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Power struggle: Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick again at odds over who’s in charge in Texas

Patrick’s call for a special session to rescue transgender sports bill, two others popular with GOP activists, leaves Abbott with three options – none of them, appealing, analysts say.

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott faced only tough choices after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick early Wednesday demanded an overtime session next month.

With Patrick stirring up outrage among the Texas GOP’s staunchest conservatives, none of three options before the Republican governor was appealing.

Initially, Abbott stalled for time. Two hours after Patrick’s tweet demanding a special session, Abbott responded with a tweet and a press release saying that there remains ample time “to get important conservative legislation to my desk.” The session ends Monday.

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But that was for public consumption.

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If no last-minute deals are cut to placate Patrick, Abbott must decide what to do about the lieutenant governor’s unwelcome demand that he call lawmakers back in June.

It’s unwelcome because Abbott already had a victory tour of sorts planned: Reenactments of bill signings, before TV cameras around the state, to showcase “big” conservative achievements in the session.

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Later next month, a fundraising ban in state law that includes and bookends legislative sessions will expire. And Abbott’s eager to get back to what he does especially well – vacuuming up greenbacks to supplement an already stout campaign cash balance of nearly $40 million.

Patrick demanded a June special session to revive three “red meat,” GOP-base priority items killed in the House.

The bills, which seemingly died when they weren’t brought up before a Wednesday night deadline but could be revived through parliamentary sleights of hand, include a bill targeting transgender student-athletes, and two others banning taxpayer-funded lobbying and social media censorship.

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“He rightly understands Texans expect the Legislature to get the job done on time,” former Abbott deputy chief of staff Matt Hirsch said of his former boss’ scant appetite for overtime sessions. “He’d rather be out there shining a spotlight on the members and all the positive legislation they were able to get across the finish line.”

Potential responses

Abbott’s response options appear to be:

1. Ignoring Patrick and keeping his eyes on November 2022. That’s when the vast majority of Texans, who aren’t up on all of the GOP’s inside baseball, will decide if he deserves a third term. The gubernatorial brush-off could include some tut-tutting: You lawmakers had 140 days and didn’t get your work done. See you in the fall when we do redistricting.

2. Acceding to Patrick’s demand, which some might see as caving and a display of weakness. Still, if lawmakers acted quickly enough, they might pass the bills on lobbying and social media before the state’s business community becomes engaged, and warns that they’ll stink up Texas’ business-friendly national image.

3. Lifting a page from his own playbook, Abbott could respond to the lieutenant governor as he did in a parallel situation four years ago. In 2017, Abbott had little choice but to grant Patrick’s wish for a special session, to allow more time to try to pass a transgender bathroom bill and tighter revenue caps on local property taxes. But Abbott did it in a way that underscored he decides such things, not Patrick. This year, Abbott could widen the special-session agenda beyond what Patrick is seeking – perhaps even upping the ante by adding the electric grid and chastising Patrick and Speaker Dade Phelan for weak efforts to prevent future blackouts.

In the session’s waning days, a special session’s likelihood could hinge on shuttle diplomacy among the state’s “Big 3” leaders.

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Face-saving becomes paramount. But there are lots of parliamentary intricacies involved, too, especially if the Legislature’s reigning Republicans are divided. If some are tempted to defy leadership by siding with Democrats, many of whom are raw from previous conservative victories this session, that could thwart attempts to stave off a special session.

“I wouldn’t count on a June session yet,” said Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak.

Enough time remains for “creative solutions” and horse-trading that gets top GOP leaders at the Capitol “to ‘yes’” on some of the three issues Patrick raised, he said.

“The lobbying one is really important because it’s been a multi-year effort,” Mackowiak explained. “The other two are fairly new – in terms of being more broadly understood. They’re all important. They’re all priorities. They’re going to give activists something to gripe about if they don’t get done.”

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As the state’s most popular Republican politician, Abbott could let Patrick’s complaint roll off his back – and probably do more than just survive, said longtime Democratic analyst Harold Cook.

That’s even though Dallas businessman and former state Sen. Don Huffines has announced he’s running at Abbott from the right in next year’s GOP gubernatorial primary.

Cook, who worked for Democrats in the Legislature from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, said Abbott’s not capable of ignoring his right flank.

“It would be very unlike him to just blow something off and to say this threat from the right wing, it doesn’t affect me at all – because that’s never what he concludes,” he said.

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Rice University political scientist Mark Jones, though, said Abbott faces little threat of real harm if he ignores Patrick’s demand.

Mostly symbolic

The three Senate-passed bills the lieutenant governor’s complaining about are mostly symbolic, and Abbott can blame Phelan and House Calendars Committee Chairman Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, for setting them late on the calendar – and thus making them ripe targets for Democrats’ stall tactics, he said.

