Texas Gov. Greg Abbott denied accusation on Thursday that he had threatened GOP lawmakers into voting for House Bill 2. Credit: Instagram / governorabbott

Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s political successes, such that there have been many, come down to his deliberative nature and his tireless fundraising, according to political observers.

However, Texas’ Republican governor has shown himself to be an abject failure when it comes to dealmaking, that most necessary of political assets. His strategy for forging compromise in the Texas Legislature seems to come down to “Talk tough and keep calling special sessions.”

Observers have long noted Abbott’s reclusive nature and his urge to rule by edict, perhaps holdovers from his time serving as a Texas Supreme Court justice and attorney general.

“It’s kind of like dealing with Sasquatch,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller once told Politico. “They know he’s out there, but no one ever sees it.”

Nowhere has that lack of dealmaking skill been on more glaring display than during Abbott’s quixotic quest to get the Texas Legislature to pass school voucher legislation.

After touring the state to make stiff and awkward stump speeches about “school choice,” thus staking enormous amounts of his political capital on vouchers, Abbott’s shown no ability to get shit done.

Other governors have tried and failed before him, and he’s shown little progress in overcoming the deep-seated opposition of Democrats and rural Republicans in the Texas House. Their concerns remain the same: that vouchers rob money away from already-strapped public schools so some urban Texans can send their kids to private campuses.

After bragging at the end of a third special session he’d called to get vouchers passed, Abbott declared that he’d finally bagged a deal to sway House holdouts. That turned out not to be true. Oops.

So, last week he called a fourth special session — a move no governor has made in the same year as the regular session.

The mood in the state capitol has grown “dour,” the Texas Tribune reports. San Antonio’s Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who heads the House Democratic Caucus, described the gov’s action as “the highest level of gubernatorial obstinance.”

Hardly a way to win friends and influence people, to quote Dale Carnegie. Or to get vouchers passed.

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