Gov. Greg Abbott has set a special session of the Texas Legislature starting July 8, his office announced Tuesday.
Abbott’s office did not specify what legislative priorities will be included on the special session agenda and said in an advisory that such items “will be announced prior to the convening of the special session.”
Abbott has already said that he plans to ask state lawmakers to work on two priority elections and bail bills that died in the final hours of the regular legislative session after House Democrats walked out of the chamber. More recently, Abbott has said the agenda for the Legislature’s overtime round will also include further restricting in schools the teaching of critical race theory, which refers to an academic discipline that explores the role racism plays in institutions and structures of governance.
The GOP priority elections bill, known during the regular session as Senate Bill 7, was a sweeping piece of legislation that would have created new limitations to early voting hours and curbed local voting options like drive-thru voting, among other things.
It’s unclear what tweaks, if any, will be made to the bill during a special session. After the Legislature adjourned in May, some Republicans said they planned to change at least one controversial provision in the bill that dealt with the window for early voting on Sundays. The last-minute addition to the bill had raised concerns that it would harm get-out-the-vote efforts by Black churches.
Abbott’s other priority legislation that died, known as House Bill 20 during the regular session, would have made it harder for people arrested to bond out of jail without cash. That bill was also killed after House Democrats broke quorum to block passage of SB 7.
Lawmakers were already expected to return to the Legislature this calendar year for a special session focused on redrawing the state’s political maps and doling out billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds. Abbott has said that special session will happen sometime in September or October.
We knew this was coming, and we knew that SB7 in some form would be the main item of interest. I don’t know as I write this if the usual suspects in the US Senate will get their shit together and pass a federal voting rights bill that may include some form of preclearance, but it is very much in the political interests of Texas Republicans to pass SB7 before that happens. They definitely have the advantage of being able to move more quickly, but that could at least theoretically end at any time. For sure, they wouldn’t want to wait until the redistricting session for that.
One presumes that the restoration of legislative funding that was vetoed by Abbott will be addressed. I hope that this announcement spurs on the advance of any litigation over that veto, if indeed there was litigation in the works. I Am Not A Lawyer, but I’d bet that the Texas Supreme Court would be delighted to dismiss any such lawsuit on the grounds that it is moot if that matter has been resolved legislatively by the time they have it dumped on them. As to what else may be on the call, we’ll have to wait and see. For sure, every wingnut who didn’t get their pet bill passed will ask for it to be added. As long as the Lege remains in session, Abbott can add more items as he sees fit.
Which leads to another thing to consider:
Another question hanging over state lawmakers is whether Democrats plan to again break quorum to prevent the passage of an elections bill during a special session. A number of House Democrats have said that all tools are on the table with regards to a special session strategy, including potentially leaving the state to help block the legislation.
“It’s no secret that that’s something that’s been effective in the past,” state Rep. Rafael Anchía, a Dallas Democrat who chairs the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, during an interview last week on CNN.
I think another Killer Ds scenario is unlikely, but who knows? As with the walkout that led to the quorum break in May, we won’t know till it happens. For what it’s worth, this was Rep. Anchia’s initial reaction to the news on Twitter:
.
Channelling #AdmiralAkbar
#TXLege— Rafael Anchia (@RafaelAnchia) 4:24 PM – 22 June 2021
Make of that what you will.
We need to follow Florida’s lead and codify anti-communist education as required, in our schools. That would eventually solve many of America’s problems. I’d like to see that on the agenda for the special session.
THEORY DOES NOT EQUATE TO ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE
Critical race theory is just a theory/framework for interpretation. It’s not an academic discipline. Media and legislatures should stop referring to it as such.
Also, all serious academic inquiry is supposed to employ critical thinking, which includes remaining open to challenge and to new insights gained from evidence not previously available, along with a willingness to correct prior errors. The quest for knowledge is a collective endeavor, subject to continuing disputation and correction and improvement.
DISCIPLINES
Examples of academic disciplines are sociology, psychology, political science, economics, history. These fields of study are also associated with academic departments as administrative subdivisions of universities, with degree programs, and with multiple peer-reviewed scholarly journals, which are ranked.
In the social sciences and in the humanities, there are numerous theories and “schools of thoughts” that compete with each other. And there is additionally methodological diversity.
Race as a subject matter spans many disciplines, and is therefore amenable to interdisciplinary treatment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_discipline
RED SCARE
As for Republican efforts to ban critical race theory, it has the effect of propagating it, as is often the case with government-imposed censorship and suppression of ideas. In other words, it is likely to be counterproductive.
Which is not to say that it cannot be useful politically as a “red meat” tactic in the McCarthyism tradition. Also see anti-communism.
“McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason, especially when related to communism. The term refers to U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s.” (Wikipedia)
Ironically, red is the color of the Republicans.
Final comment: McCarthyism isn’t an academic discipline either. It’s a subject, rather.
Texas GOP….Lies and the lying liars who tell them.
“Also, all serious academic inquiry is supposed to employ critical thinking, which includes remaining open to challenge and to new insights gained from evidence not previously available, along with a willingness to correct prior errors.”
With respect to communism, the science is settled. It’s an evil, dangerous ideology that needs to be stamped out. We need to equip our kids with the knowledge and tools to recognize the evil, avoid the evil, and stamp out the evil wherever it is found.
