The State of the State address doesn't seem to be especially open these days.
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Lawmakers and other guests invited to attend Gov. Greg Abbott's State of the State address at a corporate site in San Marcos on Thursday were told they must sign a nondisclosure agreement and leave their cellphones outside of the venue, according to a memo distributed last week and obtained Tuesday by the USA TODAY Network.
The 7 p.m. speech is scheduled to be delivered at the Noveon Magnetics Corp. manufacturing facility about 6 miles south of downtown San Marcos. Abbott will lay out his priorities for the 140-day legislative session that began last month.
The location had not been publicly disclosed and no reporters will be allowed inside the venue, except a crew from the television news stations that will air and livestream the governor's speech.
"Because Noveon has national security and corporate espionage concerns, they will require attendees to sign a non-disclosure agreement," the governor's office said in its memo that instructed those invited to respond by Feb. 12. "Noveon has also requested that all attendees either not bring cell phones or, alternatively, have those phones bagged onsite until after the attendees leave the facility."
Renae Eze, Abbott's spokeswoman, told the USA TODAY Network that the NDA requirement was later rescinded but the cellphone prohibition will stand.
Abbott, a Republican who began his third term last month, is again departing from the traditional State of the State format in which the governor gives the speech in the daytime during a joint session of the Legislature every other year inside the chamber of the Texas House. The speech was moved away from the Capitol in 2021 when activity inside the building was restricted to minimize the spread of COVID-19.
According to the company's website, Noveon's magnets are used in the generation of electricity.
"Magnets are at the heart of electrification," the company says in its homepage. "Our powerful, next-generation EcoFlux magnets are changing the way we electrify the world, ushering in a new era of mobility and high-efficiency, low-carbon energy production."
