The thing is, this is a better outcome for them than what's coming in the state legislature.
There's 3 bills in committee right now that strip the executive (including county execs) from the power to enforce lockdowns, business closures and mask mandates without act of legislature. As I understand these bills stand a good chance of passing the house.
Of course, the question is: will Abbott want to have a public showdown over this? Obviously the governor wont sign a bill that removes his power, but it will be a very ugly public showdown if he refuses to sign.
Is his action yesterday the result of a deal with a caucus of TX representatives to scuttle the bill and avoid this? We get our freedom back, for now, but they get to keep the power to do basically whatever they want any time they get scared?
See, I'm not so sure they were going to do that seeing some of the legislation they're pushing. There was a bill to end the mask mandate, but that's fighting the symptoms without addressing the root problem.
I actually read the order itself and you're right:
https://open.texas.gov/uploads/files/organization/opentexas/EO-GA-34-opening-Texas-response-to-COVID-disaster-IMAGE-03-02-2021.pdf
Yeah, the local tyrants in the county courts are going apeshit over this, they wouldn't care if they weren't having their BS severely curtailed.
The thing is, this is a better outcome for them than what's coming in the state legislature.
There's 3 bills in committee right now that strip the executive (including county execs) from the power to enforce lockdowns, business closures and mask mandates without act of legislature. As I understand these bills stand a good chance of passing the house.
Of course, the question is: will Abbott want to have a public showdown over this? Obviously the governor wont sign a bill that removes his power, but it will be a very ugly public showdown if he refuses to sign.
Is his action yesterday the result of a deal with a caucus of TX representatives to scuttle the bill and avoid this? We get our freedom back, for now, but they get to keep the power to do basically whatever they want any time they get scared?
See, I'm not so sure they were going to do that seeing some of the legislation they're pushing. There was a bill to end the mask mandate, but that's fighting the symptoms without addressing the root problem.