Gov. Greg Abbott is framing the special session that gets underway July 21 as a way to bring flood warning systems and monetary relief to the communities devastated by the Independence Day floods. The governor put the flooding first in a press release announcing the topics the Legislature will consider, saying legislators “must ensure better preparation for such events in the future.”
However, there are 14 items on Abbott’s list that are unrelated to the flooding. Among other things, the governor wants to pass a “bathroom bill” to force transgender Texans to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender at birth. He wants to restrict the distribution of abortion pills. He wants to stop cities from hiring lobbyists to advocate for them at the Capitol. He wants to regulate Texas’ $8 billion hemp industry. And he wants to satisfy Donald Trump’s demand that legislators redraw the state’s congressional districts, which could help Republicans pick up more seats in the 2026 elections.
State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, agrees that two of these items – providing flood relief and regulating the hemp industry – are worthy of a special session. And that’s it.
“Pretty much everything else on the call is chumming the political waters,” Eckhardt said. “I can only speak for myself, but I did not expect this total bow-down to Trump, this red-meat, stir-the-pot, completely politicized special session.”
The “bow-down to Trump” is the aforementioned redistricting of U.S. congressional seats on a map that is already farcically gerrymandered. According to news outlets, Trump’s advisers think redrawing the congressional boundaries can provide between three and five new Republican seats in the midterms. Last week, Trump’s Department of Justice sent a letter to Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton alleging that four Texas districts, three near Houston and one near Fort Worth, are illegally drawn on the basis of race, seeming to suggest that they are suitable targets for redistricting. Ironically, Texas Republicans have defended their most recent redistricting as “race blind.”
“Pretty much everything else on the call is chumming the political waters.” – State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, who represents the DFW district mentioned in the Department of Justice’s letter, described it as the dumbest message he’d ever heard. “I think it’s clearly intended to discriminate against communities like the ones that I represent in Dallas and Fort Worth that are largely Hispanic and Black, and the same with the ones in Houston,” Veasey told reporters. “I’m sure the memo was probably meant to help Greg Abbott out somehow, so he would have an excuse to call this.”
State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, told us that Abbott really did not need to call a special session to help the communities devastated by flooding. She said the governor has already designated them disaster areas, which gives him enormous power to provide aid.
“The governor has the authority to transfer funds and do just anything he wants to do without the Legislature being in session, including finding funds from some other source,” Howard said. “We saw this with COVID. We saw this with the border. He declared disaster areas for the border going all the way up into North Texas, and used them as an opportunity to create situations where the National Guard was going to be involved in enforcing immigration at the border.”
Howard pointed out that she and other members of the House voted overwhelmingly during the regular session for House Bill 13, a proposal that would have helped formulate emergency response plans for flood-prone areas and provide counties with money to purchase emergency communication equipment.
“The House passed it overwhelmingly, on a bipartisan basis,” Howard said. “The fact is that the House knew that we needed to be addressing these concerns, and did so, but the Senate didn’t even take this up.”
This article appears in July 18 • 2025.