The Texas Tribune
On Monday, a day after Democrats abandoned the Texas House to block a sweeping elections bill, Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to defund a section of the state budget that funds the Legislature while raising questions about the separation of powers in Texas.
Abbott did not give additional details about how the veto would work, telling his nearly 600,000 Twitter followers only to “stay tuned.” The governor also said that lawmakers will be brought back for a special legislative session this year to pass the failed priority bills — in addition to another planned special session to redraw political maps.
But the veto announcement sparked concerns about the increasing encroachment by the state’s executive branch into the legislative branch’s purview. A governor targeting the Legislature’s budget would be unprecedented in Texas history, according to the Legislative Reference Library of Texas.
On top of funding the two chambers of the Legislature, Article X of the state budget also funds nonpartisan agencies that are crucial for policymaking. Several of these agencies would be crucial for the all-important redrawing of political maps that lawmakers are expected to take up in an already planned special session in the fall.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are worried about Abbott’s veto impacting workers in those agencies and other staffers. House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, said he shared the governor’s frustration, but that a veto would hurt the wrong people. Meanwhile, lawmakers, whose $600-per-month pay is written into the Constitution, would still get their paychecks. Read the full story by the Tribune’s James Barragán.
