Abbott undermines local pandemic rules
His plan to reopen businesses leaves city and county officials scrambling
When local Texas officials began restricting public life to slow the spread of COVID-19, Gov. Greg Abbott lauded their early response to the developing crisis. By the time he ordered all Texans to stay home except for essential activities March 31, all the state’s major counties already had adopted similar measures.
Now, as he implements his plan to reopen the Texas economy in phases, Abbott is overriding county judges who favor tighter restrictions, which they say forces them to adjust on the fly.
Harris County, for instance, rewrote its own stay-at-home order Friday to accommodate Abbott’s plan, only to have the governor supersede it again Tuesday. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins has urged residents to make “good personal responsibility decisions” after the governor constrained his ability to keep restaurants and other businesses closed. And in Bexar County, officials are still requiring people to cover their faces in public but were forced to remove the associated penalties under Abbott’s new guidance.
The governor’s critics say he was happy to delegate control to local officials in the nascent stages of the coronavirus crisis — when mayors and county judges took political heat for shutting down major parts of the economy — before reopening certain
businesses against the wishes of many local leaders.
“I just think we’re better off when you follow the science, and if Gov. Abbott is following the science and medical experts when making those decisions, it’s different from what I’m hearing from the ones that I’ve talked to,” said Democratic Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis.
The sometimes-conflicting orders can create confusion. Dr. Umair Shah, Harris County’s health director, said he worries directives from different levels of government may overwhelm residents and business owners, who may choose instead to tune out.
“All of the sudden, if federal, state and local (rules) are different, people think maybe this isn’t such a big deal, and I can go out without taking any of these precautions,” Shah said. “That’s the concern.”
In the days since Abbott’s move to lift stay-home restrictions, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and other mostly Democratic local officials have said it is premature to do so before testing and contact tracing capacity ramps up. Health experts, including Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have said states risk inflaming the pandemic if they reopen now.
State vs. local
Despite a rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths in Texas last week, Abbott has expressed optimism in the falling rate of Texans who test positive for the disease, while attributing the rise in cases to increased testing capacity. Hospitals generally have maintained ample levels of bed capacity, though the usage of intensive care unit beds in Harris County has increased in recent days.
A spokesman for the governor did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Abbott’s approach allowed him to “reap the benefits” of measures enacted in Texas’ largest counties without drawing the ire of Republicans accusing him of engaging in “government overreach or exaggerating the severity of the crisis,” said Rice University political science Professor Mark Jones.
“If he implicitly likes what they’re doing or believes he benefits from it, he can let them do it,” Jones said of local leaders. “And if he believes that it doesn’t benefit him, he can tell them not to. That’s the advantage of being governor in a unitary state like Texas where the state government calls the shots.”
Abbott has wielded that power repeatedly in recent years, working with the Republicancontrolled Texas Legislature to curb — and sometimes strip — local governments’ power in numerous areas, including the regulation of fracking and ride-hailing companies, bans on plastic bags and red-light cameras, even the enactment of tree cutting ordinances.
His actions during the pandemic have been similarly undermining to local leaders.
Houston-area leaders began to implement restrictions two months ago, beginning with the closure of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on March 11. On March 17, the day Hidalgo and Turner closed bars and restricted restaurants to takeout and delivery, Abbott praised the “very swift and very effective standards” local governments had implemented to blunt the spread of coronavirus.
A week later, the state’s largest counties issued sweeping stayat-home orders that closed most businesses. Abbott followed a week later with similar rules for the entire state through April 30.
As weeks passed and unemployment claims soared, however, state and local leaders began to feel pressure to reopen the economy. Republican officials intensified calls for Abbott to let businesses reopen, while doctors predicted the virus would peak around the end of April, a potentially disastrous time to ease restrictions.
Local leaders mulled whether to extend their own stay-athome orders; Dallas County, where the county judge feuded with Abbott over a temporary field hospital, extended its rules until May 15.
Hidalgo ordered Harris County residents to cover their faces in public, with violations punished by fines up to $1,000.
Diplomatic approach
Abbott, however, announced he would reopen most businesses statewide on May 1, including restaurants, retail stores, malls and movie theaters, with restrictions. Acknowledging the virus has affected urban and rural areas differently, the governor allowed businesses in counties with five or fewer cases of COVID-19 to reopen at 50 percent capacity, double the ceiling elsewhere. He also stripped the ability of local officials to fine anyone for failing to wear a mask.
Hidalgo on Friday issued an amended stay-at-home order to keep businesses not reopened by Abbott — including gyms, nail salons and barbers — closed through May 20. Abbott on Tuesday, however, said those businesses could begin reopening this Friday.
Hidalgo has taken a diplomatic approach to dealing with Abbott, lauding her relationship with the governor during the pandemic even as she may disagree with his actions.
“I don’t know if it was a good decision to open things up,” she said Tuesday. “What I’m most concerned about is making sure that in two to three weeks … when we see hospital admissions commensurate with the contacts people have had this week, that all of us, at all levels of government, are ready to adjust accordingly.”
Other local officials have expressed similar concerns, including San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who said Abbott had moved too quickly to allow businesses to reopen last week.
“This is a risk that we don’t need to take in an uninformed manner,” he told the San Antonio Express-News editorial board.
Nirenberg said businesses should reopen only after a sustained decline in cases and an increase in testing and contact tracing capacity. He and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff also criticized Abbott for removing local governments’ power to enforce penalties for people who do not cover their faces in public, with Wolff calling it “the worst decision” in Abbott’s order, though he agreed with letting some businesses open.
For others, the easing of restrictions could not come soon enough. In conservative Montgomery County, County Judge Mark Keough terminated his stay-at-home order two weeks early. He also interpreted Abbott’s plan to allow businesses like salons and gyms to reopen; Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened and said they must remain closed for now.