After Texas was rocked by back-to-back mass shootings, some of the state’s top Republican leaders promised change. Gun safety advocates and Democratic lawmakers hoped gun violence prevention might become a priority. Yet the legislative session that just wrapped moved in the opposite direction.
ROSS RAMSEY
The strangest regular session in the modern history of the Texas Legislature is ending, but the pandemic shadow that darkened these proceedings isn’t finished with the state’s government and politics.
Texas might be moving from a weird legislative session into a strange political cycle.
Because of the pandemic, the Legislature’s work isn’t done. And because that work isn’t done, the issues and the political fortunes that will be in play in the 2022 election year are uncertain.
COVID-19 delayed last year’s census. Because those numbers won’t be ready for four months, lawmakers didn’t have the data needed to draw new political districts for the state’s 38 U.S. House seats, 31 state Senate and 150 state House spots, and the 15 seats on the State Board of Education.
Texas might be moving from a weird legislative session into a strange political cycle.
Because of the pandemic, the Legislature’s work isn’t done. And because that work isn’t done, the issues and the political fortunes that will be in play in the 2022 election year are uncertain.
COVID-19 delayed last year’s census. Because those numbers won’t be ready for four months, lawmakers didn’t have the data needed to draw new political districts for the state’s 38 U.S. House seats, 31 state Senate and 150 state House spots, and the 15 seats on the State Board of Education.