AUSTIN (KRLD) - At an hour-long televised town hall meeting at the University of Texas at Tyler Thursday night, Governor Abbott was first asked about what the state was doing to address the cause of the shooting in El Paso that left 22 people dead. He said the State was addressing it head-on, citing his recent formation of the 18-member Domestic Terrorism Task Force which will meet quarterly.
"The beginning of that process happened yesterday (Wednesday) when for the first time in the history of the State of Texas a governor has used constitutional authority to create a task force dealing with domestic terrorists…to call this what it is and approach it for what it is, root out racist domestic terrorism, whether it be in El Paso or any other part of the State of Texas and make sure this never happens again."
Abbott added he'll announce another step in the process next week which will be another series of round table discussions similar to the process used to address school safety issues in the aftermath of the shooting at Santa Fe High School. He said these discussions will include the entire delegation of El Paso as well as other leaders from across the State of Texas.
"We will bring together the brightest minds to help us solve the issues to make sure that we are going to be able to address head-on what caused this deranged killer to go to El Paso to commit this killing and what we as a state can do."
When asked if he would be calling a special session of the State Legislature to address the problem Abbott said there was no need.
"It doesn't require a special session for Texas to act because we will act without a special session, but we will also be working between now and the next session (in 2021) to make sure we have the laws in place to keep El Paso safe and to keep Texas Safe."
When asked about whether he needs to act on the recent accusations of campaign finance violations and bribery against State House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, Abbott responded that it was pre-mature to take action as the Texas Rangers were investigating the situation.
"If they find out that anything bad happened, action needs to be taken. On the other hand, if after their investigation they say nothing bad or illegal happened, we need to move on."
During the remainder of the Town Hall Governor Abbott covered issues dealing with legislation recently passed in the 86th State Legislature. This included reforms to the school finance system, property tax reduction, border security and the legalizing of children's lemonade stands.
