A busy day at our state capitol
as Texas lawmakers are back
there for a special session.
This session can last up to 30
days and Governor Greg Abbott
set the agenda to include
numerous items affect 11 of them,
including critical race theory,
abortion and election reform.
Sherri Greenberg,
professor of practice and Fellow
of the Max Sherman Chair in
state and local government at the
LBJ School of Public Affairs,
joins us now to talk about it.
Thanks for being here, Sherry.
Of course, delighted to be with you.
Appreciate it so we know there's
eleven items on the agenda.
Obviously election reform a big
reason why lawmakers were called back
as that bill kind of stood during
the regular session and would have
created limitations for early voting.
Kind of further tightening
voting by mail rules.
I know the Republicans have said
that they will change some of the
more controversial parts of that.
What do you think we will
see happen this time around?
Well, as far as the voting bill,
there are two provisions that
really stood out to many people.
One was the Sunday morning voting
the souls to the polls and the
other was changing the evidentiary
standard for throwing out an election.
It appears at least right now that
the Democrats, with their walkout,
may have had some success in calling
attention to those two provisions
and that those two provisions
may be removed from what we see.
Finally, passing in this special
session of the Texas Legislature
regarding the the voting we saw
the Democrats walk out during the
regular session. Is it possible
there could be another walkout?
It's always possible that there
could be another walkout.
You know the the Democrats are going to
have to really carefully I what tools they
have available and what they want to use.
Keep in mind that the governor can
call additional special sessions.
Only the governor can call a special session.
And unlike the regular session,
only the governor can determine
what the legislature will take
up in the special session.
But the governor,
even though the session only
lasts a special session 30 days,
the governor could call.
Additional 30 day special sessions.
Yeah, and
and I think some people expect him
to call possibly another one after
this one. There's nothing about
well, there will be another
one in the fall specifically
for redistricting, right?
For redistricting.
Yet even beyond that,
there could be additional ones
that the governor could call the
governor chooses to do, so we
we saw on this agenda.
There's not anything about the
electric grid which has been,
you know, so controversial
here across the state. Why?
And could that change?
Uhm? I think as far as why there is some,
I think feeling among some of
the elected officials that they
addressed the electric grid or
the facets that they wanted to.
On the other hand,
we see with summer and our summer heat,
which has traditionally been the
issue with our electric grid,
that there in fact could be
additional issues and the governor
can always add other items to the
agenda for the special session.
Governor
Abbott did veto some funding
for the legislative branch.
Starting September 1st,
which means it won't obviously
affect staffers this special session,
but will this hurt the Democrats who walked?
I know he designed this to hurt
the Democrats who walked out,
but there's a lot of staffers
that are affected by this.
Will this get corrected?
Well, yes, the governor did veto staff
the funding for the legislative branch,
which is not just as you pointed out,
the members of the legislature,
but all of their staff, plus any of those
departments will save the legislature.
Legislative Council, for instance.
Or the legislative budget board.
So it affects them too.
It does not take effect until the
beginning of the fiscal year,
September 1st, and the governor does
have the line item veto, however.
Pointed out, the governor added to the call,
restoring that funding,
and that is the expectation.
Gotcha, Sherry Greenberg,
professor at the
University of Texas.
We appreciate you so much.
You're a former Texas State
representative as well,
and so we know we've got
great insight from you and we
appreciate you joining us today.
Thank you so much. My pleasure
can be a busy day out there
at the state Capitol.