Gov. Greg Abbott announces special legislative session starting Saturday, covering elections, federal COVID-19 funding, quorum rules

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday that the second special legislative session will begin at noon Saturday — and with an expanded agenda.

The 17-item agenda still includes well-known Abbott priorities like the election bill that caused House Democrats to flee the state at the start of the first special session, which ends Friday. But it also features six additions, including the spending of federal COVID-19 relief funds and potentially changing the legislative rules regarding quorums.

There is also a new item on public education during the pandemic, an increasingly salient issue as parents prepare to send their kids back to school with the virus on the rise again in Texas.