• Summary: With less than two days left, the 4th Special Session of the TX 88th Legislature has yet to pass any meaningful solutions to Gov. Abbott's assignments of SCHOOL CHOICE and BORDER SECURITY. In fact, the end of November, when the Texas House killed SCHOOL CHOICE, again, Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Patrick, US Senator Cruz, and many GOP leaders started a campaign of endorsing candidates who are running against the GOP Texas House Representatives who voted against SCHOOL CHOICE. / WPC will update and repost this blog as new information develops.
• Latest Update: reposted 05 December 2023; 09 November 2023
Special Session 4 , 88th TX Legislative Session
"News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising." Attributed to William Randolph Hearst *
Update: Tuesday, 05 December, 2023, 5:48 PM Texas Legislature adjourns fourth special session — leaving vouchers, school safety and elections bills unfinished, The Texas Tribune, 05 December 2023
Update: With a week left, the 4th Special Session of the TX 88th Legislature has yet to pass any meaningful solutions to Gov. Abbott's assignments of SCHOOL CHOICE and BORDER SECURITY. In fact, the end of November, when the Texas House killed SCHOOL CHOICE, again, Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Patrick, US Senator Cruz, and many TX GOP leaders started a campaign of endorsing GOP candidates who are running against GOP Texas House Representatives who voted against SCHOOL CHOICE.
Hours after the 88th TX Legislature Special Session 3 expired, Gov. Abbott called for Special Session 4 and limited its scope to School Choice and related issues and to Border Security and related issues.
General Research
• Texas Legislative Reference Library > Special Sessions of the Texas Legislature > 4th Special Session
• Schools (school vouchers, school choice, public school funding, teacher pay raises)
• Willow Park Civics Blog > Schools. Special Session 4, 88th TX Legislative Session
• Willow Park Civics Blog > Schools. Special Session 3, 88th TX Legislative Session
• Willow Park Civics Blog > Schools, Students, and Education, 88th TX Legislative Session
• Border Security (border wall, illegal immigration)
• Willow Park Civics Blog > Border Security, Special Session 4, 88th TX Legislative Session
• Willow Park Civics Blog> New Border Laws passed by Special Session 3, 88th TX Legislative Session, 27 October 20203
• Texas Legislative Reference Library > Special Sessions of the Texas Legislature > 4th Special Session
• Willow Park Civics Blogs> Special Session 3, 88th TX Legislative Session index
• Willow Park Civics > Voter Support > Texas Legislature > 88th TX Legislative Session
General Articles
See above WPC's Blogs for articles on specific bills.
• Texas Legislature adjourns fourth special session — leaving vouchers, school safety and elections bills unfinished, The Texas Tribune, 05 December 2023
The fourth special legislative session ended Tuesday when the House adjourned without taking action on some key bills the Senate had passed, leaving senators with little choice but to adjourn as well.
It concluded much like it began, with no deal on school vouchers, other Republican priorities sunk by intra-party fighting and a governor unable to broker peace between the feuding heads of the legislative chambers.
The latest casualties were Senate Bill 5, which would spend $800 million on school safety measures through 2025, and Senate Bill 6, which would change the timeline of a trial after an election contest is filed by a citizen or group.
• With GOP priorities unfinished, Texas House plans to wrap fourth special session Tuesday, The Texas Tribune 02 December 2023
The decision to end work Tuesday leaves long odds for bills to boost school safety funding and make sure that election challenges don’t delay the implementation of property tax cuts, teacher pension raises and infrastructure spending.
Speaker Dade Phelan has told House members that the lower chamber will wrap up its work for the fourth special legislative session on Tuesday — potentially spelling doom for a handful of unfinished bills that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is pushing to pass.
The decision means that, unless the House makes a last-minute maneuver to approve them, time will run out in this session for measures to increase school safety funding, create a new school voucher program and ensure that new property tax cuts and teacher pension raises aren’t delayed by an election challenge.
Tuesday is the second-to-last day lawmakers can meet before the constitutionally required 30-day deadline for a special session. In a memo to members Saturday, Phelan indicated that it was the only day next week that they would meet. And the chamber has given no indication that it would take up any of the major pending bills, instead notifying that it will consider congratulatory and memorial measures.
That means a handful of proposals are in peril. The most notable might be Senate Bill 6, which proposes to adjust the timeline of a trial after a citizen or group files a suit contesting an election result.
• Texas Senate Passes Measure to Expedite Election Challenges, Texas Scorecard 02 December 2023
With just days left in the legislative session, the Senate passed a last-minute change to state law expediting challenges to election contests in constitutional elections. It was filed on Friday, moved quickly through committee, and passed through the Senate within a matter of hours.
