100% big Govt
www.texastribune.org
HB 2127 is one of several bills that Republicans filed this session to prevent cities and counties from enacting new progressive policies. For example, the bill would block local ordinances designed to provide more benefits to workers such as mandatory paid sick leave — though the state’s courts have already halted such city rules — and eliminate mandated water breaks for construction workers in Austin and Dallas.
The bill’s opponents — which include Democrats, local leaders, advocates for low-income workers and environmental groups — see a major power grab in the making that would prevent local officials from responding to their communities’ needs.
Rep. Chris Turner, a Grand Prairie Democrat, blasted the bill as “unconstitutional” as House lawmakers debated it Tuesday.
In recent years, the Legislature has made it virtually impossible for cities and counties to touch their police budgets and reined in how much their overall spending can grow each year. Texas cities can no longer ban fracking within city limits or require landlords to accept low-income tenants with federal housing vouchers.
Republican lawmakers have pitched several other proposals targeting specific local regulations for state control this year, including bills that would sap local governments of the ability to enact mask mandates and upend how Austin plans to fund its ambitious but embattled public transit expansion. They have also championed bills to bar cities and counties from enacting tenant protections against eviction, regulating short-term rentals and hiring lobbyists to represent them at the Capitol. One bill would kneecap an ongoing legal battle by cities like Houston, Austin and Dallas to recoup money they say they’re owed by streaming giants like Disney, Hulu and Netflix.
Earlier this month, the Texas Senate unanimously approved a bill that would block local governments from banning products that increase greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation was inspired by a proposal in Dallas that sought to restrict purchases of gas-powered lawn equipment but that has not been approved.
Sen. Kelly Hancock, the North Richland Hills Republican carrying the bill, acknowledged in a March committee hearing that no other cities have tried to restrict gas lawn equipment. But he cited talk of the federal government regulating gas stoves due to health concerns as another reason he authored the proposal. The bill is preemptive, he said.
“We just need to nip this in the bud before it starts,” Hancock said.
The notion of broadly preempting local laws at the state level runs counter to how Texas has operated for much of its history, said Steven Pedigo, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ Urban Lab. The state has largely let cities and counties govern themselves on local matters since the Legislature meets only once every two years. Conservatives also traditionally believe that government is better when its role is smaller.
“We’re at a real inflection point,” Pedigo said. “Does the state of Texas really believe in conservative government or does it not? That’s the big question.”
Democrats hammered that point Tuesday. Burrows’ bill “is the very definition of big government,” Turner, the Grand Prairie Democrat, said on the House floor.
Supporters of Burrows’ and Creighton’s bills have countered by saying local regulations can harm the state’s economy. Business groups are backing the proposals because they would prevent the state’s more left-leaning cities from enacting rules the groups believe would be harmful to businesses.
“We just don’t know what cities might propose next,” Annie Spilman, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, testified at a recent Senate committee hearing on the proposal. “That uncertainty of a business owner trying to figure out if they can comply … is just a lot.”
But if local business regulations have hampered the state’s economy, its booming economic and job growth over the past decade don’t reflect it, opponents of these measures say. The overwhelming majority of local regulations that business groups and Republican lawmakers usually object to come from Texas’ four largest metropolitan areas — Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio-New Braunfels and Austin — which account for nearly 70% of the state’s economic output.
“This idea that we need uniformity of regulation is overblown,” said Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League. “It’s kind of a fiction that Texas is suffering economically because of the so-called patchwork quilt.”
Texas House approves sweeping limits on local regulations in GOP’s latest jab at blue cities
City officials say the full scope of the legislation advanced Tuesday is still unclear, but it would limit their ability to issue worker protections, water restrictions and more.
www.texastribune.org
HB 2127 is one of several bills that Republicans filed this session to prevent cities and counties from enacting new progressive policies. For example, the bill would block local ordinances designed to provide more benefits to workers such as mandatory paid sick leave — though the state’s courts have already halted such city rules — and eliminate mandated water breaks for construction workers in Austin and Dallas.
The bill’s opponents — which include Democrats, local leaders, advocates for low-income workers and environmental groups — see a major power grab in the making that would prevent local officials from responding to their communities’ needs.
Rep. Chris Turner, a Grand Prairie Democrat, blasted the bill as “unconstitutional” as House lawmakers debated it Tuesday.
In recent years, the Legislature has made it virtually impossible for cities and counties to touch their police budgets and reined in how much their overall spending can grow each year. Texas cities can no longer ban fracking within city limits or require landlords to accept low-income tenants with federal housing vouchers.
Republican lawmakers have pitched several other proposals targeting specific local regulations for state control this year, including bills that would sap local governments of the ability to enact mask mandates and upend how Austin plans to fund its ambitious but embattled public transit expansion. They have also championed bills to bar cities and counties from enacting tenant protections against eviction, regulating short-term rentals and hiring lobbyists to represent them at the Capitol. One bill would kneecap an ongoing legal battle by cities like Houston, Austin and Dallas to recoup money they say they’re owed by streaming giants like Disney, Hulu and Netflix.
Earlier this month, the Texas Senate unanimously approved a bill that would block local governments from banning products that increase greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation was inspired by a proposal in Dallas that sought to restrict purchases of gas-powered lawn equipment but that has not been approved.
Sen. Kelly Hancock, the North Richland Hills Republican carrying the bill, acknowledged in a March committee hearing that no other cities have tried to restrict gas lawn equipment. But he cited talk of the federal government regulating gas stoves due to health concerns as another reason he authored the proposal. The bill is preemptive, he said.
“We just need to nip this in the bud before it starts,” Hancock said.
The notion of broadly preempting local laws at the state level runs counter to how Texas has operated for much of its history, said Steven Pedigo, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ Urban Lab. The state has largely let cities and counties govern themselves on local matters since the Legislature meets only once every two years. Conservatives also traditionally believe that government is better when its role is smaller.
“We’re at a real inflection point,” Pedigo said. “Does the state of Texas really believe in conservative government or does it not? That’s the big question.”
Democrats hammered that point Tuesday. Burrows’ bill “is the very definition of big government,” Turner, the Grand Prairie Democrat, said on the House floor.
Supporters of Burrows’ and Creighton’s bills have countered by saying local regulations can harm the state’s economy. Business groups are backing the proposals because they would prevent the state’s more left-leaning cities from enacting rules the groups believe would be harmful to businesses.
“We just don’t know what cities might propose next,” Annie Spilman, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, testified at a recent Senate committee hearing on the proposal. “That uncertainty of a business owner trying to figure out if they can comply … is just a lot.”
But if local business regulations have hampered the state’s economy, its booming economic and job growth over the past decade don’t reflect it, opponents of these measures say. The overwhelming majority of local regulations that business groups and Republican lawmakers usually object to come from Texas’ four largest metropolitan areas — Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio-New Braunfels and Austin — which account for nearly 70% of the state’s economic output.
“This idea that we need uniformity of regulation is overblown,” said Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League. “It’s kind of a fiction that Texas is suffering economically because of the so-called patchwork quilt.”
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