This event of omission happened without any news story that I could find, so I’m going to start with a tweet.
The election code dictates that if you must order a special election to be placed on the general election ballot, you must do so by the 78th day before the election.
For the November 3 election, that was Monday August 17th.
The Governor ordered the special election for State Senate District 22 at 3pm on Tuesday August 18th.
This is in violation of the election code.
The Governor ordered the special election for State House District 93 at 12pm on Thursday August 20th.
This is in violation of the election code.
The Governor didn’t post the HD93 order to his website or inform the county of the ordered election.
This is in violation of the election code.
The county received the order TODAY at 11:32am.
So, in this instance, Judge O’Hare is not to blame. My information I received yesterday was incorrect.
But the question for Republicans is:
Your Governor is either incompetent or malicious. Or both.
Which do you prefer?
— Dr. Allison Campolo (@AllisonCampolo) 7:18 AM – 21 August 2026
We’ve already discussed the SD22 special election. Campolo and the crew at the Tarrant County Democratic Party found out about the HD93 special election the day before, and moved heaven and earth to get their candidate on the ballot in the allotted time. That’s a separate issue, but the point here is that Abbott appears to have violated state law on when special elections are to be set. At the very least, he was negligent in informing anyone about them.
Which brings us back to CD23. Remember CD23? Been vacant since April, everyone figured Abbott would wait until the last possible minute and then set it for November, on the grounds that if Democratic candidate Katy Padilla Stout managed to flip it then, as they clearly feel she might have done on an earlier date, it would mitigate the damage from their perspective.
Or, hear me out, maybe don’t bother to call it at all? The Downballot notes that Abbott at least had some company in that.
Following the Georgia special election, Republicans will hold 219 seats in the House versus 214 for Democrats. But two other seats that also became vacant in April will evidently not get filled before November, due to inaction on the part of Republican governors.
Southwestern Texas’ 23rd District has been empty ever since Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales resigned on April 14 amid an ethics investigation into an affair with a former aide that he admitted to. Exactly a week later, Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick followed suit, stepping down from South Florida’s 20th District while facing criminal charges over her alleged misuse of campaign funds.
Both Texas and Florida give their governors wide leeway over when to schedule special elections, and both Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis have exploited that latitude by refusing to hold races to fill either seat. In Florida, DeSantis’ decision has kept Democrats from reclaiming a safely blue seat, while in Texas, Abbott’s dereliction has prevented Republicans from a potentially embarrassing loss in a conservative district Democrats are hoping to flip in the fall.
The consequences of denying representation to the residents of these districts have had an impact far beyond the size of each party’s caucus.
A devastating parasite called the New World screwworm, which lays eggs in the wounds of warm-blooded animals that transform into flesh-eating larvae that can kill their hosts, returned to the United States in June after a long dormancy. It first appeared in Texas’ sprawling 23rd District, frustrating ranchers who lack a voice on Capitol Hill to advocate for their concerns.
Yet despite the prolonged vacancies, neither situation prompted any sort of legal action, meaning both seats will likely remain empty until January.
Rep. Christian Menefee, who was a victim of earlier calendar shenanigans, has introduced a bill that would limit a governor’s ability to play this kind of game if it passes. Which it won’t anytime soon, but it’s out there.
It’s not actually clear to me if Abbott’s refusal to set a date for CD23 is legal or not. The law for vacancies in Congress just refers to the relevant chapter on vacancies in the State Legislature, which specifies that “a special election shall be held on the first uniform election date occurring on or after the 36th day after the date the election is ordered”. But it never says that a special election must be ordered. I’m willing to bet that not calling a special election when there was plenty of time to call one is an extremely unusual situation, but I don’t know if it’s more than that. I agree with The Downballot that this likely would have required a lawsuit, to determine whether Abbott was mandated to fill the vacancy at some point. For now, we just don’t know.
UPDATE: And after I wrote all that, the Chron’s Jeremy Wallace wrote this for his “Texas Takes” newsletter.
Nearly 800,000 people living in a district that stretches from northwest San Antonio to El Paso still have no vote in Congress because Gov. Greg Abbott hasn’t set a special election to fill the seat left open by U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales. He resigned last spring under pressure from House Republicans amid a sex scandal.
The Republican-leaning seat has now been vacant for over 130 days, and isn’t on track to be filled until January.
The vacancy comes amid growing bipartisan outrage over a border security construction project in Big Bend National Park, which is part of the district. While Abbott pressured the Department of Homeland Security to pause the project, nearby landowners and residents don’t have a voice in the U.S. House to push back.
What also makes the vacancy especially notable is that California held a special election last week and voters chose Democrat Aisha Wahab to fill the remainder of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s term. Swalwell, a Democrat, and Gonzales both resigned from Congress on April 14.
Today, Georgia voters are going to the polls to select a candidate to succeed U.S. Rep. David Scott, a Democrat who died the week after Gonzales and Swalwell resigned.
Abbott hasn’t said why he’s delayed setting a special election, but the delicate balance of power in the U.S. House might explain the problem. Republicans will have a 219-214 majority in the House when Wahab and the winner of Georgia’s special election are sworn in.
[…]
While Congress gives states control over setting special elections for vacancies, there is no set timetable for when that has to happen.
While the 260-day vacancy to replace Gonzales is long compared to most vacancies, it’s still well short of the 334 days that Abbott left Houston’s 18th Congressional District vacant after U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner died in March 2025. Over the last four years, vacancies have been filled in less than 180 days on average.
He also mentioned Rep. Menefee’s proposed legislation to speed these things up. And I’d still bet that what we’ve seen with both the CD18 and now CD23 elections is unique to our time. All because Greg Abbott doesn’t care about anything that isn’t in his direct political interest.