheld plum committee assignments, to lawmakers who refused to follow along in a process that generally occurs behind closed doors at the state Capitol.
“That’s how politics works,” said former Gov. Mark White, a Houston Democrat who pressed lawmakers to support sweeping educational reforms. “Every governor wants every member to vote for their bills. But it seemed like the harder I tried to pressure them to do something, the less help I got. I generally got more with sugar than vinegar.”
Almost daily since the special session began, Abbott has made public a list of various advocacy groups and individuals who support the message of his conservative-bill agenda. He has promised to go public with those who do not support it, in a move that would put pressure on them to change their mind, but has not yet done so.
Amid the reports about Abbott’s push for additional House sponsors on his bills, 10 mayors who complained earlier to Abbott in a letter about his legislation to put spending caps on local governments, to limit annexation and pre-empt local ordinances confirmed they will meet with the governor in small groups in the coming days. The list includes mayors from Galveston, Corpus Christi, San Marcos, Amarillo, El Paso, Lubbock, Arlington, Frisco, Irving and McKinney.
Not included yet are mayors from larger cities such as Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Sugar Land and other places that had signed the letter asking for a meeting with Abbott.