COVID outbreak turns up heat on Abbott
Both parties increasingly critical of governor’s response as deaths, cases continue to mount
Gov. Greg Abbott is under increasing political fire from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats as he responds to a sharp rise in coronavirus deaths — a record 112 Wednesday and 106 Thursday — by implementing more restrictions on Texans and increasingly warning of another shutdown if people fail to wear masks.
Prominent Democrats are blasting Abbott for reopening too quickly and shrugging off early warning signs. On the other side, county Republican Party committees are passing censures of Abbott for some of his latest orders, including one requiring people to wear masks in counties reporting at least 20 people infected with COVID-19. Those who violate the order face $250 fines but no possibility of jail time.
On Wednesday, the Montgomery
County Republican Executive Committee voted 40-0 to censure Abbott, joining at least three other county executive committees that have taken similar steps.
Even Republican state lawmakers are beginning to press Abbott to call a special session to cede some of the decision-making to them. State Sen. Charles Perry, RLubbock, said in a Fox News Channel interview that it’s time for the Legislature to be more involved and not just leave it all up to the governor.
“We have information and a lot of misinformation out there, honestly, that needs to be vetted by a legislative body,” Perry said.
It’s all coming as Abbott warns the daily number of deaths is going to keep rising.
“I think the numbers are going to look worse as we go into next week,” Abbott told Fox 26 in Hous
ton during an interview Thursday night. “We need to make sure there are going to be plenty of hospital beds available in the Houston area.”
Abbott said he knew he’d get blowback from other Republicans when he starting issuing more stringent orders to address the worsening situation.
“So I knew when I issued this executive order that there would be some people in various parts of the state of Texas who may not be pleased about it,” he said. “Candidly, it is inconsistent with what I would want to do.”
He said his decisions are guided by the “magnitude of the spread of the coronavirus” and how it has strained ICU capacity in Texas hospitals.
“The only strategy we have left to avoid having our economy shut down again is for everyone to use a mask to slow the spread,” he said.
But Texas Democrats have had enough of Abbott’s approach, saying he’s moved too slowly and blaming him for blocking cities and counties from taking steps early in the pandemic when the
White House was holding up cities like Houston and Dallas as examples of success. Abbott gutted local ordinances requiring people to wear face coverings in late April.
Former presidential candidates Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro are now using their national political platform to scold him.
“His failure has put countless Texans at risk,” Castro said on Twitter. “He should let local officials step up to protect their communities and fill the void in leadership he’s left behind.”
O’Rourke went even further, saying Abbott should resign during a Wednesday interview on MSNBC.
“He’s clearly not up to this moment,” he said.
Approval rating drops
Public approval for Abbott’s response to the pandemic has also dropped, from 60 percent in late April to 44 percent in late June, according to polls released this week by Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern and Rutgers universities.
The same study of 22,000 Americans found approval ratings for other governors have dropped by an average of 10 points over the same period — Abbott’s dropped 16 percentage points, according to the April and June Texas polls, which have margins of error of 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
The criticism from Democrats comes days after Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that she and other county and city officials need Abbott to give them the authority to issue stay-at-home orders again, calling it the surest way for them to get out of the crisis. She said leaders need to be taking bold aggressive steps because of how serious things have become in Houston and Texas overall. Abbott has so far declined.
“We don’t have room to experiment,” Hidalgo said. “We don’t have room for incrementalism when we’re seeing these kinds of numbers, nor should we wait for all the hospital beds to fill and all these people to die before we take drastic action.”
More than 420 people have died from COVID-19 in the past seven days as Texas continues to have its deadliest week in the state’s fight against the coronavirus, according to reporting and data analysis by Hearst Newspapers. That amounts to 61 deaths per day. During the first week of June, the average was 23 deaths per day.
In addition, Texas has nearly 10,000 people so sick that they are hospitalized with lab-confirmed COVID-19. That has created new pressures on medical facilities, with the state reporting having less than 1,000 intensive care beds available. In April the state had over 2,100 of those beds ready.
‘We will no longer sit quietly’
Abbott has expressed growing concern with dwindling supplies of ICU beds in the Rio Grande Valley, Midland-Odessa and the 12county region that includes Corpus Christi, where officials reported they are down to their last three available ICU beds.
On Thursday, Abbott barred over 100 counties from conducting elective surgeries to clear more hospital beds for coronavirus patients. He previously took that step for Harris, Bexar and six other hard-hit counties.
“The state of Texas continues to implement strategies to help ensure ample supply of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients,” Abbott said in a statement to the media.
As Abbott considers the possibility of more restrictions, the criticism from his own party is growing more shrill.
The Montgomery County Republican
Executive Committee’s censure resolution says he has acted with “disregard to the Texas Constitution,” pointing to the mandated mask requirement for people in counties with at least 20 positive cases, limiting gatherings and closing bars across the state.
It’s similar to a resolution passed by Ector County Republicans, where Odessa is located.
“The Ector County Republican Executve Board, decided it would be a fitting day for us to send a clear message to Governor Abbott,” the party wrote on its Facebook page. “A message that we will no longer sit quietly while he over reaches his authority again, again, and again.”
The censure resolutions next go to the state Republican Party to be considered next week at the annual convention. That convention was supposed to be in Houston, but Mayor Sylvester Turner canceled it, saying it could lead to another spike in COVID-19 cases. The party filed a lawsuit against Turner and the city nonprofit that runs the George R. Brown Convention Center on Thursday.