Texas Gov's Original Top Priority Fails
as Session Ends with New Flood Probe
Capitol Inside
September 4, 2025
The curtain fell on a second special session early Thursday morning with the launching of a Texas House investigation into a deadly flood on July 4th and a property tax relief measure and bans on the sale of THC products and the hiring of lobbyists with public funds dead in its wake.
The Texas Senate voted shortly after midnight to penalize state lawmakers and their donors for quorum breaks after the House approved a resolution for a rules change that would punish its members more severely for unexcused absences that are part of future plots to block votes on bills they oppose.
The House voted to adjourn sine die about 11:30 p.m. with a motion that 30 conservative Republicans opposed. House members voted overwhelmingly to regulate summer youth camps with a measure that some say could put them out of business with a ban on cabins for campers in flood planes. Four Republicans voted against the more stringent regulations for summer camps that GOP State Rep. Drew Darby of San Angelo sponsored in House Bill 1.
The second summer session that got under way on August 15 ended amid the fallout from a fight over a congressional redistricting bill that Democrats hijacked for two weeks with a walkout in the second half of the first special session that Governor Greg Abbott called this summer. The new U.S. House map became the number one priority for Abbott and the Republicans in Austin after President Donald Trump ordered them to redraw districts in a way that would give the GOP five more seats in Texas.
But the Texas Republicans won't be able to declare a victory in a redistricting war they initiated with the president's prodding until the general election more than a year from now. The winner of the U.S. majority at the polls in 2026 will be the ultimate litmus test for success or failure with the GOP's remake effort here.
The regulation of THC products derived from hemp had been Abbott's original reason for calling lawmakers into special session this summer in the aftermath of a veto that killed a cannabis prohibition that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick had championed and muscled through both chambers in Austin.
But the governor appeared to lose interest in the battle over cannabis after the flooding on the Guadalupe River elevated disaster preparedness and relief to the pinnacle of his agenda. The THC and flood-related legislation took back seats to the Republicans' quest to expand their clout in Congress under orders from Trump.
An eleventh-hour deal on strict regulations for a booming THC industry here fell though on the second session's final night. The hemp industry emerged from back-to-back special sessions as the biggest winner when the status quo that Patrick said was unacceptable prevailed in the end.
Senate and House leaders had appeared poised to try to salvage a bill that failed earlier this week in the lower chamber as a key piece of a property tax relief package that would have made it harder for cities and counties to increase property taxes without voter approval. Twenty-seven Republicans teamed with Democrats to kill the tax rate election proposal earlier this week.
After Republican lawmakers put the response to the historic Hill County flooding on the backburner during the showdown on redistricting, the House leaders demonstrated a renewed interest in the cataclysmic weather event and its aftermath with a vote for a resolution that authorized the creation of a general investigating committee on disaster response.
Sponsored by Republican State Rep. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth, House Resolution 177 established the special panel that will have five members who Speaker Dustin Burrows will appoint. The committee will have subpoena powers that other standing panels do not have. The panel's probe will focus on factors that contributed to the disaster, the allocation of resources for disaster preparedness and the coordination of emergency officials at every level of government.
more to come ...
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