Governor Greg Abbott issued a proclamation calling a special session of the Texas Legislature to convene at 12 p.m. Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, to consider legislation on youth camp safety, flood preparedness and response, emergency communications, property-tax relief and other subjects, the House clerk read during the session.

The proclamation, read aloud by the clerk, directed lawmakers to consider several priorities, including "legislation to ensure and enhance youth camp safety," measures to improve early-warning systems and flood-response infrastructure, proposals to reduce the property-tax burden on Texans and to impose spending limits on entities authorized to levy property taxes, and legislation to replace the state's standardized "STAR" test with other student-assessment tools. It also included items on hemp-derived products, protections for victims of human trafficking, restrictions on taxpayer-funded lobbying, and revisions to election-enforcement authority.

Why it matters: the proclamation sets the governor's agenda for the special session and authorizes the Legislature to take up a set list of topics rather than an open docket. The items named cover emergency response and recovery funding, public-safety and public-health rules, tax and school-accountability changes, and criminal and civil provisions that would affect a range of state and local actors.

During the reading, the clerk also presented a long list of bills on first reading and announced committee referrals. Examples the clerk read into the record include HB 1 (Darby) relating to youth camp emergency plans and preparedness; HB 5 (Bonin) regarding supplemental appropriations for disaster relief; HB 3 (King) on interoperability of emergency communications equipment and a Texas Interoperability Council; HB 6 (VanDeever) on regulation of certain hemp-derived products; HB 4 (Hunter) on congressional redistricting; and HB 58 (Gervin Hawkins) on training and credentialing for emergency-management personnel. The clerk said each bill was referred to the committee named in the reading.

No committee hearings, votes on the substance of the bills, or floor debate on the listed bills took place in the portion of the session recorded. The clerk's reading established which committees will receive the bills for further consideration.

Authority cited in the reading included specific constitutional citations and the governor's signature block: the proclamation references Article 3, Sections 5(a) and 40, and Article 4, Section 8(a) of the Texas Constitution and concluded with "Greg Abbott, governor."