Special session leaves little room for traditional Texas politicians.

Special session agenda leaves little room for traditional Texas politicians.

Political observers and parents of teenagers both know that nothing good ever happens after midnight. So you can’t help but worry about Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick summoning the state Senate to a 12:01 a.m. meeting Thursday morning.

Patrick used those wee hours to get a jump-start on the bizarre, bottom-ofthe-barrel issues that Gov. Greg Abbott has placed on the special session agenda. First up: bathrooms. Legislators’ ability to tag bills with a 48-hour delay was tossed out the window and, on Friday morning, the state Senate began hearings on the nationally infamous regulations against transgender Texans.

Meanwhile, the adults in the room are trying to stop this rush to enshrine discrimination in our laws.

Top Texas business interests like AT&T, BNSF Railway, Facebook and Google are lobbying, begging, pleading with Patrick and Abbott not to pass top-down bathroom bills that will do little more than bully transgender Texans over their potty habits. The Texas Association of Business is launching a million-dollar media blitz against the bills. IBM took out full-page ads in major newspapers and plans to send executives to testify in Austin.

They’ll probably get a friendly reception in the state House, but don’t look for any CEOs to speak during the Senate hearing. Why?

The titans of Texas industry have little interest in talking to a group of lawmakers who refuse to listen, the Quorum Report’s Scott Braddock reported over Twitter.

That’s not the way to change minds. CEOs need to show up, in person, and make the fights personal.

Pro-growth politicians have long served as the core of our state’s politics. Once as conservative Democrats, and then as moderate Republicans, business interests always sat at the center of the Texas political spectrum. Now they’re struggling to stay on the radar. House Speaker Joe Straus represents the last of their lot.

Instead, the Legislature is being driven by a desperate need to appease the tiny sliver of voters who turn out in the Republican Party primary. The agenda in those elections is set by the likes of Steve Hotze, who once advocated a forced exodus of gays and lesbians from Houston, or Empower Texans chairman Tim Dunn, who wants to rewrite the U.S. Constitution. Corporate leaders’ once-secure position in the Texas politician hierarchy is now being challenged by a mishmash of haters and hucksters. And each passing primary introduces a new litany of partisan cudgels specially crafted to drive the few remaining business Republicans into the wilderness.

The regular session provided little in the way of effective campaign tools. Don’t expect to see any election season mailers touting the most recent state budget, which relied on a property tax hike of nearly 14 percent. So now Texas must endure a special session spent hammering away at local control, rural school districts, abortion rights and, yes, transgender Texans.

This effort to radically reshape our state’s politics leaves little room for the corporate interests who want to maintain a conservative status quo. For the first time in 11 years, Texas fell out of the top two spots for business-friendly states in CNBC’s annual survey of executives. The unemployment rate is higher than the national average for the first time in nearly a decade. We’re 39th in growth. Economic output has been flat as the Gulf Coast prairie even as our population continues to grow.

Meanwhile, business leaders don’t think it is worth their time to show up at the Texas Senate. How long until that disdain expands to the rest of the state?

The only reason Abbott needed to call a special session was to pass sunset legislation that prevents the automatic retirement of five key state agencies, including the Texas Medical Board. The rest is fodder for campaign consultants. Nothing good is going to happen between now and sine die.

Top Texas business interests like AT&T, BNSF Railway, Facebook and Google are lobbying, begging, pleading with Patrick and Abbott not to pass top-down bathroom bills that will do little more than bully transgender Texans over their potty habits.