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“If you’re Abbott, you’ve delivered the heartbeat bill, you’ve delivered constitutional carry, and you’re on track to delivering election integrity,” Jones said. He referred to measures restricting abortions to the first six weeks of a pregnancy, eliminating current requirements of training and background checks for licenses to carry handguns and increasing penalties for election-law violations and tightening distribution of applications for mail-in ballots.

“I don’t think many people are really going to worry too much about taxpayer-funded lobbying, an anti-social media law or some minor restrictions on UIL athletes,” Jones said.

To GOP activists, “Abbott can say, ‘We will be having a special session in the fall. If lawmakers are able to get the map-making done and then get the allocation of the federal money done, then perhaps we can entertain other items’ – knowing full well that between redistricting and the allocation of those federal funds, that will take most if not all of those 30 days,” Jones said. He referred to the length of special sessions and lawmakers’ demands to be in on deciding how to spend $16 billion of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief money for states.

“But he can always put it off for now by leaving a glimmer of hope that we might be able to return to other legislation,” Jones noted.

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Another reason to rebuff Patrick? “Regardless of what actually you put on, it won’t be enough,” Jones said. “That is, you’ll always leave something off that Huffines will be able to use against you.”

If Abbott did yield and call an overtime session, giving lawmakers an “F” for their work on the winter storm would be shrewd, Jones said.

“You’d be able to flip things on the policy side and say, ‘This [electricity] legislation didn’t go far enough and we could have power outages because of it.’ And therefore he’s not to blame if there’s power outages, it’s the Legislature, it’s Dan Patrick and Dade Phelan.” Abbott, though, could offer an olive branch, saying, “Once that passes, we can start talking about other issues. … He can determine the agenda selectively and sequentially,” Jones added.

Abbott also could appeal to voters’ desire not to be paying lawmakers their $221 a day “per diem” stipends for living expenses when they’re in session, the professor noted.

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It costs taxpayers about $1 million to hold a 30-day special session. That was the estimated cost in 2017 for a summer special session.

On Wednesday, House business office aides said that with lawmakers’ salaries fixed by the state Constitution at $7,200 a year, the only increases in costs would be from per diems that are up slightly over 2017, and COVID-19 mitigation costs.

In 2017, Patrick forced the special session by ensuring the demise of a bill that would keep the Texas Medical Board and four licensing boards for mental health therapists up and running. Patrick was upset about the House’s failure to pass the bills restricting transgender Texans’ use of bathrooms and growth of localities’ revenues from property tax. Abbott responded by putting those and 18 other items, including teacher pay raises and pre-emption of local ordinances against tree-cutting, on the agenda of a special session that started in mid-July.

In the end, the bathroom bill and revenue cap tightener failed, though about half of Abbott’s items were passed.

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About-face

One reason Patrick’s about-face on Wednesday rocked the Capitol is that just last weekend, he was exultant.

“Heartbeat! Constitutional Carry & Critical Race Theory Ban!” was the subject line of his campaign’s email blast on Saturday. Patrick called it “a great week for conservative victories!”

Early Wednesday, though, soon after the weekly Big 3 breakfast, Patrick went public with his displeasure over the seeming demise of Senate Bill 29, the transgender sports measure. It would prevent transgender youth in Texas from competing on teams that align with their gender identity. In his tweet, Patrick called it the bill “to save girl sports.”

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The University of Houston’s Renée Cross, though, said she doubts most Democrats favor the three bills Patrick wants to revive.

Abbott and Patrick have had their ups and downs, Cross noted. This may be a down phase in the relationship between Texas’ top two Republicans, she said.

“I don’t think that they are in the midst of a bromance, and I don’t think they ever will be,” said Cross, senior director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs.

“Obviously, Patrick is pushing Abbott to being just as far right in the party as he is. Plus, Patrick knows that Abbott has a credible primary opponent, one that has access to money – if maybe not $40 million off the bat. He’s pushing him to get what he, Patrick, wants. He’s not overly concerned about what happens to Abbott.”

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Inside the Capitol, but in another direction, Patrick is clashing with Phelan.

But he also clashed with former GOP speakers Dennis Bonnen and Joe Straus, Phelan’s direct predecessors, noted Cook, the Democratic analyst.

“Honestly, Dan Patrick’s relationship is strained with everybody a lot of the time,” he said.

As for Abbott, his paranoid style may be the secret to his success, Cook said.

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“That may be precisely the reason he isn’t in trouble with the base is because he’s always afraid that he’s about to be,” Cook said.