The legislation, authored by State Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), would lower the time period following an election during which a trial can be held from 180 to 50 days. It would also establish a 30-day deadline for challenges to be heard by appellate courts and the Texas Supreme Court.
The legislation is in response to a series of six lawsuits filed following the November constitutional election, challenging the results based on the certification of the voting machines used. The results of this election—including property tax relief— cannot be certified until those lawsuits are resolved.
While the issue is not on the current agenda for the special session, Governor Greg Abbott is reportedly prepared to add it if the Senate and House can agree on legislation.
• Texas Senate Passes School Safety, Election Security Bills in Final Days of Fourth Special Session, The Texan , 02 December 2023
Challenges to November's constitutional amendment election have prompted questions about election security.
• Likelihood of Fifth Special Session Uncertain, The Dallas Express, 28 November 2023
• Will Abbott Call Another Special Session?, Texas Scorecard, 27 November 2023
With Thanksgiving having ome and gone, giving a short reprieve to the special sessions in the state legislature, lawmakers are set to return this week. When they left town, the Texas House had voted to kill Gov. Greg Abbott's main reason for having the special session in the first place: implementing a school choice program.
The session is set to end on Dec. 6, and many are wondering if Abbott will force lawmakers into another round of legislative action.
At different times, Abbott has given different answers on the possibility of additional special sessions. Ahead of the third special session, Abbott indicated he would call lawmakers back for two additional sessions.
More recently, Abbott said he would keep calling lawmakers back if school choice did not pass. “We’d be spending December here, maybe January here, maybe February here.”
But after the House gutted the plan, Abbott instead offered a blanket endorsement for any Republican who did not outright oppose his measure.
If Abbott does call a fifth special session, it will be only the second time a governor has called five special sessions. The current record is six, called by Gov. Bill Clements in 1990.
• Texas House, Republicans and Democrats, Refusing To Show Up For Special Session, Texas Scorecard, 11 November 2023.
• Tarrant County GOP Urges Gov. Abbott to Fix Primary Elections, Texas Scorecard, 09 November 2023, Excerpts.
The county GOP is asking for legislation to keep 2024 Republican Primary Election expenses down.
Yet, according to Tarrant GOP Chairman Bo French, the law appears to have "inadvertently struck a provision in the existing law that applied to all counties and allowed a political party conducting a primary election to combine election precincts to avoid unreasonable expenditures for election equipment, supplies, and personnel."
As a result, Tarrant County could be required to set up approximately 400 Election Day polling locations for the primary.
Legislation was filed in the third special session to address the problem. French wants Gov. Greg Abbott to include that fix on the agenda for the fourth special session. Otherwise, French says, Tarrant County and the local GOP might be required to "defy state statute" or sue to block the new law.
• Texas' part-time Legislature has been at it all year. Now they're heading into a rare fourth special session, The Texas Tribune. 08 November 2023. Excerpts.
A full 30-day session amounts to about $1 million in per diem payments to lawmakers, which are meant to cover their expenses in Austin.
When Texas lawmakers started their fourth special session Tuesday evening, they also made a bit of history.
Never before has the governor called a fourth special session the same year as the regular session, underscoring the gridlock Gov. Greg Abbott has faced this year as he has pushed lawmakers to pass his priorities.
• Abbott calls lawmakers back for fourth time to try again on school vouchers and border security, The Texas Tribune, 07 November 2023. Excerpt. The governor announced the fourth special session would start an hour after the previous session adjourned.
• Gov. Abbott calls fourth special session after House kills school choice bill, The Center Square, 07 November 2023, Excerpt.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday called the fourth special legislative session of 2023 after the House killed a school choice bill passed by the Senate and after the legislature remained deadlocked over border security bills during the third special session.
The fourth special session was called to begin at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Election Day.
“The Texas Legislature made progress over the past month protecting Texans from forced COVID-19 vaccinations and increasing penalties for human smuggling,” Abbott said in his announcement, referring to the legislature in the third special session passing only two bills that made it to Abbott’s desk.
• Abbott Calls Fourth Special Session on School Choice, Border Security, Texas Scorecard, 07 November 2023.
The Texas governor says there is more work to be done.
As the third special session of the Texas Legislature came to an end yesterday, Gov. Greg Abbott immediately called lawmakers into a fourth last night. ...the agenda is strikingly familiar [to the third special session].
The governor wants lawmakers to work on school choice and border security. Both issues are widely popular with voters and taxpayers in Texas, but lawmakers have had trouble getting substantive measures to the governor's desk.
• Abbott Calls Fourth Special Session as Third Ends, Dallas Express. 07 November 2023
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