Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick stated he’ll transfer to power an additional time session of the Legislature if lawmakers fail to ban THC or tighten Texas’ bail legal guidelines — two of his prime priorities — earlier than the present session ends in early June.
The facility to order lawmakers again to Austin for a particular session is reserved for Gov. Greg Abbott, who additionally will get to set the agenda for such additional time rounds. However in his function presiding over the Texas Senate, Patrick can block any invoice from passing, giving him leverage to compel particular periods by killing must-pass laws.
Patrick did precisely that in 2017, thwarting passage of a “sundown” invoice that will have prolonged the lifetime of a number of state businesses, together with the Texas Medical Board, after the Home declined to take up measures curbing property tax charges and requiring transgender individuals to make use of public restrooms based mostly on “organic intercourse” fairly than their gender identities.
In an interview, Patrick affirmed that he would go an analogous route this session if the Home declines to get on board along with his precedence invoice to clamp down on the state’s exploding hemp market by banning merchandise that include tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.
“There aren’t many belongings you go down that path for, however the life and well being of individuals is one,” Patrick instructed The Texas Tribune on Wednesday. “I couldn’t, in good conscience, go away right here realizing if we don’t do one thing about it within the subsequent two years — what number of children get sick?”
Patrick and Senate lawmakers are taking intention on the roughly 8,300 Texas retailers that promote a variety of hemp merchandise — from gummies to drinks to flower buds — underneath a 2019 state legislation that approved the sale of consumable hemp. Patrick and Sen. Charles Perry, the Lubbock Republican who carried the 2019 legislation, say the hemp trade has exploited a loophole in a invoice that was supposed to spice up agriculture by permitting non-consumable merchandise with small quantities of delta-9 THC.
Whereas hemp merchandise aren’t allowed to include greater than a 0.3% focus of THC — something larger is classed as marijuana — Patrick and Perry contend that the trade has endangered public well being by placing merchandise on the shelf with dangerously excessive ranges of THC properly past the 0.3% threshold.
Perry’s proposal this session, referred to as Senate Invoice 3, would successfully shutter the hemp trade by making it unlawful to own or manufacture merchandise containing THC outdoors the state’s restricted medical marijuana program.
It’s already handed within the Senate, however awaits motion within the decrease chamber the place trade leaders are hopeful Home members will push for stricter oversight and licensing necessities in lieu of banning THC merchandise altogether.
Patrick stated he would invoke the nuclear choice of forcing a particular session over something lower than an outright ban.
“You simply can’t regulate it. You’ve gotta take it out,” Patrick stated. “You’re by no means going to have the ability to regulate it.”
Patrick didn’t say which payments he would possibly use to compel Abbott to name lawmakers again, however he has quite a lot of hostage choices. Amongst them is the two-year state funds, the one merchandise the Legislature is constitutionally required to go every session. Patrick raised the opportunity of holding the funds hostage in 2017, although it was the sundown invoice that in the end led to a particular session.
A handful of key businesses are additionally up for sundown evaluation this yr, which means they’ll stop to exist until lawmakers go laws extending their life till the following periodic evaluation. These businesses embody the Texas Division of Legal Justice, the Texas Ethics Fee, the Division of Info Sources and 4 regional water authorities, which distribute water and function key infrastructure across the state.
Patrick additionally stated within the interview that he’d power an additional time session if the Legislature did not amend the state’s bail legal guidelines to maintain sure prison defendants in jail as they await the decision of their instances.
“Individuals are dying due to points with bail,” he stated.
Republicans have tried for a number of periods to stiffen state bail legal guidelines within the Texas Structure, which ensures defendants the appropriate to pretrial launch besides in restricted circumstances, like for capital homicide expenses. Proposals to offer judges extra discretion to disclaim bail have died quite a few instances within the Home, failing to obtain two-thirds assist wanted to alter the state structure.
The Senate handed two measures final month that will amend the Texas Structure to permit judges to disclaim bail to defendants accused of homicide, aggravated kidnapping, theft or assault with a weapon, and that will prohibit judges from providing bail to undocumented immigrants charged with a felony. To go the Home, every measure will want assist from not less than 12 Democrats, assuming all 88 Republicans within the chamber are current and vote for the amendments.
“These are points that I feel now we have to face up for,” Patrick stated. “There are many coverage points that we will argue that’s good or dangerous, however placing killers and rapists and youngster intercourse offenders behind bars … shouldn’t be that massive a difficulty.”
Home Democrats have launched their very own modification to increase the instances during which judges might deny bail. The proposal takes a extra “narrowly tailor-made” method, making use of to fewer instances than the Senate model with the intent of specializing in “probably the most violent offenders,” stated Rep. Ann Johnson, the Houston Democrat who authored the measure.
The Home prison jurisprudence panel mentioned the proposals final week however left them pending in committee for now.
About 70% of Texas’ jail inhabitants is pretrial, which means they’re presumed harmless and haven’t but been convicted of the crime for which they’re locked up. That quantity has doubled during the last 25 years, pushing county jails previous their capability and main some to maneuver their pretrial detainees to non-public prisons in neighboring states.
Critics of the Senate’s bail measures argue that rising pretrial detention would pressure crowded and understaffed jails, with out bettering public security. Democrats have raised considerations with the payments, arguing that denying bail on account of a defendant’s immigration standing is probably going unconstitutional.
This isn’t the primary time Patrick has raised the specter of forcing a particular session over his precedence payments. He appeared to depart the chance open within the closing days of the 2021 session, and threatened to take action once more in 2023, saying, “I can’t name a particular session, however I can create one by not passing a key invoice that has to go.” In each instances, Abbott ordered particular periods with no need a prod from Patrick.
This text initially appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/27/texas-legislature-thc-ban-dan-patrick-special-session/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and fascinating Texans on state politics and coverage. Be taught extra at texastribune.org.
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