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The Blast: Sussing out Abbott’s emergency items [1]
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Date: 2025-02
Jan 31, 2025 | View in browser
By Renzo Downey and The Texas Tribune Politics Team
42 days until the 60-day bill filing deadline
122 days until sine die
A brief history and potential items On Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott will deliver his sixth State of the State address and announce his emergency items for the 2025 regular session.
Not only do emergency items outline his legislative priorities, but it allows the Legislature to pass bills on those subjects in the first 60 days of the session.
Briefly, here’s a history of Abbott’s emergency items from his first five State of the State addresses: 2015 : (5) Pre-K, higher ed research, transportation, border security and ethics reform
: (5) Pre-K, higher ed research, transportation, border security and ethics reform 2017 : (4) sanctuary cities, child welfare system, ethics reform, convention of states; bonus headline of announcing a hiring freeze
: (4) sanctuary cities, child welfare system, ethics reform, convention of states; bonus headline of announcing a hiring freeze 2019 : (5) teacher pay raises, school safety, mental health, property taxes, Harvey recovery
: (5) teacher pay raises, school safety, mental health, property taxes, Harvey recovery 2021 : (5) broadband access, defund the police, bail, election integrity and civil liability protections for businesses that were open during the pandemic
: (5) broadband access, defund the police, bail, election integrity and civil liability protections for businesses that were open during the pandemic 2023: (7) property taxes, ending COVID-19 restrictions, school choice, school safety, bail, the border and fentanyl Abbott got a little crazy with seven emergency items last time around, but it looks like he generally aims for five. There’s the mix of wonky, meat and potatoes-type of emergencies, but he also works in the hot-button issues of the day.
This year, there are a couple no-brainer emergency items Abbott could list. There’s “school choice,” specifically, Abbott’s push for universal education savings accounts that he says he finally has the votes for, and border security, with a focus on ways to potentially partner with the White House.
With ESAs, Abbott would be setting himself up for a victory that’s been years in the making. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick plans for the Senate to pass Senate Bill 2 on Wednesday, which will put the ball in the House’s court.
If he names the border as an emergency item, it would be the third time he does so. However, it would be the first time he gives border security that designation under a Republican president.
As both Abbott and President Donald Trump say, Texas now has a partner in the White House on border security. On Wednesday, Abbott ordered state agencies to cooperate with Trump’s deportation efforts and work with the federal government on physical infrastructure. The State of the State could also be an opportunity for Abbott to re-up his call for the federal government to reimburse Texas for $11 billion in border security efforts made during the Biden administration.
Abbott will once again take the State of the State on the road and is holding this year’s address at Arnold Oil Company in East Austin. That gives a hint that energy and business could be a key focus of Abbott’s speech.
Another place to glean potential emergency items is to look at Abbott’s recent actions and public communications.
In November, Abbott took pride in the Public Utility Commission’s nuclear reactor report, saying Texas is “ready to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power.” Since then, he has continued to hype up the grid and the energy sector. He’s held events on workforce initiatives and made clear his goals for “Y’all Street” to make Texas the headquarters for business.
At the start of the month, Abbott declared that Texas will be “the national blueprint for cybersecurity.” Last week, Abbott called for closing the “digital divide” with broadband and increasing water supply.
As for potential red meat items, look no further than Abbott’s directives to state agencies this week to eliminate DEI policies and recognize only two sexes.
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State of the State pitfalls This will be Abbott’s sixth rodeo. He knows the ropes by now. However, this year’s State of the State comes amid a national reset on politics, and that brings a new set of challenges.
With Republicans back in control of Washington and feeling empowered by the November election, the nation will no longer have to look to Texas and Florida as the conservative standard-bearers. For Abbott, that means finding new ways for Texas to lead.
But while Abbott’s instinct may be for Texas to lead, there are pitfalls in jumping ahead of the pace rabbit. Just look at Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis is in open war with the Legislature for the first time in his tenure. DeSantis said Florida needed to get out front on immigration policy, and legislative leaders, who said they didn’t want to undermine President Donald Trump’s plans, have put forward their own “TRUMP Act.” Now, the Legislature is already in their second special session of the year, and their regular session doesn’t start for another month.
