Governor Abbott Announces Special Session

Statement

Governor Greg Abbott today announced a legislative special session that will begin on July 18th, 2017. In his announcement, Governor Abbott identified 20 items that will be included on the special session call.

"Considering all the successes of the 85th legislative session, we should not be where we are today," said Governor Abbott.

A special session was entirely avoidable, and there was plenty of time for the legislature to forge compromises to avoid the time and taxpayer expense of a special session. As Governor, if I am going to call a special session, I intend to make it count.

Special session agenda items will include:

Sunset legislation
Teacher pay increase of $1,000
Administrative flexibility in teacher hiring and retention practices
School finance reform commission
School choice for special needs students
Property tax reform
Caps on state and local spending
Preventing cities from regulating what property owners do with trees on private land
Preventing local governments from changing rules midway through construction projects
Speeding up local government permitting process
Municipal annexation reform
Texting while driving preemption
Privacy
Prohibition of taxpayer dollars to collect union dues
Prohibition of taxpayer funding for abortion providers
Pro-life insurance reform
Strengthening abortion reporting requirements when health complications arise
Strengthening patient protections relating to do-not-resuscitate orders
Cracking down on mail-in ballot fraud
Extending maternal mortality task force

Source