I mean, that very first guy that discovered that touching a hot stove caused problems and figured out that people shouldn’t be touching hot stoves…..we don’t need to keep on researching whether or not touching hot stoves has benefit or merit. We just teach people the settled science that touching a hot stove is something we shouldn’t do.
Edit: The fact that we even need to HAVE a discussion about the evils of communism, something unthinkable when I was a kid, tells us just how desperate the situation is in this country.
Bill, how about discussions on the evils of unbridled capitalism? Or, the evils of unbridled Trumpism?
The problem with your thinking is that you call a lot of stuff that isn’t communism, communism. I’m guessing you have zero clue as to what communism really means.
Ross,
Read the 45 communist goals, read into the congressional record….in 1963.
https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/watchwomanonthewall/2011/04/the-45-communist-goals-as-read-into-the-congressional-record-1963.html
Any of this seem familiar to you? Seen any of this take place? This isn’t some current fad, it’s been going on since before I was born.
Take control of schools. Balkanize people and pit them against each other. Hello! That’s exactly what’s happening, and now right out in the open, it’s not even being hidden any more.
As to the other, when I went to school, in addition to 1984, Animal Farm, and Brave New World being required reading, we also read The Jungle. As to the evils of Trumpism…..I don’t see any. All I see is people who love their country and want America, and American citizens, to succeed, to see America act in its own best interest. I see a movement for good that understands the basic principle of, put your oxygen mask on first, then help others with their masks, because you’ll be no help to anyone if you pass out first.
Bill, instead of giving up on the Socialists and voting for the Communists, why don’t you support this new Texas political party?
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/grieder/article/New-big-tent-party-in-Texas-might-have-a-16266416.php
Bill, you seem to be living in the past millennium. 1984 has come and gone. The Cold war is over. Communism even just as a theory/ideology (not at discipline) is so passé. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are long deceased and almost forgotten, but just about everyone is now “sozial” in Germany, East and West, under the social market economy. Unlike “welfare” in the US, “sozial” is not a dirty word. Quite to the contrary. Same for the neighborhood. Europe has integrated and prospered, rather than descending into atavistic nationalism and autarky, not to mention a Third World War. Things have calmed down even in the Balkans after the turmoil brought on by the collapse of communism.
For history buffs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto
Suchbegriff: ewiggestrig
J.
I’m a long time libertarian, former Libertarian. I voted for Ron Paul each time he ran for president. I voted for Ross Perot, twice. I’ve voted Constitution Party in the past. I voted for One Tough Grandma. Trump was the first and only presidential winner I have ever voted for. My vote for Abbott last go round was my first successful pick for governor, even though I won’t be voting for him again.
What I have learned though, what Trump learned, is, a 3rd party can’t win, it just can’t. The other thing we have all learned is, the two major parties can be hijacked. Trump successfully hijacked the R’s, and communists have successfully hijacked the D’s.
I believe the D’s can, and should, fight off the commies who have infiltrated and taken over, and return the party to the JFK type Democrat days. It’s possible. Ditch the jihad squad and the zealous support of perversion and debauchery, and return to being pro-America. The party that put a man on the Moon and stopped Soviet Union nukes from getting to Cuba……I want THAT party back.
It will be more difficult for the R’s to get rid of Trump, however, because his brand of America First populism, common sense policies, and actual willingness to upset the apple cart has proved to be insanely popular with his base. His base is the bulk of the R Party now, leaving the Bushes, McCains, Romneys, and other party elites out in the cold. They no longer have a big base of their own, and their attempts to co-op Trump supporters and bring them back in the corporate R fold have failed. They successfully co-opted the Tea Party movement back in the day, but this is different.
@Politica- Bill is now saying the D’s are Commies because calling them Socialists just wasn’t gettin the job done.
He also comes up with “perversion and debauchery”, presumably because he has been reading up on Rep Matt Gaetz and the Florida GOP.
J,
Jut so we’re clear on what perversion and debauchery is…..it’s men dressing up as women, desiring to shower and go to the bathroom with women. News flash: those freak show mental defects will NEVER be women…..just failed, mentally ill men. Perversion is sodomy, one man sticking his winkie in another man’s butt. It’s trying to recruit children to that lifestyle. That’s what perversion is.
This is repulsive to normal Americans. Maybe it’s not politically correct to say that, but it’s true. It’s deviant, and just straight up evil when trying to recruit kids into that.
Oh, and let’s tie this back into communism. Let’s revisit that list of communist goals, back from 1963:
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books,magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
Hey, wow, what are the odds this is just a coincidence?
What is unbridled Trumpism? Is this the way that Trump fearmongered a virus and shutdown the country, in order to effect the greatest wealth transfer IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY, by which he decided which businesses were essential and which are not, and destroyed small business, meanwhile, Trumps BFF, Jeff Bezos got so rich that he’s going on vacation into space, and Bill Gates got so rich, that he bought up the most farmland of anyone in the US, and he bought a house on Epstein Island and gave his wife the boot. Meanwhile, I will sit and look at the empty swimming pool in my neighborhood park, because it ain’t gonna open this summer. If that is Trumpism, yes, we need to denounce its evil.
The problem with race theory is that it is setting back race relations by decades. Teaching racism may do that…as well as teaching everyone that your problems are caused by people with a different skin color and that self determination is not possible. It is a sad day when there is all kinds of stuff named after George Floyd and statues of George Floyd, and the lesson to Black Youth is that “your path to greatest is to live a life of petty crime, get into a scuffle with police, and get killed.” Never mind the great achievements of other Black people.