
By Jonathan Tilove – American-Statesman Staff
The day before the summer special legislative session began, Gov. Greg Abbott warned lawmakers that he would be keeping an eagle eye on how each of them voted on his 20-item agenda.
“I’m going to be establishing a list,” Abbott said. “Who is for this, who is against this, who has not taken a position yet. No one gets to hide.”
The morning after the Legislature finished its work, having enacted only half of the governor’s agenda and not his top priority of property tax reform, Abbott went on the air and made it clear who sat atop his naughty list — House Speaker Joe Straus — and argued that the future of Texas depends on either changing Straus or changing speakers.
“If we are going ensure that Texas remains the model for governance in the United States of America we must always be passing laws that constrain spending, that reduce regulation. It’s those two pieces, along with cutting taxes, that attract and expand the Texas economic environment,” Abbott said Wednesday on KYFO-AM in Lubbock. “We’ve got to make sure we have the current speaker support those principles or we’ve got to get the votes in the House to make sure we get those principles passed.”