Business leaders are feeling left out
Dennis Nixon is the CEO of the International Bank of Commerce, the ninth-biggest bank in Texas, and the kind of person the state’s Republicans used to listen to. These days, however, he’s feeling woefully neglected.
“I personally think it’s a disaster,” Nixon says of the legislative session that just ended. “They basically disregarded the business community of Texas, just threw us under the bus.”
Nixon is particularly exasperated by the passage of Senate Bill 4, which directs local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration officials in arresting and detaining undocumented immigrants. He says that the immigrant workforce is essential to the state’s economic health and that driving them out is self-sabotage.
He pointed to Arizona, where anti-immigration laws drove out workers, created labor shortages and hurt economic growth.
“This could have really serious consequences for Texas,” he says. “My argument is, we have to have these people. They’re working already.”
It’s not just the immigration issue: Nixon is also fuming at the Texas Legislature’s focus on social issues like abortion and transgender bathroom access, its failure to address high property taxes and the Trump administration’s determination to build a wall on the border with Mexico. He says he’s brought these issues up with lawmakers, to no avail.
“I don’t get it,” Nixon says. “I’m just one guy in the night, screaming.”
But Nixon isn’t alone. Much of corporate Texas has been disappointed by the state’s political establishment. The state’s largest business association fought hard against the bathroom legislation and called the sanctuary cities bill “a step back for Texas” that will “hurt the business community
“When the government disregards the business message, you’re really getting yourself into trouble.” Dennis Nixon, CEO, International Bank of Commerce
and families a like.”
The political director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses’ Texas chapter, Annie Spilm an, put it this way :“In my 17 years at the Capitol, it was up there with the worst.”
So how did it come to pass that Texas started ignoring the voice soft he companies that power its prodigious economy?
A thorough answer is beyond the scope of today’ s analysis. Some of it has to do with the grass-roots-power of religious conservatives. Some of it has to do with the ideological in flexibility of politicianssuchasLt.Gov. Dan Patrick, the driving force behind much of the social legislation that passed this session.
Also, Gov. Greg Abbott maybe somewhat resistantto charges of being anti-business, since Texas continues to rack up awards like those from Site Selection magazine pronouncing the Lone Star State tops incorporate re locations. And, as my colleague Ryan Ma ye Handy has shown, businesses still have tremendous influence with agencies like the Railroad Commission, which regulatesoil and gas drilling.
Abbott’ s and Patrick’ s offices did not respond to requests for comment.
Nixon, meanwhile, worries that Texas’ open-for business reputation isn’ t indestructible.
“That’ s a very slippery slope toge ton. When the government disregards the business message, you’ re really getting yourself into trouble ,” Nixon says you’ re a Republican state, you want to retain the business community as a political ally.”
Still, businesses are in a little bit of a box: Democrats aren’ t exactly their cup of tea either, with theirhigher taxes and tight er regulations.
“They’ ve moved to the left, and gotten so crazy out of whack ,” Nixon says .“And we’ ve got the Republicans who’ ve moved far to the right—they’ ve gotten crazy out of whack. So we’ ve got to get back to the middle here .”
In Texas, as in D. C ., it’ s not clear he has much to look forward to.