Republican challenges Abbott on rules
Lawmaker fights sending all changes before the governor
A state lawmaker is pushing back against an order by Gov. Greg Abbott requiring state agencies to submit all rules changes to his office before they are implemented.
“We don’t know exactly where this is going,” said Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, who says the lieutenant governor and speaker of the House have the authority to make that sort of change, not the governor.
Abbott’s camp disagrees. The change is “well within” the governor’s authority, said Abbott spokeswoman Ciara Matthews.
“A preliminary review of proposed rules and regulations allows for a thorough assessment of the effectiveness, cost, benefit or potential harm these ideas might have on the state as required by law,” Matthews said.
Abbott in late June invoked a 1981 executive order from former President Ronald Reagan in calling for the change.
But Texas has a relatively narrow legislative role for the governor, giving him the power to veto bills and spending measures passed by the Legislature. The governor also appoints some leaders of state agencies.
“What Reagan did in 1981, this honestly is not analogous to that,” Cook said.
Cook, chairman of the house committee that oversees the governor’s office, said Abbott is already informally involved in discussions about major policy changes, and his new requirement could create a bottleneck in the governor’s office.
“There are hundreds of rules proposed a month, and when you add this layer, we don’t know if that’s going to slow things down,” Cook said.
“We’ve been told a person in the governor’s office will be doing this. Having one person that can grasp all these agencies and all these rules, that's almost an unattainable responsibility.”
There are dozens of Texas state agencies, including the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Transportation, the Texas Education Agency and the Health and Human Services Commission.