The Texas Legislature opens a special session Monday to take up more than a dozen items, but the topic on most people's minds will be the devastation and loss resulting from the July 4th flooding.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said, not long after the flooding, that the areas should have an early warning system when terrible floods threaten, and that the state should provide sirens that can be heard over many miles.
The special session, called by Governor Greg Abbott before the flooding, is limited to just 30 days, so the undertaking this time is quite ambitious, and lawmakers are limited to the agenda placed before them by the Governor, who's the only one authorized to add new items.
Lawmakers are, of course, aware that if they don't get the agenda done, Governor Abbott will likely call a second special session -- and since legislators only make a few thousand dollars a year, it's in their interests to get the assigned work done in the time required so they can go home for the rest of the summer.
Those lawmakers will take up 18 items in the agenda, including flood recovery money and help, assistance in setting up a communications network to help with emergency assistance during flood events and other natural disasters, and new ideas for simplifying disaster recovery disbursements and payouts, which often take months to reach victims.
Another topic often discussed is the agenda item that would allow for the elimination of the STAAR test, which lawmakers will be required to replace with an equally effective tool to monitor the progress of students and teachers as public education years pass by.
Perhaps the most controversial item on the agenda is the tasking of the legislature with developing a state policy on hemp and THC products, which would call for a ban on the selling of such products to anyone under 21 years of age.
While others will be closely watching efforts in this special session to impose spending limits on entities, such as county governments, that can levy and raise property taxes -- one legislator said last month that some lawmakers are watching Harris County, where a county leader is proposing raising property taxes in order to keep a child care program going.
And lawmakers will work on costs and impacts of some water wells and projects and will likely impose a fee on some of them -- and certainly not least among these bills, there will be efforts to pass a bill that would allow a greater defense to those who are being prosecuted for some crimes such as prostitution if those crimes can be proven to have been compelled by human traffickers, even if the traffickers only threatened the members of the families of those accused.