The difference for DeSantis is he spent his political capital on a presidential primary challenge to the party’s big man. And now that he’s a term-limited lame duck with only two years left in his term, the 46-year-old governor has to recoup his influence to set himself for his next job.
Meanwhile, Abbott may be at his highest point of his career. Not only are Republicans more popular, but Abbott’s 55% approval rating according to the December Texas Politics Project poll is lower only than his April 2020 approval rating. He came off a successful primary cycle at the legislative level and helped flip three seats in the Legislature for Republicans. Now, it could be time to cash in that political capital.
The speech is an all-hands-on-deck moment in the governor’s office that is months in the making. It’s the biggest policy speech of each cycle and sets the tone for the session and the rest of his term. That means that everyone from the policy team to the legislative team to the comms team needs to be involved.
It’s also an opportunity for Abbott to involve his team of legislators whom he plans to work with to execute his plans.
About the rural Texans’ thoughts on ESAs Despite arguments that rural Texans oppose education savings accounts, a recent University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll finds that Texans in rural regions support the policy as much as those elsewhere — and that’s to say, a lot.
Anti-voucher Republicans in the Texas House say it’s what their constituents want. Rice University professor Mark Jones, one of the co-investigators on the Hobby poll, says he’s “never found polling to support that.”
According to the poll, 71% of rural and semi-rural county residents support ESAs for all parents. Overall, 67% of Texans support ESAs for all parents, with 31% strongly supporting the idea. ESAs get even more popular when limited to only low-income parents. 72% of Texans would support that proposal, with 41% in strong support.
The poll dropped on Tuesday, the same day the Texas Senate Education K-16 Committee teed up the Senate’s education savings account bill, Senate Bill 2, for the Senate floor. The committee advanced the bill 9-2, along party lines, making SB 2 the first bill out of committee in the 89th Legislature.
The poll also focused on Texans’ spending priorities for the state’s $24 billion surplus, and it all comes back to property taxes. One quarter named property tax relief as their top priority, and half listed it in their top three.
And interestingly, despite the increasing chatter around nuclear energy in political circles, only 15% of respondents listed creating a Texas nuclear energy fund in their top three priorities.
The poll was the first in a six-part series setting the table on Texans’ priorities. Thursday’s edition touched on immigration and border security. The final poll, however, will dive into the 2026 Republican Senate primary.
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Cracking open the Cuellar-Furman race, and 2026 A new Congress and president have been sworn in for weeks, and the election feels like ancient history now. But today’s FEC filings are giving us a chance to look back at what was one of the more interesting races of the last cycle.
Jay Furman, the South Texas Republican who ran a long-shot — but closer than expected — race against U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, ended the cycle with over $472,000 in debt, according to his latest filing that covers the post election period up until New Year’s Eve. That’s quite the pretty penny for someone who was not recruited to run by the national party and ran essentially his own operation. He finished the year with only $4,922 left in the bank.
Quick recap: National Republicans largely wrote off Cuellar’s race last cycle after their 13-point loss in 2022. Furman and a handful of other South Texas mavericks made a run for it anyway, without any support from the national party. But Cuellar’s stunning indictment of corruption and money laundering changed the calculus, making the district more interesting for Republicans in Washington. Sadly for them, the indictment came after the first round of voting in the primary, so Republicans weren’t able to recruit a more conventional candidate.
Furman was not a conventional candidate. He had no experience with elected office, was relatively new to the district and had been critical of House Republican leadership. The National Republican Congressional Committee still put the district on its target list, and he managed to raise a respectable sum of over $239,000, not including loans. It pushed Cuellar to spend over $2 million in what was supposed to be a sleepy cycle for him (he ended the cycle with no loans). But Furman was still a bit of a lone wolf, with muted involvement from the national party in his race.
Furman did receive $2,000 from the Come and Take It PAC, which is a leadership PAC associated with U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin. But the PAC gave more in the other, more competitive congressional races: $3,300 to U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz and $5,300 to former U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores of Los Indios in her attempted comeback versus U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen.
Who else could run in that seat? It’s early for anyone to be raising their hands, but Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina’s party switch last month could be setting the stage. He has some heavy-hitting strategists working with him. His press release announcing his party switch named some senior strategists who had worked for Sen. Ted Cruz as contacts — Axiom Strategies’ Nick Maddux and Sam Cooper. Tijerina hasn’t said anything about running for Congress, so this is pure speculation. But he does check a lot of boxes: former Democrat, longtime ties to the community, steeped in Laredo politics.
