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Texas lawmakers are back in Austin on Thursday for the beginning of a special legislative session, where legislators are set to revive a controversial elections bill that would impose new restrictions on voting.
Over the last few days, we’ve solicited readers’ questions about the special session and the voting legislation that Republican lawmakers are expected to bring up again. These are the answers to those questions. Some of these answers come from a live discussion that Texas Tribune reporter Alexa Ura conducted on Reddit.
Here's what you need to know
In the Legislature, a special session is when lawmakers convene outside the regular session usually to complete unfinished tasks for the year, or address special topics and emergencies. In Texas, special sessions are only to be called by the governor.
Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Texas Legislature, which started July 8 and is set to last up to 30 days, to address bills that died at the end of the regular legislative session like the election and bail bills. This comes after the regular 87th legislative session, which ended on May 31.
We don’t know. Special sessions can last up to a maximum of 30 days, but there is no minimum. There is also no limit to the number of special sessions a governor can call in between regular legislative sessions.
The special session that started July 8 is one of at least two expected this year, with a later one coming in the fall on redistricting and the spending of federal COVID-19 relief funds.
There are 11 items on the agenda that lawmakers can discuss. They include:
- Bail overhaul
- Elections
- Border security
- Social media censorship
- Legislative branch funding
- Family violence prevention
- Limiting access to school sports teams for transgender students
- Abortion-inducing drugs
- An additional payment for retired Texas teachers
- Critical race theory
- Other budgetary issues
See the full list from the governor's office here.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s agenda for the first special session does not include anything about the state’s electric grid, which was exposed as deeply vulnerable during February’s winter storm that left millions without power.
But Abbott can still decide to expand the agenda and include the power grid as a topic for lawmakers to tackle.
Redistricting has not been listed on the agenda for this month’s special session. However, it is expected to be addressed during a later session this fall.
Many readers asked about what the bill does, who it affects, and how likely it is to become law.
The final version of the bill from the regular session that ended in May would have created new limitations for early voting and further tightened voting by mail rules in a state where that voting option is already fairly limited. Republican lawmakers have said they will change some of the most controversial aspects of the bill, like provisions that would have limited early voting hours on Sundays and made it easier to overturn an election. But Democrats are worried conservatives will push even harder during the special session, where they might have more time.
“The risk that comes with some of the proposed restrictions is how they might compound the hurdles marginalized people already face in making themselves heard at the ballot box,” Tribune reporter Alexa Ura said in her Reddit discussion.
In its opening proposal for the special session, the House appeared to already have expanded the restrictions it passed during the regular session. House Bill 3 embraces several of the Senate’s earlier restrictions, including two targeting Harris County’s voting initiatives, and a new ID requirement for mail-in voting.
There are questions about what kind of impact Republicans’ restrictions may have on their own voters. Tribune reporter Alexa Ura said in her Reddit discussion said the clearest example of this is mail-in voting, which is a method of voting that was traditionally used by more conservative voters. Ura noted that more Democratic voters took the opportunity to vote by absentee ballot in 2020, but it is not clear if that trend will continue in elections after the pandemic.
The Democrats’ staged walkout during the regular session prompted a flood of national attention. They could do this again during the special session, and Democratic members have been clear this option is on the table.
But a quorum break only goes so far, Tribune reporter Alexa Ura said in her Reddit discussion. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott can always just continue calling special sessions.
While the Tribune does not have polling on the voting restrictions considered during the regular legislative session, recent polling showed that a large majority of Republican registered voters want voting rules to be more strict. Overall, 35% of registered voters last month said they would make voting rules more strict, while 29% would leave them as is and 26% would loosen them.
But, Tribune reporter Alexa Ura noted in the Reddit AMA, "only a small slice of the state's registered voters believe ineligible voters frequently cast ballots in Texas elections."
"Even among Republicans, a minority of voters — 31% — believe ineligible votes are frequently cast," Ura said. "In Texas, and nationally, GOP efforts to enact new voting restrictions have been largely built on claims that elections must be safeguarded from fraudulent votes, even though there is no evidence of widespread fraud."
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If you’re following the voting rights news of the week, you’ve probably seen that the Texas Legislature convened for a special session on Thursday. Even though the state’s legislative year has ended, representatives in the state House are now going back to work for previously unscheduled days in order to pass legislation deemed high priority by the governor. Special sessions can mean the difference between bills passing or dying — and the circumstances under which they are called can spell the difference between protecting or restricting voting rights. Today, we’ll explain what exactly a special session is and why they matter in the legislative process.
What are special sessions?
The legislative calendar differs significantly from state to state, but most share a common structure. A legislature has a set number of days in a “session,” during which they can propose, debate and pass bills to send to the governor. If a bill does not pass before the end of the session, it will have to wait until the following year to be reintroduced.
Most regular legislative sessions end before the summer, meaning that legislators stop work for the year around the same time that schools let out. As you might imagine, however, there can be a fair number of government priorities that legislatures don’t get around to tackling in just a few months of work — and if specific additional legislation still needs to be considered, the state government can convene for a special session.
Who can call a special session?
In 36 states, either the legislature or governor can call a special session. These sessions can take place whenever, but for the most part they are limited in their scope — the legislature may only debate the specific legislative priorities outlined when the special session was called. For these 36 states, this agenda can be set by either the governor or the legislature — meaning that if there is a divided government, branches controlled by either party can call their colleagues back to work in order to tackle pending legislation. In Hawaii right now, for example, the Hawaii Legislature has reconvened for a special session to override some of the governor’s vetoes. When either arm of government can call a special session, they both have a chance to pass priorities that were left off the table during the regular session — but in many states in the United States, this balance of power doesn’t exist.
In the other 14 states, only the governor can call special sessions, giving the executive and the party that they represent an outsized influence on the legislative calendar. Governors can use this to their advantage, holding legislatures hostage to their own agenda and forcing them to return to work if the governor’s preferred bills are not passed during the regular session. While this has obvious disadvantages for the party that doesn’t hold the governorship, it can also lead to intra-party disagreements. In Texas earlier this year, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) tried to push for a special session after legislation he had championed failed in the state House. Gov. Greg Abbott (R), however, was not similarly motivated to see these bills advance at the time. In response to Patrick’s efforts, Abbott made clear the power that governors in these 14 states have over the special session process: “Not only am I the only one with the authority to call a special session, I get to decide when, and I get to decide what will be on that special session. And here’s what I would do if anybody tries to force this,” Abbott said. “The only thing I will put on there are things that I want passed.”
What do this year’s special sessions mean for voting rights?
Currently, there are five states in special sessions right now, and many are still wrapping up their regular sessions. Each state is tackling a different agenda, but we’re keeping our eyes on Texas. When calling the session, Abbott released the legislative agenda for the Texas Legislature — a list that included elections legislation, which is a high priority for the governor after Democrats walked out of the chamber in May and denied Republicans the quorum they needed to pass their omnibus voter suppression bill, Senate Bill 7. The new bill that Republicans hope to pass during the special session, House Bill 3, includes many provisions previously considered in the regular session of the Legislature, including criminalizing the proactive distribution of mail-in ballot applications, banning 24-hour and drive-thru voting and adding ID requirements to vote by mail. Although the bill number may be different, the special session allows Republicans another shot at the same suppression efforts they were prevented from passing in the spring.
As lawsuits continue against voter suppression laws passed in the spring and Congress looks towards their impending recess, it’s vital to remember that Republican efforts to suppress the vote are still ongoing — and we must keep up the fight to protect voting rights no matter what.
Keep up with updates coming out of the special session in Texas on our page dedicated to breaking news alerts.