Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

What we know about the prospects of a special legislative session is that Texas lawmakers must fix problems with sunset bills that deal primarily with the state Departments of Transportation and Insurance. If not, Texas will have no road agency or insurance oversight, and you can see the mess that would be.

If Gov. Rick Perry calls for a start shortly after July 4, the announcement could come any day. Also unknown is whether he'll include anything else in his call to meet. Governors usually face a tricky decision when convening a special session; open it too wide, and they risk nothing getting done.

Still, Perry has plenty of reasons to include one important issue that, coincidentally, fits well with the TxDOT part: giving communities the option of taxing themselves to raise money for road and rail projects.

First, it would be clearly germane. It's no stretch of logic to include the roads-and-rails measure as legislators go about updating the state's Transportation Department. It isn't like the governor would have to add something unrelated.

Second, there is a natural place to start this debate. Republican Sen. John Carona of Dallas crafted a bill during the regular session that offers a framework for a special session. This bill passed the Senate and might have passed the House if not for last-minute politicking.

Third, there's strong support in the state's largest metropolitan area. By a near unanimous vote, North Texas' Regional Transportation Council asked Perry to include this in his call. You'd think the voice of so many strong leaders from the Dallas-Fort Worth area would matter to a governor about to seek re-election in a contested GOP primary.

Fourth, the state can't just keep kicking problems like transportation down the road. Texas' mobility challenges and lack of funding to fix them are so great that waiting 18 months to the next regular session is not realistic. Simply handling the TxDOT question doesn't do the job, either. Letting metro areas begin working out their own solutions as quickly as possible is the smartest step Perry could take.

As far as the insurance debate goes, we strongly urge legislators to stay away from tangents and focus on reauthorizing the agency. That includes creating a better process for resolving disputes over rate increases.

As we wrote Sunday, legislators thought they had created an appeals process that insurers would accept in good faith. But State Farm has become a master at using the courts to circumvent the state's ability to set rates. If Texas can't come up with a smoother process, no company will heed the state's decisions, nor could you blame them.

It would have been best if legislators had resolved these issues during the regular session. Perry has little choice but to give them another chance, along with our related addition.