House Expects to Jump-Start THC Bill
with Need for Dems to Bypass Rules
Patrick Says THC Ban Dies Without Deal
Capitol Inside
September 3, 2025
Texas House Republicans are planning to take a raise a THC proposal from the apparent dead on Wednesday night with an eleventh-hour deal that would need some degree of support from Democrats to pass on a fast track in a special session that GOP leaders hoped to end in the west wing at some point tonight.
Sources said the cannabis proposal would require two-thirds support to suspend House rules that required an extended cooling period before they are up for votes on the floor. Republicans would have to have at least a dozen Democrats on board if the legislation needed a hard 100 votes to advance in a chamber with 88 Republicans.
The threshold would drop to 90 votes if Republicans who support the THC only needed two-thirds of the members who were present at the time in their corner for a rules suspension. That would ostensibly clear the way for a final vote on the package that could feature stringent restrictions on the sale and use of THC products that are derived from hemp and currently available at more than 10,000 dispensaries across the state.
Governor Greg Abbott called for regulations for the THC industry when he vetoed a bill with an outright ban that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick championed in the regular session and had Senate Republicans pass again in special session despite the red pen strike in June. But the THC prohibition in Senate Bill 6 appeared to have stalled in the Public Health Committee in the House without a hearing or vote since Speaker Dustin Burrows assigned it there on August 20.
But a deal appeared to be in the works on Wednesday afternoon when the panel's chairman - GOP State Rep. Gary VanDeaver of New Boston - told colleagues that he expected to move a THC bill out of the committee while the House was in session tonight.
Ten Democrats sided with the Republicans when the House approved the Patrick ban in regular session after GOP leaders abandoned a regulatory plan they'd backed for several months up to then. But the prospects of getting Democrats to bail them out on a THC bill could be more difficult after a brutal battle over congressional redistricting that relegated THC to an all but forgotten status as a third-tier priority behind the GOP map and legislation stemming from deadly flooding on the Fourth of July.
THC regulation had been Abbott's original reasoning for calling lawmakers back for an initial special session that failed to produce a single piece of legislation for his signature as a consequence of the Democrats' holdout on the map.
more to come ...
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