Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott gave his State of the State Address in San Marcos, Texas at Noveon Headquarters. “The state, of our State, has never been more exceptional. Texans have inherited a legendary pedigree. A state first settled by brave pioneers willing to risk everything for the promise of freedom and opportunity. Texas is fulfilling that promise.”

Abbott was speaking inside the facility. Governor Abbott touted the Texas economy as the number 1 state to do business. “With the help of businesses like Noveon, Texas is number one in the United States for the most new jobs,” said Abbott. “Since I became Governor, Texas has added more than 1.9 million new jobs. We’re also number one for economic development, number one for exports, and number one for Fortune 500 company headquarters. Our $2 trillion economy makes Texas the ninth-largest economy in the world.” He commended large corporations in metro areas and small businesses in rural areas. 

But Abbott says there is more to be done. Abbott hinted at ideas as to how he plans to better strengthen and boost the Texas economy. One of which he wants to pursue is special courts that are experts in dealing with complex commercial litigation. Another is that the Governor wants to reward community colleges for focusing on promoting skilled laborers. 

After opening his speech and praising the Texas economy, the Governor addressed the crowd with his list of Emergency Items he wants to accomplish. 

An Emergency Item is the Governor’s way to show what his priorities are and allows the Legislature to quickly pass laws before they are legally allowed to. The Texas Legislature cannot pass bills during the first 60 days of session. However, if the Governor makes something an “Emergency Item,” the Legislature can pass bills on that issue early. While Abbott did talk about other issues he seeks to resolve, he only made the majority of them Emergency Items, and those are what will be highlighted below. 

The first Emergency Item Abbott spoke on was property taxes. “Hardworking Texans produced the largest budget surplus in Texas history. That money belongs to the taxpayers. We should return it to you with the largest property tax cut in the history of Texas.”

In his official proposal for solutions, Abbott wants to use $15 billion of the state’s $33 billion budget surplus to cut property taxes. He is also focusing on lasting property tax relief. One thing he proposes is to lower M&O rates by increasing the tax rate compression. However, that will cost billions of dollars. Additionally, he wants to increase the business personal property tax exemption.

On the local level, Abbott recommends making the local governing body need a ⅔ supermajority to pass local government debt and local bond issues that are not on a November ballot have to require a ⅔ supermajority of local voters. 

The next Emergency Item that Governor Abbott moved to was prohibiting any government from implementing mask and vaccine mandates, and from closing businesses or schools because of Covid. Abbott has again enacted the Covid disaster declaration for the month of February. Although many people consider the pandemic to be officially over, Governor Greg Abbott has made it clear that he does not plan to relinquish his emergency Covid powers until the state Legislature can put it into law that would prevent forced Covid mandates by any local or state institution. He has made this an Emergency Item.

“Ending the disaster declaration would terminate the executive orders that protect Texans’ freedom by suspending the power of local governments to require masks, compel vaccinations, and close businesses,” said the Governor in his disaster declaration. “I intend to keep these executive orders and suspensions in place until the Legislature can enact laws this session to prohibit local governments from imposing restrictions like mask mandates and vaccine mandates…renewing the disaster declaration in no way infringes on the rights or liberties of any law-abiding Texans…”

Abbott has been an advocate for the freedom of choice in Covid issues. He has banned mask mandates in public schools and won a court case over it. He has also been preventing municipalities from forcing Covid measures such as vaccine mandates or mask mandates. Added onto the Item is Abbott wants the Legislature to create safeguards for what Texas should do in the case of another pandemic. 

Abbott followed with another Emergency Item: Parental Rights in Education. Abbott commended the public education system in Texas for being the top state with Blue Ribbon Schools and having the best graduation rates in the country. “We must ensure that our education system works for every child in our state. Thanks to legislators, per-student funding is at an all-time high,” said Abbott referencing the Texas Legislature in 2019 raising student allotment and increasing funding for public schools. “We’ve provided more funding for public education and more funding for teacher pay raises than ever in the history of our state. And this session, we will add even more.”

However, Abbott took the time to talk about his proposal for Education Savings Accounts. The Texas Governor pulled stories from different families, stating that they were frustrated their child was not performing well during online teaching, political agendas pushed on kids, and certain needs were not addressed by the school. 

Abbott wants to implement Education Savings Accounts to expand school choice for every Texas student. ESAs are programs where the government takes a portion or all of the allotment towards a child, and places it in a fund for parents to use for private education, resources, etc. 

Abbott hinted that he would use an ESA design to promote school vouchers during a parental freedom rally in Corpus Christi. He has been pushing for parental rights in education through school vouchers.

Abbott brought up the ESA program that he implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic that was specifically for special needs students. Now, he wants to expand that to every Texas child. A bill proposed in the Texas Legislature, Senate Bill 176, would give families $10,000 per child a year for private school costs, from the Texas Government. The government will have to gather and allocate those funds from somewhere.  Many Texans are skeptical of the practice and see it as a hit to public school funding. He says that schools will be fully funded. But does not say that they will not lose money.

Besides ESAs, Abbott notes in his Emergency Item that he would like to see a change in an amendment to the Texas Constitution so that parents are the primary decision-makers in their child’s education.

Addedly, he wants to reform curriculum, have schools better inform parents of their rights and allow parents to have access to the curriculum and school libraries, let parents decide if their child should repeat a grade, and create an efficient way for parental grievances to be addressed quickly and respectfully.

Furthermore, he seeks to strengthen consent requirements for health services and protect students’ personal data from anything outside of the school system. 

Abbott then spoke on school safety, making this issue an Emergency Item, as well. How he seeks to do that is to increase school funding for safety and security improvements, technology, and mental health resources. Other solutions are to codify the intruder audit detection process, school campus maps for law enforcement, and utilize the new Chief of School Safety and Security to oversee new mandates and reforms. 

Another Emergency Item Abbott highlight was, in his words, to stop the revolving door bail that allows dangerous criminals back onto the streets. “Harris County’s revolving door bail practice is literally killing people. In just two years, more than 100 people were murdered in Houston by criminals who were let out on multiple felony bonds.” His proposals are to amend the Texas Constitution to allow judges to deny bail to the most violent offenders and hold judges and attorneys accountable for compromising the safety and security of Texans. 

Securing the border also made Abbott’s agenda for Emergency Items. “During the prior administration, we had the lowest illegal crossings in decades, but this past year, the United States set a record for the most illegal crossings ever.” 

Abbott commended Texas’ efforts to stop illegal immigration and highlighted Texas’ official border wall being built. On the issue, Abbott wants to allocate $4.6 billion more in funding towards Operation Lone Star, which has already amassed over $4 billion and funds and has taken hundreds of millions of dollars from other programs. 

Abbott wants to make it into law that a 10-year minimum sentence would be handed down to any US citizen caught smuggling across the border and increase the penalties for operating stash houses. Abbott also wants to increase intelligence operations and penalties against foreign terrorist organizations as well.

Lastly, Abbott made fighting fentanyl an Emergency Item. Abbott started the OnePillKills campaign that sought to make more people aware of fentanyl. “To end cartel killings of Texans, we must do two things: call fentanyl deaths what they are — poisonings — and prosecute them as murders. We must also increase the supply of lifesaving NARCAN, so we can save more Texans who are ambushed by fentanyl.”

The Texas Governor wants to classify fentanyl overdoses as poisonings and prosecute dealers of fentanyl (or drugs laced with fentanyl) with murder charges if the person they sold to, dies. Abbott also wants to Increase the availability of Narcan to prevent overdose deaths