Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday he will call a special legislative session so lawmakers can address unfinished state business, but he wouldn't say when.

"We now are to the point that we can say that there will be a special session. When is still a little bit up in the air," Perry said.

The Legislature adjourned its 140-day regular session June 1 without passing key "sunset" bills that would have kept important state agencies running, including the transportation and insurance departments and the Texas Racing Commission.

Last week, Perry said his staff was studying all options to decide whether a special session was necessary to continue the operation of the agencies. By Tuesday, he said, it was clear a that a special session would have to be called.

The Texas governor can call multiple special sessions lasting up to 30 days each. Perry can add any number of items to the agenda of a special session. He wouldn't say whether a contentious GOP-backed voter identification proposal — which would require Texans to show more ID before casting a ballot — would be on the agenda.

"When I decide on the date, I'll let you all know what we're going to discuss, but it's a little bit premature," Perry said.

Fighting between Democrats and Republicans over the voter ID measure bogged down the regular session and, in the Texas House, caused the death of other legislation.

Perry answered reporters' questions as he began a meeting at the Capitol with business leaders about energy. At the start of the meeting, Perry criticized Washington politicians for proposals they are considering that he says would strangle Texas' energy industry.

Perry, whose denouncements of Washington have intensified the past few months, faces a tough Republican primary race for re-election in 2010 against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. The timing of a special session affects his ability to raise money for that expensive campaign.

He cannot collect campaign cash during a regular or special legislative session. He also must wait to hold fundraisers until after the June 21 conclusion of the veto period for the regular session.

When the Texas Senate adjourned last week without approving legislation to keep the state agencies running, a Republican senator suggested the governor could keep the agencies operating by executive order.

Perry said that was "blatantly bad information" given to the senators and that research his staff conducted determined it cannot be done.

Perry and other Republican leaders pledged after the legislators' adjournment that insurance regulation, roadbuilding and other government functions would continue, despite the lawmakers' inaction.

The agencies in question would be shuttered by Sept. 1, 2010, without the legal authority to continue.

Shortly before adjourning, the Texas House passed a measure to postpone the agency sunset dates, but that legislation did not include $2 billion in road-building bonds many lawmakers wanted.

Some senators were furious at the situation the House left them with, and the Republican-controlled Senate decided to adjourn without passing the agency operations bill. Republican senators who pushed for the adjournment, over the objections of Democrats, said it would be better to let Perry call lawmakers back into a special session so they could keep the agencies running and pass the road bonds.