Austin lacks political leadership on guns
Ten people were killed and 13 others injured in the horrible tragedy that shook the Santa Fe community, our state, and the nation last month. Sadly, this massacre was not some sort of anomaly, like it would have been in every other highly developed nation in the world.
The United States is, and has been for some time, experiencing a school gun violence epidemic. This is nothing short of a public health crisis — a crisis that has prompted many across our nation to demand changes to our gun laws and enhanced school safety measures now.
In Texas specifically, there have been calls by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session of the Texas Legislature to address the issue of gun violence in our schools.
Special sessions of the Texas Legislature have traditionally been used to take care of unfinished business from regular sessions of the Legislature or to address issues of statewide importance or impact that arise between regular sessions. Addressing the school gun violence epidemic would clearly fall into the latter category of long-acknowledged, legitimate reasons for calling a special session, and I would not be opposed to Abbott calling a session for this purpose — in theory.
In practice, calling legislators back for a special session this summer to address gun violence in our schools is not likely to achieve much given our current crop of state leaders.
To be perfectly frank, unless Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and several House and Senate Republicans who have not announced their retirement from the Legislature work with House and Senate Democrats to forge bipartisan consensus around some key policy recommendations before we convene in special session, then a special session will almost certainly fail to generate any meaningful legislation aimed at protecting our kids.
In fact, without such a consensus on such an important and emotional topic, a special session will almost certainly amount to nothing more than a $1 million taxpayer-funded political commercial for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and a grave disappointment to the parents of Texas schoolchildren. Avoiding this outcome will take a rare combination of political will and leadership skills the likes of which we have not seen in our state since folks with names like Bob Bullock and Pete Laney could regularly be found walking the halls of the Texas Capitol.
But consensus does not just form spontaneously. Consensus must be built, and Abbott has given no indication that he is willing to expend any of his political capital to help build the consensus he claims would be required for him to call a special session on school gun violence.
Sadly, this has become the new normal in Austin.
Abbott has demonstrated that he is more than happy to lead the charge when it comes to passing highly contentious, highly partisan legislation, such as the now notorious “bathroom bill.” He even called a special session for that exact purpose. But when it comes to passing bipartisan legislation to combat our school gun violence epidemic, all Texans get from their governor is, “Call me back when you’ve got yourself a consensus.”
My experience with the Texas Legislature goes back nearly 20 years, and the fact is that unless our current state leaders step up to the plate and expend some of their political capital to achieve a bipartisan consensus on school gun violence before calling lawmakers to Austin, a special session will turn into yet another missed opportunity by the Legislature to help our Texas schoolchildren.
Johnson is a state representative for Texas House District 100 in the Dallas area.