Critics see Abbott as distracting from crisis
AUSTIN — As new revelations about the handling of the state’s power crisis continue to come to light, critics are accusing Gov. Greg Abbott of holding irrelevant — but headline-grabbing — news conferences to distract from the state’s failure to manage the grid.
First came Abbott’s Tuesday news conference in Lubbock — an area that was not affected by the power outages — to announce that he would “open Texas 100 percent” and end the state’s mask mandate. That announcement has made waves in Texas and across the nation, as conservatives cheered but President Joe Biden decried Abbott’s move as “Neanderthal thinking.”
Then on Friday, the governor traveled more than 200 miles to Tyler to champion legislation to prevent social
media companies “from censoring Texans based on the viewpoints they express” — a hot-button issue for conservatives who say they are unfairly targeted by those outlets.
But Democrats and other political observers say Abbott is indulging his supporters in an effort to steer the conversation away from the power crisis, which left millions without heat and electricity for days in subfreezing temperatures and is linked to dozens of deaths statewide.
“Unfortunately, Gov. Abbott is desperate to distract from his recent failures during the winter storm and is trying to change the subject,” state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie and the head of the House Democratic Caucus, said after Abbott’s mask announcement Tuesday.
Abbott’s move to highlight the social media bill was met with a similar response Friday from Democrats.
“Gov. Abbott and his allies are attempting to distract from the fact that Texans are dead because of his catastrophic failure in leadership,” said Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa.
The deadly power outages have dominated the news cycle for three weeks, with legislators holding hearings on the subject and those involved tendering resignations. On the eve of Abbott’s Tyler trip, the state’s independent market monitor estimated that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, overcharged the state’s electricity market by $16 billion by leaving sky-high emergency prices in effect for two days too long.
Nevertheless, Abbott’s unrelated news conferences have earned praise from GOP lawmakers who previously denounced the mask mandate as government overreach and those who have taken issue with social media companies for their banning policies.
The social media bill is one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities this session, and he lauded the COVID-19 restriction rollback as a step toward “normalcy.”
“I’ve never been in favor of mandates,” Patrick said in an interview with CBS’ Dallas-Fort Worth station. “You give people information and let them make their decisions.”
No apologies from Abbott
The power debacle led to the ouster of ERCOT’s chief executive and the resignations of a halfdozen of its board members. ERCOT is overseen by the Public Utility Commission, an agency led by three Abbott appointees.
Facing intense criticism, former PUC Chair DeAnn Walker, previously a senior adviser to Abbott, resigned Monday.
But while Abbott had called for the resignations of ERCOT members, he has not acknowledged his own appointees’ roles in the crisis or taken any personal blame.
Asked Friday whether the governor felt any responsibility for the emergency, Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said the governor was “gravely concerned about the magnitude of the storm” even before it occurred. Abbott made personal calls to Freeport LNG and Cheniere LNG, two of the largest natural gas companies in the state, and asked them to cut back on their usage, she said.
“The governor did this as a precaution, despite ERCOT’s repeated assurances to the state and the public that this storm would not result in widespread outages,” Eze said in an email.
But she stopped short of addressing the roles of Abbott’s appointees in regulating ERCOT.
“Other than signaling the need for conservation, ERCOT, the entity charged with upholding the reliability and integrity of the state’s power grid, failed to raise any alarms that there was even the slightest potential for widespread outages,” she said. “The system broke because of ERCOT’s failure to act. That is why the governor has made it clear that this legislative session will not end until he and the Legislature pass solutions to mandate and fund the winterization of Texas’ power infrastructure, add more power to the grid and ensure that these tragic events are never repeated.”
As for the contention that his mask order repeal was another distraction, the governor said in a Thursday interview with Austin’s KVUE that he had planned to lift COVID restrictions earlier but was forced to wait until after the winter weather passed.
“The original strategy was going to be to make this announcement on the last Monday in February,” Abbott said. “That got delayed because shipments of vaccines got delayed (during the storm).”
The governor’s critics don’t buy it. After the governor’s pledge to “open Texas 100 percent,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat, said the move was “wishful thinking” at best and at worst “a cynical attempt to distract Texans from the failures of state oversight of our power grid.”
The next day, Fort Bend County Judge KP George, a Democrat, joked on Twitter: “Will Gov. Abbott make a surprise announcement to end the ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ policy today?
It’ll be a great way to distract from the state-led ERCOT and energy failure.”
Instead, the governor introduced a bill that would punish social media sites for banning users because of their “viewpoint” or “geographic location in this state or any part of this state.”
“Too many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech,” Abbott tweeted ahead of the Friday news conference. “It’s unAmerican, Un-Texan, & soon to be illegal.”
‘Blame games’ at the border
The legislation follows former President Donald Trump’s removal from multiple social media sites — including Twitter, his outlet of choice — earlier this year. The companies shut down his accounts after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in early January. The sites feared the president’s posts could spur more violence.
Trump’s backers have condemned those bans as a violation of the First Amendment, though the technology companies are privately owned and operated. It’s unclear exactly how much authority Texas would have — if any — to regulate them.
“We see that the First Amendment is under assault by these social media companies, and that is not going to be tolerated in Texas,” Abbott said in Tyler. “There is a dangerous movement that is spreading across the country that is trying to silence conservative ideas.”
Meanwhile, critics are accusing the governor of distracting from the power crisis not only in the policies he announces but also the rhetoric he uses. In response to the president’s “Neanderthal thinking” comment, Abbott has pivoted to immigration, saying Biden is “recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities.”
That narrative stems from reports that 169 of 1,267 migrants in Brownsville have tested positive for the virus this week — an issue several Texas Democrats have also raised publicly.
But others argue that the number of COVID-positive immigrants pales in comparison to the total number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths statewide — and that Abbott’s repeal of the mask mandate would not help those numbers.
On Friday, Texas reported more than 6,000 new COVID-19 cases.
“Stop with the blame games, Gov. Abbott,” said U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth. “Texans need help with power, water and vaccines, not your constant racebaiting.”