Texas special session 2025: Flood relief, THC regulation, property taxes and GOP-led redistricting push

CBS News

2 days ago

The 30-day special session of the Texas Legislature is set to begin Monday, July 21. The agenda includes 18 legislative priorities determined by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Several of the priorities listed address the recent devastating floods in Central Texas. Also on the list is regulating hemp-derived THC, property tax relief and a highly controversial proposal to redraw Texas's Congressional map in the middle of the decade.
Following Abbott's announcement of the agenda, the Texas Democratic Party released a statement criticizing him for including flood relief in the upcoming special session agenda, arguing he already has the emergency authority to provide aid without legislative approval.
"This session will be costly to Texas taxpayers and appears to serve Republican special interests rather than Texans," the statement said. "Texas leadership should be laser-focused on flood relief and prevention. Any attempts to pull attention away from these relief efforts are a gross injustice to all of the Texans affected by this natural disaster."
Eye on Politics reporter Jack Fink spoke with Jasper Scherer, politics editor at the Texas Tribune, and Brad Johnson, senior reporter at The Texan ahead of the packed session.
"It's pretty bold," Johnson said. "I'm not sure how they're going to get all this done in the span of 30 days ... this is quite a slate even for a regular session."
Scherer agreed that the session seems heavy with "lots of lots of kind of long time conservative wish list items that the governor's thrown on."
"It's going to be fascinating to see if they can get any of it done," he said.
Abbott placed four items on the agenda related to flood and disaster response efforts including flood warning systems, flood emergency communications, relief funding for Hill Country flood and natural disaster preparation and recovery.
More than 100 people are dead and dozens remain missing after catastrophic flash floods swept through Central Texas over the July 4 weekend, making it the second-deadliest flood disaster in Texas history. The Guadalupe River surged more than 26 feet in just 45 minutes, overwhelming communities in Kerr County and beyond.
Kerr County, the epicenter of the devastation, did not have warning systems along the Guadalupe River due to local concerns about cost.
In separate interviews for Eye On Politics, Republican state Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston and Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso said they agree with comments made by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in the wake of the flooding that the state can foot the bill for flood warning systems.
Another item on the agenda is the regulation of hemp-derived THC products.
The legislature passed a measure known as SB 3 during the regular session, heavily pushed by Patrick, that would have banned nearly all THC products. Opponents argued that the bill would kill a booming industry in Texas and cost tens of thousands of jobs, and take away access to products used by veterans and others as alternatives to opioids for pain relief.
Abbott sided with the opponents, vetoing SB3 and instead calling for legislation that would regulate the products and prohibit their sale to people under 21.
Democratic state Rep. Mihaela Plesa of Dallas told Jack in a one-on-one interview Texas should look to neighboring states as a model.
"We need to make sure that veterans have access to the medicines they need, and people who are chronically ill have that freedom." Plesa said. "Oklahoma has a medical cannabis program that also has something like regulations of THC and low-dose hemp and the delta-8s and delta-9s. Louisiana has a program as well, and so does New Mexico. So I think that we can just look at our neighbors' needs to see what they're doing, what works for them, and how they're protecting their consumers."
In asking state lawmakers to redraw the state's congressional districts, Abbott cited a letter he and Attorney General Ken Paxton received from the U.S. Department of Justice on July 7.
The letter claimed that four House districts with majorities of people of color, and all held by Democrats, were racial gerrymanders in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Critics and redistricting experts have raised doubts about that argument; In an ongoing federal lawsuit against the existing congressional map, the state has argued race was not a factor in drawing district boundaries.
Last month, the New York Times reported that President Trump wanted Abbott to call a special session so lawmakers could create additional Republican districts to help the GOP retain its narrow majority House of Representatives. The president's party almost always loses seats in Congress in the midterms; Democrats gained 41 House seats and the majority in 2018, Mr. Trump's first term, and Republicans picked up 9 seats to claim the majority in 2022, during President Biden's term.
Most lawmakers contacted by CBS News Texas either declined to comment on the New York Times report or said they did not know anything other than what was reported.
Mr. Trump himself said recently that he wants a "simple redrawing" of Texas' congressional map where Republicans pick up five seats.
Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison of Ellis County filed 10 bills concerning property tax relief, including proposing a constitutional amendment to abolish ad valorem taxes altogether. In a previous interview for Eye On Politics, Harrison said he believes that property taxes didn't go far enough in the regular session.
"We did absolutely nothing meaningful on property taxes," Harrison said. "Ask any property taxpayer in the state of Texas if they believe the legislature succeeded this session, I can tell you what the answer is going to be no."
"If they gave us one job this session, it was to cut their property taxes immediately and put our state on a path to full elimination. And quite frankly, I offered budget amendments over 30 of them on our budget, and I identified $90 billion that we could cut out of our budget and we could have cut people's property taxes in half, or about 40% almost immediately," he said.