As was rumored yesterday, late Wednesday night, the second special session was brought to a close early after a flurry of activity on the final day during which some, but not all, GOP priority legislation made the finish line. It's hard to look at the two special sessions and not see them as essentially steamrolling any Democratic resistance. While we have celebrated the quorum break and the opportunity it provided for the nation to recognize the threat of partisan mid-decade redistricting as a pre-emptive attempt by Donald Trump to avoid the blowback resulting from the first two years of his second term, as Kayla Guo and Alejandro Serrano at the Texas Tribune put it, the two special sessions culminated in a host of socially conservative priorities that had long failed to reach the governor’s desk, and unprecedented retribution leveled against the minority party.

House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, oversees roll call on the House floor in Austin on Sept. 3, 2025. Credit: Kaylee Greenlee for The Texas Tribune

Flood Response Stalled in House

Starting with flood relief, which ended up a mixed bag as the session ends early - Ayden Runnels at the Texas Tribune says the lege did pass several bills aimed at improving the state’s flood infrastructure and the safety of camps located in or near floodplains, but didn’t manage to get around to SB2, which was meant to address the shameful shortfalls in emergency response that undoubtedly allowed the July 4 flood to cost more lives than it should have. SB2 was supposed to create licensing and registration requirements for local emergency coordinators and disaster volunteers, and establish a mass-casualty disaster training program for certain justices of the peace. It was approved by the Senate last month, but the two chambers could not agree on changes made since then in the House.

Dan’s Ban Dies, Again

Moving to the demise of SB 6 - or, as we’ve affectionately come to call it, Dan’s Ban - the near-complete ban on THC products that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been curiously fixated upon since the beginning of the year. Patrick shoved it through the regular session, then it was vetoed by Governor Abbott, and then it was resurrected in the special sessions…only to be left on the cutting room floor, it would appear. S.E. Jenkins at CBS Texas says Dan worked on his Ban up to the very end, but apparently couldn’t get enough of his fellow republicans on board with the goofy-assed notion that THC is killing Texas children by the truckload. So, the various THC products made legal in Texas via a loophole in hemp legislation championed by Republicans in the 2023 regular session remain legal today as Dan’s Ban finally fails, but one item of note should you partake:  THC vape pens are now illegal in Texas due to a new law from the regular session that took effect on Monday.

Sue Thy Neighbor Redux

Also passed in the Senate yesterday the new ban on abortion medication in Texas, complete with what has become a standard Republican vigilante clause pitting Texans against each other as neighbors are encouraged by possible legal windfalls to peep into one another's most private of possible decisions. This represents a significant attempt by abortion rights opponents to expand their fight into states where the procedure remains available, as pharmaceutical companies in states friendly to reproductive freedom can be sued by Texans under this bill, as can delivery services like UPS and Fed Ex. Governor Abbott is all but certain to sign it - and one wonders where the anti-abortion movement may turn next.

Bathroom Bill Passes

Also passed in the Senate last night, the long-dreaded bathroom bill. Republicans have been working on this one for a decade, but you might not know that by how completely absurd and unworkable it is. Governor Abbott is all but certain to sign SB 8 anyway, and Texas will become the 20th state with this silliness on the books, and not to be topped, the most financially punitive of all of them, says Kate Sosin at The 19th - the bill sets a $25,000 fine for any government agency or public institution, such as a school or university that fails to enforce the policy, and a $125,000 fine for a second offense. Seeing that this applies to government buildings in particular, it’s possible that the state of Texas itself could end up on the losing end of one of these fines - it will be interesting to see how exactly they plan to enforce it. The most cruel aspects of SB8 are that it will also force transgender Texans into prison and jail housing corresponding with their sex assigned at birth, and will also keep trans women out of domestic violence shelters designated for women - in short, hard as it might be to picture, it’s about got even less safe to be a transgender person in Texas.

Activists occupy the women's restroom on the first floor of the Texas Capitol Aug. 22, 2025 after the House State Affairs Committee heard testimony for a legislative proposal limiting transgender peoples’ use of bathrooms in government buildings. Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune

Three Strikes on Police Bill

Also on the final day of the second session, HB 15, the bill designed to allow Texas law enforcement agencies to conceal officer complaint records from the public and the press went down in flames, Bayliss Wagner at the San Antonio Express News says the issue there was an impasse between the two chambers over whether or not to grant exceptions to crime victims and their families - those involved in the Uvalde mass shooting as a prime example. The House wanted those exceptions, but the Senate did not, so as the clock ran out the bill died - of course, in Texas we should say, it died for now.

East Texas Water Grab

One more of note for our East Texas friends, but really for everyone who’s concerned about the impending shortage of water that threatens just about every part of the Lone Star State: Megan Kimble at the Houston Chronicle says a bill meant to delay a massive groundwater grab in East Texas by a Dallas investor failed as well. You might recall that, this last spring, a plan to pump and export huge amounts of East Texas ground water by two companies tied to Kyle Bass of Dallas came to light and caused a massive stink. Legislation put forth by Palestine State Rep. Cody Harris was designed to stop that plan until studies could be done, but Harris blames Senate meddling for the bill’s eventual failure. He notes that this doesn’t just affect East Texas, but also any other part of the state without specific protection from high capacity groundwater pumping in place. As we’ve noted repeatedly, when the water’s gone, Texas is gone.

MORE Quorum Break Punishment

Finally, back to the quorum break which, while it did raise the alarm about Trump’s gerrymandering power grab, it also did close to zero to stop this massive wave of MAGA lunacy from hitting the governor’s desk. Still, even an attempt at resistance that largely proved unfruitful has provoked dire wrath from a GOP majority that does not tolerate dissent. Aarón Torres at the Dallas Morning News says the closing day of the second session also saw the passage of cranked-up penalties against future quorum breakers, placing upon them severe limits on fundraising, increasing the daily fine for being absent, allowing those AWOL to be stripped of chairmanships and vice chairmanships, and stripping a member’s seniority by two years for every single day they’re out to break quorum, which would severely undermine that lawmaker’s office and parking privileges. A quorum break - a perfectly legal and common legislative move, one of the last tools of resistance the Democrats have, and which in this most recent case didn’t accomplish much of anything at home - just got a lot more difficult to employ. We'll see in the coming months, as other states resort to redistricting and reciprocal redistricting, whether or not the Texas quorum break of 2025 was worth it - and if Texas progressives, Democrats and Independents have had enough, and vote the bums out in 2026. 

 

 

 

 

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