Abbott sets priorities in State of the State speech, including fentanyl crisis in Texas

AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott named seven priorities on Thursday that he wants the Legislature to fast-track, singling out property tax relief, school safety, border security and a voucherlike education initiative as top issues.

But the third-term Republican gave few policy details during a 30-minute State of the State speech address that broke little new ground on his big-ticket items.

The most explicit proposals stemmed from a surge in fentanyl deaths that have rocked communities across Texas, including Carrollton recently. Calling the situation a crisis, Abbott said cases should be prosecuted as murder and called for expanded access to overdose-reversing drug Narcan.

“This travesty must end,” Abbott said, while appearing to choke up.

Leaning into skepticism of COVID-19 public health measures, Abbott also lashed out at government-ordered shutdowns and mask mandates, which he invoked early in the pandemic.

He said lawmakers must “end COVID restrictions forever.”

Abbott spoke from a rare-earth minerals company in San Marcos with such sensitive technology that invited guests were barred from having their cellphones on them, The Corpus Christi Caller-Times first reported. The event was not open to the public or the media.

Bucking the traditional pageantry of addressing lawmakers at the Capitol in Austin, Abbott instead appealed to Texans in a primetime televised address that was broadcast live across the state.

Although he made a televised speech in 2021, it was at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when public health officials were warning against big gatherings.

Democrats were quick to pan the address, casting it as Abbott’s “primetime audition” to run for president.

In a rebuttal letter, House Democratic Caucus Chair Trey Martinez Fischer outlined the party’s own legislative priority to raise teachers’ pay by $15,000 and accused Abbott of spending more per border apprehension than the state contributes toward per-pupil funding of public schools.

“At the end of the day, you can listen to what someone says, but to know the truth, look at what they’ve done,” Martinez Fischer said in a letter Thursday morning. “After 30 years of total Republican control of Texas, our property taxes, our college tuition, our insurance and energy bills are all higher than ever before.”

Abbott used the business location to hype the state’s economy and to seemingly dip a toe into foreign policy. Noveon Magnetics Corp., a Hays County company that recycles rare earth minerals, exists in a market dominated by China, Abbott said.

“The future of Texas and the United States should not depend on China,” he said. “We must embrace innovation like Noveon to make Texas more self-reliant.”

The speech broadcast live on 16 Nexstar television stations was a highly produced event, with stock images and video appearing on screen behind Abbott and camera close-ups of invited guests. The most emotional moment came when the camera panned to a San Antonio mother sitting in the audience. She held a photo of her daughter who died after taking a pill she didn’t know was laced with fentanyl.

By naming seven emergency items, Abbott is handing

state lawmakers a full plate. The GOP-led Legislature can vote those bills off the floor earlier than other legislation, which must wait until midMarch.

Some of the emergency items Abbott named were no surprise, and echoed statements the governor has made on the campaign trail and in recent speeches.

Citing the state’s record $33 billion revenue surplus, he urged lawmakers to put $15 billion toward property tax relief — a policy that has already been written in House and Senate budget blueprints. And he prioritized border security by urging a continuation of his multibillion- dollar Operation Lone Star.

On education, Abbott broadly called for increased funding to public schools and pay raises for teachers. But he gave no dollar figures. And he named only “education freedom” as an emergency item, reiterating a push for all students to have access to a state-funded education savings account, which typically give families public dollars to spend on private school tuition or other educational expenses.

Such voucherlike efforts are gaining steam among conservatives across the country. But they’ve consistently faced pushback in Texas, where teachers groups, urban Democrats and rural Republicans fear public schools losing funds.

In the audience were several parents Abbott invited to attend, some of whom had their school-age kids beside them. He described them as being frustrated as their children fell behind while working from home, didn’t get specific help from teachers and were forced to learn a “woke agenda.”

“We must reform curriculum, get kids back to the basics of learning and we must empower parents,” he said to applause. “Parents deserve access to curriculum, school libraries and to what their children are taught.”

Abbott shied away from mentioning contentious issues that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick named as priorities earlier this week, including proposals to ban gender-affirming care for children and transgender athletes from competing in collegiate sports.

While Abbott named school security as an emergency item, he was silent on the Uvalde massacre — the state’s deadliest school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead last May.

He made a broad call for lawmakers to set the “safest standards” and provide for more mental health professionals in schools, but made no mention of the gun control measures victims’ families have been pushing at regular Capitol news conferences.

Later, Abbott acknowledged “some want more gun laws,” but said “the fact is too many local officials will not even enforce the gun laws that are already on the books.” The only firearm policy he advocated was a 10-year minimum sentence for “criminals who illegally possess guns.”

Several Uvalde families previously said Abbott did not invite them to the speech and that they haven’t recently spoken with his office. They appeared in a recorded video that aired after Abbott’s address urging lawmakers to raise the minimum gun-purchasing age to 21.

“Just days before they were supposed to be let out for summer, my baby Lexi and 20 other children and teachers were killed that day,” Kimberly Mata-Rubio said.

“Since that day, we’ve been begging Governor Abbott to do what’s right,” Felix Rubio said.

Abbott also said he and key transportation policy writers in the Legislature soon will unveil a $100 billion transportation infrastructure plan.

And, in a nod to his backers in the business community, he endorsed a plan to incentivize community colleges to tailor workforce training for young Texans and said he needs “economic development tools” to keep the state in the forefront of job creation. That seemed to be an indirect reference to how lawmakers failed last session to reauthorize “Chapter 313,” the property-tax abatement program that offers new companies and factories the largest of any Texas public subsidies.

Later, he singled Houston’s Harris County by name and urged lawmakers to end “revolving door” bail practices he said are “literally killing people.”

While Abbott gave a passing mention to raising pay for nursing home staff, he was largely silent on health care in a state with the highest number of adults and children without insurance.

The legislative session runs through May.