Governor Abbott today laid out a strong conservative agenda for the 2017 session of the Texas Legislature in his State of the State address to a joint session, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Abbott's loudest applause came when he declared 'this will be the session that Texas outlaws Sanctuary Cities.'"Elected officials don't get to pick and choose which laws they will obey," Abbott said. "To protect Texans from deadly danger, we must insist our laws be followed."
Abbott also honored the police officers across the state who were ambush murdered in 2016, including San Antonio Police Detective Ben Marconi, and he called for crimes against police officers, simply because they are officers, to be declared 'hate crimes,' meaning the punishment level is raised one notch.
The Governor demanded a complete overhaul of Child Protective Services, pointing out that foster care children are 'dying' under the current system.
He called for a 'network of nurture,' led by local churches, to step in to help the state's foster chidren.
Another large applause line came when Abbott called for an expansion of public 'charter schools,' as a way to provide public school students a better education.
"We could more efficiently empower parents to choose the school that best fits their child's needs."
He also criticized the Legislature for not doing enough to fund accountable, high quality Pre-K education for every student whose parents want it.
The governor ordered an immediate hiring freeze for all state departments between now and when the current fiscal year ends on August 31, and said that will help the state reduce the size of its budget. He also called for a law ending the automatic deduction of union dues from their paychecks, saying state taxpayers should not be responsible for paying for unions collecting dues.
Abbott says teachers who engage in inappropriate should be fired and prosecuted, and he also called for school administrators to be prosecuted if they allow them to resign without punishment or notification.
But the strongest comments of all were when Abbott endorsed a very controversial proposal to cap the ability of city and county governments to raise property taxes, especially to take advantages of windfall increases in property values to reap huge increases in tax money.
"Your property tax bills often increase far faster than household income," he said. "No government should be able to tax people out of their homes."
Abbott called for a state imposed cap on local budget increases.
"We have to remember, property owners are not renting their land from the city. That is why we need property tax reform, which prevents cities from raising property taxes without first getting voter approval."
Notably, Abbott did not comment on the proposed 'bathroom bill,' which is a high profile item being pushed by Senate social conservatives. It would limit public and school bathroom use to the room that corresponds with the gender on the individual's birth certificate.
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