As the legislative session has worn on, Gov. Greg Abbott has picked fight after fight with Texas' cities, accusing them of trying to "California-ize" the Lone Star State with their protections for immigrants and local tree ordinances. Abbott and the Republican Senate are also working hard to constrain cities' and counties' power to raise property taxes and require voter approval for annexations.

Abbott seems to particularly dislike the state's largest urban outposts. In the latest slight, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio were left off an invitation to a meeting that 18 mayors requested last week to discuss the ways in which the state is attacking local control.

Abbott's disdain is puzzling, however. Those five cities are both the economic engine of Texas and a large chunk of its votes. (Although perhaps not entirely baffling: All of the counties in which they fall, besides Fort Worth's Tarrant County, voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.)

Let's begin with population. The five counties that contain the state's five largest cities have a combined 12,309,787 residents, which is 44 percent of the state's total. If you want to talk about elections, the registered voters in those counties make up 42 percent of Texas' electorate.

Those counties out-perform the rest of the state economically. Texas' five biggest urban counties constitute 53.5 percent of total Texas employment. If you broaden it out to the metropolitan statistical areas, which include the suburbs as well, the proportion becomes 75.8 percent — and growth in those regions has outpaced growth in the state overall since the recession.

Not convinced Texas' cities drive the state? Let's look at gross domestic product: The state's five biggest MSAs contribute 71 percent of the state's economic output, a proportion that has increased by two percentage points over the past decade. Focusing just on counties again, workers in the ones that contain Texas' largest cities earn 60 percent of the state's wages.

Abbott can argue that the people in the state's large urban areas don't represent "Texas values." But whatever values they do hold, it seems that they're too important to the state to ignore.