(The Center Square) – The Texas House passed a relief package for Texas Hill Country victims but it was not without controversy.
While House Democrats claimed their priority was flood relief in the first special session, they left the state for 17 days and missed voting on the flood relief package in the last session. More than 50 Democrats absconded to prevent a quorum from being reached, effectively blocking all legislation and killing the session.
After a second special session was called, a quorum was met and the House passed the congressional redistricting bill Democrats had left Austin in protest over. Next, the Texas House passed a package of six bills to provide relief and implement a series of reforms in response to the July 4 Hill Country flood disaster.
The package includes HB 1, to require safety measures for youth camps; SB 2, to strengthen disaster preparedness and emergency management response across multiple agencies; HB 3, to create the Texas Interoperability Council to develop a statewide strategic plan and implement an integrated emergency communication infrastructure; SB 5, to allocate funding for disaster relief, early warning systems, enhanced weather predictability, and interoperability infrastructure; HB 20, to create protections related to charitable solicitations fraud; and HB 22, to allocate funding for local governments to implement early warning systems and interoperability improvements.
After the package passed, House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the Texas legislature examined “the systems and processes in need of improvement so we are better prepared for all future emergencies.”
State Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Waxahachie, voted against four of the six bills, saying “government solutions can often be worse than the problems they’re intended to solve.” He also opposed amendments added by Democrats. He voted for HB20 and HB5 and voted against the rest, often as the sole lone no vote.
HB1 “started out as a good bill that I intended to support. However, Democrats were allowed to amend the bill on the floor in a way that may harm or shut down countless camps where safety has not been an issue, nor is likely to be at risk from life threatening floods,” Harrison said.
He also said House Democrats who shut down the entire legislative process shouldn’t have been allowed to make amendments.
“It is indefensible that after breaking quorum for weeks House leadership rewarded them today by allowing them to ruin what started out as a good, reasonable bill,” he said.
The bill passed by a vote of 135-1, according to the unofficial vote tally. Harrison was the lone no vote.
Three bills, SB 2, HB 3 and HB 22 “unnecessarily grow government,” which Harrison opposes, causing him to vote against the bills.
SB 2 creates “new occupational licenses when Texas already has more occupation regulations than any other state,” including every single Democrat state in the country, he said. The bill “usurps voters by allowing their locally elected officials to be removed from office too easily, and creates new red tape that I believe will make it harder to find volunteers in future emergencies.” Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison and Republican Reps. Lowe, Money and Olcott.
HB 3 creates “an entirely new government entity with significant and unchecked authorities without necessary transparency and safeguards, and delegates too much new power to the Governor and executive branch bureaucrats,” he says. Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison.
HB 22 expands “an existing corporate welfare fund that has nothing to do with emergency response and should be abolished (not given more authority to spend tax dollars arbitrarily),” he says. It also “increases the likelihood of increased spending and taxes in future budgets” to continue funding it. Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison.
The Texas Senate is expected to pass the bills, which Gov. Greg Abbott says he will sign into law.
