Gov. Greg Abbott should run for mayor.

He can pick any city. Come back to the old hometown and challenge Sylvester Turner. Stay in the state capital and run against Steve Adler. If big cities don't appeal to Abbott, he could try West University Place, where Mayor Susan Sample could school him in small-town politics.

Abbott, who called a special session of the state Legislature that begins Tuesday, apparently thinks he knows how to run every city from El Paso to Texarkana. Just look at the session agenda. It's a bunch of bullet points cribbed off a direct-mail piece from a city council campaign.

So taxpayers have the honor of bankrolling an $800,000 (at a minimum) special session and forcing elected officials to cancel vacations so we can (a) speed up local permitting processes or (b) prevent municipal governments "from changing rules midway through construction projects" or (c) override local tree preservation rules like those adopted in Galveston after Hurricane Ike. And of course, he's calling on state lawmakers to impose caps upon local spending.

Our governor could have focused the Legislature's attention on some issues that really do need the state government's help. He could have asked lawmakers to create a commission studying a coastal storm surge protection system. He could have suggested more pre-kindergarten or vocational education programs. Maybe he could have even lobbied for funding to save the Battleship Texas.

Instead he picked a fight with city halls across the state and challenged state legislators to deal with his gripes against smaller governments. These mundane issues are municipal concerns best resolved by local folks who know what's happening in their own communities. They're not what we need state lawmakers to worry about, especially in a special session.

All we really need our Legislature to do is pass the sunset legislation that fell by the wayside in the regular session. We've said it before and we'll say it again: the slogan for this special session should be "Sunset and Sine Die."

Abbott declared late last week that he's running for re-election as governor. But if he really cares about the local affairs cluttering his special session agenda, he needs to run for a local office. And the campaign slogan on his next batch of bumper stickers should say "Abbott for Mayor."