Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says he’ll push for special session if THC ban, bail changes fail

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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he will move to force an overtime session of the Legislature if lawmakers fail to ban THC or tighten Texas’ bail laws — two of his top priorities — before the current session ends in early June.

The power to order lawmakers back to Austin for a special session is reserved for Gov. Greg Abbott, who also gets to set the agenda for such overtime rounds. But in his role presiding over the Texas Senate, Patrick can block any bill from passing, giving him leverage to compel special sessions by killing must-pass legislation.

Patrick did exactly that in 2017, thwarting passage of a “sunset” bill that would have extended the life of several state agencies, including the Texas Medical Board, after the House declined to take up measures curbing property tax rates and requiring transgender people to use public restrooms based on “biological sex” rather than their gender identities.

In an interview, Patrick affirmed that he would go a similar route this session if the House declines to get on board with his priority bill to clamp down on the state’s exploding hemp market by banning products that contain tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

“There aren’t many things you go down that path for, but the life and health of people is one,” Patrick told The Texas Tribune on Wednesday. “I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave here knowing if we don't do something about it in the next two years — how many kids get sick?”

Patrick and Senate lawmakers are taking aim at the roughly 8,300 Texas retailers that sell a range of hemp products — from gummies to beverages to flower buds — under a 2019 state law that authorized the sale of consumable hemp. Patrick and Sen. Charles Perry, the Lubbock Republican who carried the 2019 law, say the hemp industry has exploited a loophole in a bill that was intended to boost agriculture by allowing non-consumable products with small amounts of delta-9 THC.

While hemp products are not allowed to contain more than a 0.3% concentration of delta-9 THC — anything higher is classified as marijuana — Patrick and Perry contend that the industry has endangered public health by putting products on the shelf with dangerously high levels of THC well beyond the 0.3% threshold.

Perry’s proposal this session, known as Senate Bill 3, would effectively shutter the hemp industry by making it illegal to possess or manufacture products containing THC outside the state’s limited medical marijuana program.

It’s already passed in the Senate, but awaits action in the lower chamber where industry leaders are hopeful House members will push for stricter oversight and licensing requirements in lieu of banning THC products altogether.

Patrick said he would invoke the nuclear option of forcing a special session over anything less than an outright ban.

“You just can’t regulate it. You’ve gotta take it out,” Patrick said. “You’re never going to be able to regulate it.”

Patrick did not say which bills he might use to compel Abbott to call lawmakers back, but he has a number of hostage options. Among them is the two-year state budget, the only item the Legislature is constitutionally required to pass each session. Patrick raised the possibility of holding the budget hostage in 2017, though it was the sunset bill that ultimately led to a special session.

A handful of key agencies are also up for sunset review this year, meaning they will cease to exist unless lawmakers pass legislation extending their life until the next periodic review. Those agencies include the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the Department of Information Resources and four regional water authorities, which distribute water and operate key infrastructure around the state.

Patrick also said in the interview that he’d force an overtime session if the Legislature failed to amend the state’s bail laws to keep certain criminal defendants in jail as they await the resolution of their cases.

“People are dying because of issues with bail,” he said.

Republicans have tried for multiple sessions to stiffen state bail laws in the Texas Constitution, which guarantees defendants the right to pretrial release except in limited circumstances, like for capital murder charges. Proposals to give judges more discretion to deny bail have died numerous times in the House, failing to receive two-thirds support needed to change the state constitution.

The Senate passed two measures last month that would amend the Texas Constitution to allow judges to deny bail to defendants accused of murder, aggravated kidnapping, robbery or assault with a weapon, and that would restrict judges from offering bail to undocumented immigrants charged with a felony. To pass the House, each measure will need support from at least 12 Democrats, assuming all 88 Republicans in the chamber are present and vote for the amendments.

“Those are issues that I think we have to stand up for,” Patrick said. “There are lots of policy issues that we can argue that’s good or bad, but putting killers and rapists and child sex offenders behind bars … shouldn’t be that big an issue.”

House Democrats have introduced their own amendment to expand the cases in which judges could deny bail. The proposal takes a more “narrowly tailored” approach, applying to fewer cases than the Senate version with the intent of focusing on “the most violent offenders,” said Rep. Ann Johnson, the Houston Democrat who authored the measure.

The House criminal jurisprudence panel discussed the proposals last week but left them pending in committee for now.

About 70% of Texas’ jail population is pretrial, meaning they are presumed innocent and have not yet been convicted of the crime for which they are locked up. That number has doubled over the last 25 years, pushing county jails past their capacity and leading some to move their pretrial detainees to private prisons in neighboring states.

Critics of the Senate’s bail measures argue that increasing pretrial detention would strain crowded and understaffed jails, without improving public safety. Democrats have raised concerns with the bills, arguing that denying bail due to a defendant’s immigration status is likely unconstitutional.

This is not the first time Patrick has raised the specter of forcing a special session over his priority bills. He appeared to leave the possibility open in the final days of the 2021 session, and threatened to do so again in 2023, saying, “I can’t call a special session, but I can create one by not passing a key bill that has to pass.” In both cases, Abbott ordered special sessions without needing a prod from Patrick.

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