Greg Abbott is a small government, local control, free trader. Until he’s not. Abbott is the worst kind of politician, one who doesn’t really believe in anything but his own power, who shifts his ideology to fit the situation that always advantages himself and his largest donors. Texas has always been very independent where local control has been sacrosanct, and the governor’s office was designed to be a weak position. No more. It started under Rick Perry, but Abbott put consolidation of power on steroids aided by a state house full of ideologues who are either stupid, corrupt, or likely both.
Abbott has seized power away from municipalities and counties on everything from oil and gas development to environmental regulation to even trimming trees. In good times the consolidation of broad local authority to a central point is bad policy. The US Constitution recognized the role of the states in limiting the power of the federal government. Abbott and Perry quoted that loudly and often with Barack Obama occupied the White House. No more. Now, Abbott cherry picks what he wants to control, like tree removals for some weird personal reason, and has done so again by abruptly ordering the reopening of thousands of businesses in Texas over the orders of municipal and county authorities all over the state.
What Abbott is doing is stupid; it’s not only stupid, he’s also doing it for precisely the wrong reasons. He’s not rushing to reopen the state’s businesses because he believes it’s the right thing to do, he’s doing it to kick hundreds of thousands of workers off of state unemployment rolls. The Texas Workforce Commission has already announced that if a business reopens and employees do not work ALL of the hours required by that business, the employees lose their unemployment benefits. Cisco Gamez, a Texas Workforce Commission spokesman even said that if an employee doesn’t feel safe working, they must refer their concerns to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, governed by the US Labor Department currently run by…wait for it…Eugene Scalia. Yes, that Scalia, the son of Antonin Scalia. The younger Scalia who’s made his career and is well known for undoing worker and safety regulations, was appointed by Trump to head the agency tasked with protecting workers’ rights (Yes, it’s a drinking game.) Since Gamez’s statement, the Texas Workforce Commission “clarified” the policy that the state “may” allow some benefits to survive if a worker doesn’t feel safe to go to work.
The dangerous feature of Abbott’s idiotic orders is that he’s going to damage the programs that adults, like Lina Hidalgo and Sylvester Turner, have been implementing round the clock to protect those in Harris County. The result is reduced cases here, but according to latest data from Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracking program, Harris County new cases are still growing at an average weekly rate of 13%, which is low compared to other counties like Tarrant County, location of Fort Worth. That city is governed by Trump supporter Betsy Price, who has already ordered that churches can begin holding services and bars and restaurants can open. Their case growth rate? 51% this week. That’s right, THREE times that of Harris County. And those are just the cases we know about.
Abbott, like Trump, is literally getting people killed. And he’s covering it up. To keep the numbers low, I’m convinced Abbott is dragging his feet on broad distribution of testing. Like Trump, Abbott keeps promising millions of tests that never materialize. Texas has tested just over 200,000 people or less than 1% of the population. Every medical expert advises not to reopen businesses and public buildings until testing and contact tracing is massive. Abbot clearly doesn’t want that because then it would be hard to justify what he’s doing right now.
Abbott’s plan is dangerous. Overruling local officials who are actually listening to medical experts is nothing short of gross negligence.
