Multiple States Convene Special Legislative Sessions on Redistricting, Budget, and Other Issues

Texas held multiple special legislative sessions beginning in mid-2025 and continuing into 2026, called by Governor Greg Abbott, addressing redistricting, flood response, THC regulation, and bills left unresolved from the 89th Regular Session during which Abbott signed 1,155 bills and vetoed 28. A first special session in August 2025 focused on a GOP-backed congressional redistricting plan intended to add five Republican U.S. House seats; most Texas House Democrats left the state to deny quorum, prompting Abbott to call a second 30-day special session. The Texas Senate passed the map with two Democrats present, but the House required all members to return before final passage; Democrats, led by House Minority Leader Gene Wu, ended their roughly two-week walkout and returned to the Capitol, stating they would challenge the new maps in court.,,A federal three-judge panel later reviewed whether Texas could use the newly drawn congressional map for the 2026 election, marking the first legal test of the districts following the summer 2025 conflict. Separately, Texas Policy Research reported that the redistricting effort followed a 2024 Fifth Circuit ruling in Petteway v. Galveston County, which struck down coalition-district precedent under the Voting Rights Act, and that the Department of Justice had identified four congressional districts it considered unconstitutional coalition districts requiring redraw. In Wisconsin, the governor called two separate special sessions—one on a constitutional amendment to ban partisan redistricting and another on spending down the state's budget surplus—both of which convened in April and May 2026 and ended without resolution by May 14, 2026. In Nevada, lawmakers during a special session advanced AB4, a crime bill amended before an Assembly vote, along with a companion measure SB9, and separately addressed legislation targeting corporate ownership of single-family homes.,,As of the latest reporting, the Texas congressional map's legality for the 2026 election remained under judicial review, with no final court ruling confirmed in the supplied materials. Wisconsin's redistricting and budget-surplus special sessions concluded without legislative action, leaving those issues unresolved. Nevada's crime and housing-related bills were still moving through the legislative process at the time of reporting, with no confirmed final passage noted. The exact status of Texas's THC regulation bill after committee approval, and the outcome of Democrats' promised legal challenge to the congressional maps, remain unconfirmed by the available sources.