— Matthew Choi
HIDDEN IMAGE Senators still have not filed Senate bills 3-25, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s first round of priorities.
State Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, on Wednesday filed a bill and a proposed constitutional amendment to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Committee meetings: The Senate Finance Committee will meet at 9 a.m. to discuss Senate Bill 1. Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General Texas Civil Commitment Office Department of State Health Services Department of Family and Protective Services Special provisions relating to all Health and Human Services agencies
View the list of upcoming meeting notices here and here.
Floor meetings: The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. on Monday for the reading and referral of bills. The Senate will convene for real at 11 a.m. on Tuesday and likely pass SB 2 on Wednesday.
The House will convene at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 10 a.m. on Wednesday and 10 a.m. on Thursday. View the Senate floor calendars here.
HIDDEN IMAGE Gov. Greg Abbott today banned the use of Chinese AI and social media apps on state government-issued devices. In 2022, Abbott ordered all state agencies to ban TikTok from government devices. Additionally, Abbott today ordered RedNote, DeepSeek, Webull, Tiger Brokers, Moomoo and Lemon8 be added to the state’s prohibited technologies list.
today banned the use of Chinese AI and social media apps on state government-issued devices. In 2022, Abbott ordered all state agencies to ban TikTok from government devices. Additionally, Abbott today ordered RedNote, DeepSeek, Webull, Tiger Brokers, Moomoo and Lemon8 be added to the state’s prohibited technologies list. While we’re talking about Donald Trump as Texas’ federal partner on immigration, there’s also new Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem . The former governor of South Dakota sent National Guard troops to Texas and was one of several Republican governors who joined Abbott when he called them to the border. The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination over the weekend.
as Texas’ federal partner on immigration, there’s also new Homeland Security Secretary . The former governor of South Dakota sent National Guard troops to Texas and was one of several Republican governors who joined Abbott when he called them to the border. The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination over the weekend. The Texas Stock Exchange filed its Form 1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the application to register as a securities exchange. TXSE Group Inc says its initial $161 million in capital raised makes it the most well-capitalized exchange to ever file a Form 1, and includes investors like BlackRock, Citadel Securities, Charles Schwab and Susquehanna Private Equity Investments.
It’s not a beef yet, but Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is pushing back against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ban on Mexican cattle imports after a cow near the border had screwworm. “This ban is unnecessary and will drive up the price of beef for American consumers,” posted Miller. Texas’ Brooke Rollins will be the new USDA secretary.
is pushing back against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ban on Mexican cattle imports after a cow near the border had screwworm. “This ban is unnecessary and will drive up the price of beef for American consumers,” posted Miller. Texas’ will be the new USDA secretary. Former state Senate candidate Karthik Soora and a band of advocates yesterday launched the Houston Progressive Caucus.
HIDDEN IMAGE Former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan , R-Beaumont, will sit down with Evan Smith at the LBJ School on Tuesday at noon.
, R-Beaumont, will sit down with at the LBJ School on Tuesday at noon. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz will be keynote speakers at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Texas Policy Summit Feb. 19-21. Abbott will speak at the Wednesday lunch, Burrows is set for the Thursday breakfast, Patrick is on for the Thursday lunch and Cruz is scheduled for the Friday lunch, with a Friday breakfast speaker announcement still to come.
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(Jan. 31) State Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas
(Jan. 31) Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan
(Feb. 2) U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas
SPONSOR MESSAGES Free Press - Bari Weiss, Adam Carolla coming to Austin for a debate on February 27 at the Paramount Theatre. Tickets: thefp.pub/debate. Texas businesses are succeeding by expanding sales to over one billion consumers globally through Alibaba’s online marketplace. Learn more. Greater New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce - Engage with Texas’s most influential leaders, gain insights on critical issues, expand your network and celebrate excellence at the 59th annual Texas Legislative Conference in New Braunfels, Texas. Studio 919 is a 1,000 square foot meeting space in downtown Austin that offers a beautiful view of historic Congress Avenue just a few blocks from the Texas State Capitol. This space is ideal for meetings, cocktail receptions, film screenings, podcast recordings, live-streamed public events, panel discussions and workshops. Learn about the space here.
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