Abbott will lay out his agenda for the session — including his list of “emergency items” that he believes lawmakers should prioritize. In Texas, lawmakers cannot take up legislation for votes on the House or Senate floor in the first 60 days of the session unless it is germane to one of the governor’s emergency items. In 2017, Abbott listed four emergency items during his State of the State address:
- Banning “sanctuary cities”
- Overhauling the child welfare system
- Ethics reform
- Approving a resolution to support a convention of states to amend the U.S. Constitution
The governor is widely expected to feature property taxes and school finance reform on his emergency agenda — but he hasn’t given any public hints on what else could be on his list. You can watch his speech here or on our session livestream page. We’ll add the video embed once Abbott’s address is live.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2019/02/04/watch-texas-greg-abbott-state-of-the-state/.
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