Sine Death To Democracy

The Texas Legislature called Sine Die on the 89th Second Special Session. How bad is the damage?

Two weeks into the 30-day special session, Republicans decided they’ve done all the damage they can do for now and called Sine Die late last night.

But did they pass flood relief?

SB3 mandates outdoor warning sirens in Texas flood-risk areas. It uses state grants to help pay for sirens, but makes them legally required for local governments in disaster-designated regions. SB5 is a funding bill for Texas’s FEMA match and disaster needs, gauges, as well as forecasting and weather technology.

Both of these bills passed both chambers unanimously.

Several bills regarding disaster preparedness died. Another bill that was debated aimed to synchronize communication equipment (walkie-talkies and radios) across agencies. That bill died, too.

SB1 prevents youth camps from getting licensed if cabins are in a floodplain. HB1 overlaps with SB1 but is somewhat broader in accountability and enforcement.

Is it enough? Would it have prevented the July 4th tragedies? Will it prevent more tragedies in the future? The sirens are needed. The gauges are needed. Changing the license and regulation requirements for youth camps is needed.

Republicans wanted to premise this special session (and last) as flood relief, even though it was all about a power grab for the pedophile protectors in DC. That was their “emergency items.” It ought to be enough for them NOT to call a third special session.

Vince Perez (D-HD77) was definitely the breakout star of the Second Special Session.

He did it again last night. Before Republicans called it quits on the Special Session last night, they introduced HR128 to “punish” would-be quorum breakers. Higher fines, censure, loss of seniority, loss of operating budget, loss of chairmanships, loss of parking places, and a bunch of other nonsense.

Representative Perez did not hold back. He reminded members that their oath of office wasn’t about perks or power, but about stewardship and that every seat in the chamber belongs not to the politician, but to the people who sent them there. Perez said, a direct attack on the communities Republicans don’t value, “not discipline for a member, but disenfranchisement for the people who sent them here.”

Then came the clash with Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R-HD94). True to form, Tinderholt tried to boil the whole debate down to money and duty. Where was Perez during the quorum break? Shouldn’t he be in Austin? Shouldn’t he pay taxpayers back for the per diem?

Perez wasn’t having it. He turned the conversation right back to the root cause: “The maps before this body were the most segregated since the 1965 Voting Rights Act,” he said. “It was my duty to stand up against that injustice.” Perez hammered Tinderholt for defending maps that give white Texans three times the political power of Latinos and five times that of Black Texans, calling it what it was. Structural disenfranchisement.

When Tinderholt pressed him on the $221-a-day per diem, Perez cut deep. “There are people in this chamber who collect the 221 bucks and are about as useful as the chairs they sit on,” he said. And reminded everyone (most of all Tarrant County residents) how Tinderholt is leaving the Legislature to run for a county commissioner seat stolen from the Black community.

Perez flipped the attack into a full indictment of GOP gerrymandering, racism, and small-minded politics. It was a reminder that while the GOP is busy rewriting House rules to punish dissent, Democrats like Perez are the ones reminding Texans why dissent matters.

So, what else did Republicans do in this special session?

They passed the gerrymandered maps. Then, a resolution was passed to punish would-be quorum breakers.

They passed HB8, which expands the STAAR test. Yes, you heard that right. Texans wanted the state to eliminate the STAAR test. Instead, they expanded it, quadrupling the number of tests students will have to take in a year. Every Republican voted in favor of it. The Democrats who joined them:

• Cesar Blanco (SD29)

• Chuy Hinojosa (SD29)

HB7 passed. This bill bans the manufacturing, mailing, prescribing, or distributing of abortion pills in Texas and creates $100,000 bounties on women who take them. Because our maternal mortality rate is higher in Texas than anywhere else in the developed world, and Republicans want more women to die. Chuy Hinojosa was the only Democrat who voted in favor of this bill.

Then, of course, the Republicans enacted the “Pee Pee Police” bill with SB8. This bill segregates bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and other multi-user facilities strictly by biological sex. While they haven’t done it yet, they always add to their oppression each session. So, if we don’t flip the House in 2026, expect that in 2027 Republicans will be looking to station a DPS officer at the door of every public restroom in Texas, to look under the skirts of suspected transgender women.

SB12 gives the Texas Attorney General direct authority to prosecute all criminal offenses under Texas election law. But now that Paxton’s leaving office, they’re just hoping to get lucky with another crook in office to target people of color and the elderly with made-up crimes again.

Of course, there was also HB25, which makes Ivermectin available over the counter.

SB54 makes it harder for voters who have recently moved to cast a full ballot because it would be a Legislative Session, special or regular, without some form of Republican voter suppression. Renters, students, and low-income people who move often will be disproportionately disenfranchised. Which means we have to work twice as hard to register those voters, y’all.

HB26 allows sheriffs and constables in Harris County to contract directly with local governments (cities, MUDs, school districts, etc.), property owners’ associations, and private landowners. It prohibits the Harris County Commissioners’ Court from stopping or restricting these contracts. HB192 prevents Harris County from reducing police budgets without a countywide election, as enforced by the governor’s office and comptroller. This is part of the broader GOP playbook to punish and control Harris County (the state’s most populous Democratic stronghold).

Then there was HB16, which flew under the radar despite its size. It’s a judiciary “clean-up and reorganization” bill. It makes hundreds of tweaks across the court system, touching everything from judicial districts to clerk duties, salaries, jurisdiction, and municipal court security.

SB18 creates a new permit exemption in Texas water law. It cuts regulatory red tape for small, locally operated flood-control dams. I see both good and the potential for harm in this bill, and I always worry about anything framed as “deregulation.” However, the Sierra Club testified in favor of it.

SB11 gives victims of sex trafficking a legal shield in court, ensuring that juries can consider coercion as a defense. It was ironic that it was passed, considering the party in charge is the same party protecting the Epstein pedophile ring in DC. But I suspect they just tacked this one in there to pretend like they were actually doing something good for the people of Texas.

When you stack it all up, Texans didn’t get real flood relief, didn’t get accountability, didn’t get protection from the next disaster.

What we got was more criminalization, more voter suppression, more privatized policing, more attacks on women, kids, and trans people, and more power consolidated in the hands of a Republican Party that governs like the Constitution is optional. This was a session about control. The fascist drumbeats of Republican rule grow louder with every session, every new map, every gag order on dissent.

So let’s call it what it was. Another round of Republican cruelty packaged as governance. And let’s pray it stays dead until 2027.