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The Blast - June 23, 2025 [1]
['The Texas Tribune']
Date: 2025-06
“WHERE HAS HE BEEN ALL SESSION?”
Just as the 2023 special sessions began with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick digging in against Gov. Greg Abbott, the 2025 special session season appears to be beginning on the wrong foot.
In a press conference about 13 hours after Abbott vetoed the THC ban, Senate Bill 3, Patrick accused the governor of blindsiding him.
“What puzzled me was, the last time I talked to the governor in the Capitol before session, he said, ‘Don’t worry about the bill.’ He said, ‘Your bill is fine.’ That’s what he told me in front of witnesses,” Patrick recalled. “Where has he been all session?”
He said Abbott didn’t give him a courtesy call or ask for a final defense of the bill.
In a response to the Tribune, Abbott’s spokesperson did not address Patrick’s accusation that Abbott had backtracked on THC, but he said the governor is looking forward to working with the Legislature on the matter.
“Governor Abbott has always shared the lieutenant governor’s desire to ensure that THC products are not sold to our children and that the dangerous synthetic drugs that we have seen recently are banned,” spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said. “SB 3 was well intentioned but legally flawed and this is why he is putting it on the special session agenda so that it can be fixed, improved and signed into law.”
It’s a little reminiscent of the 2023 fight over property taxes, when Abbott swooped in to mediate the disagreements between the House and the Senate in the final run-up to sine die and endorsed a compression-only approach during the special sessions.
On the first day of the first special session, Patrick noted that the governor had “finally shown his cards.” In a press conference the following week, Patrick suggested the governor arrived late to the debate, perhaps without bearings on the situation.
“Suddenly, he said, ‘this is my plan.’ I don’t know if he knows what’s in the plan, and if someone told him otherwise, they’ve given him bad advice.”
The fight was the first time he and the governor had disagreed publicly, at least to that extent.
But Patrick also seemed to have public opinion on his side during the property tax fight. When it comes to a THC ban, polls show that Patrick is in the minority of Republican voters.
The phrase “nanny state Dan” has entered the public discourse. One Capitol insider described Patrick as being “so far off the public’s pulse” on THC. Another added that Patrick looks “unhinged” compared to Abbott.
And as for Patrick’s complaints about Abbott weighing in late on THC, several insiders say it wasn’t an unusual move by the governor.
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