In an initial agenda, Gov. Greg Abbott bulleted six bills that he either vetoed or took no action on that would take priority. They included the THC ban, property rights, water project funding, human trafficking penalties, cement kiln operations and state judicial branch operations. A later version of the agenda, released July 9, included 12 more items, four of which were notably related to natural disaster preparations and flood warnings.
"We delivered on historic legislation in the 89th Regular Legislative Session that will benefit Texans for generations to come," Abbott said in a release. "There is more work to be done, particularly in the aftermath of the devastating floods in the Texas Hill Country. We must ensure better preparation for such events in the future."
Decade-old debates, like gendered bathroom qualifications and abortion accessibility, have made their way back to the agenda yet again, and a few unexpected last-minute entries are on there, too.
On Monday, the House Committee on Agriculture and Livestock convened to discuss the New World screwworm crisis brewing in the southern tip of Mexico.
On Wednesday, the House Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding will take up the first marquee issue of the summer, though it was just recently added to the to-do list. Invite-only testifiers will speak about the state’s response to the July 4 flooding. Later that day, Rep. Stan Kitzman will hold a press conference on the Texas Compassionate Use Program, or medical marijuana. And on Thursday, the House will have its first called session.
But in between the limelight agenda items, our legislators will make time for some lesser publicized, but urgent issues. Here are five of them:
The STAAR Test
Standardized testing is hotly debated nationwide, and a Republican-led effort to eliminate the state’s existing system gained traction in 2025. House Bill 4, filed by Rep. Brad Buckley, would have dismantled the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) and replaced it with three smaller tests taken throughout the year. The bill, which is moderately partisan, nearly passed in the regular session, but the House and Senate failed to jointly approve an identical version before the legislative deadline.Abbott named the subject matter in his proclamation, resurrecting the issue for the special session. Support for removing STAAR testing is widespread and Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde wrote an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News in support of HB 4.
“We all know STAAR creates undue pressure on students and teachers, narrows curriculum and incentivizes test-taking strategies rather than authentic teaching and learning,” she wrote. “In addition, STAAR measures only a portion of state standards, with passing scores determined after all tests have been scored. STAAR is even unable to measure how much a student learns and grows over the course of one school year.”
More Abortion Legislation
Despite Texas Republicans and pro-life advocates having a momentous victory with the passage of the Texas Heartbeat Act during the 87th Legislative Session in 2021, they still have their sights set on further preventing the limited sources of reproductive care in Texas. A handful of bills were filed this session that would introduce penalties for people who assist in the procurement of abortive care, narrowly clarify when doctors are able to perform life-saving abortions and introduce further hurdles in distributing and consuming abortion-inducing drugs.Some passed, some didn’t, but Texas lawmakers will never pass up an opportunity to further debate the shrinking legality of abortion, and they will do so again soon.
Addressing Human Trafficking Victims
Abbott vetoed Senate Bill 1278 before naming it in his special session agenda. The bill, filed by North Texan Sen. Tan Parker, would have allowed victims of human trafficking to use duress as a legal defense against crimes committed under the coercion of their trafficker.The governor poked holes in the bill, claiming it offered far too much security to victims of sex trafficking, particularly protections from violent crime charges.
“That means a person could be immune not only for acts of prostitution that are linked to their own prior victimization, but also for raping a child, murdering a law enforcement officer, or engaging in acts of terrorism,” he wrote in his veto. “We can and should recognize that victimization begets more victimization. But legal responsibility cannot always be passed off to someone else.”
The legislature will be tasked with reworking the bill into a more “narrowly tailored” version that Abbott can sign into law.
Bathrooms. Again?
Here we go. During this special session, our lawmakers will spend even more time than they already have hammering down who can go into which bathroom, locker room, cell block and any other "sex-segregated spaces." The topic mirrors a national crackdown on gender ideology, limiting federally recognized sexes to "immutable biological classification as either male or female.""Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers," reads a White House executive order. "This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being."
Police Personnel Records
Two companion bills, House Bill 2486 and Senate Bill 781, would create a shadow documentation system that prohibits public disclosure of unsubstantiated complaints in police personnel records. Critics raised concerns about how the bills might violate Brady and Giglio legal obligations for prosecutorial evidence disclosure, and a late amendment to SB 781 aimed to rectify this, but ultimately failed. Officer records have been a contentious topic after several national reports of excessive force by officers with prior complaints. But the Combined Law Enforcement Agencies of Texas named the bill one of their top priorities ahead of the regular session, and claimed the bills wouldn’t change much for a few big Texas cities.
"What you're looking at in this bill is identical to Chapter 143 of the Local Government Code," Jennifer Szimanski, the deputy executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Agencies of Texas, said to CBS Austin. "It doesn't change anything for Fort Worth officers, it doesn't change anything for Austin Police officers."
