County judges slam Abbott, State

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Over the past 18 months, county judges, particularly the chief executives of Texas’ largest counties, have faced an unprecedented array of challenges. Joshua Fechter, urban affairs reporter for The Texas Tribune, had a virtual meeting with five of the county judges on Monday as part of the Texas Tribune Festival, to discuss what they faced during that time.

County Judges Andy Brown of Travis County, Lina Hidalgo of Harris County, Clay Jenkins of Dallas County, Ricardo Samaniego of El Paso County and Glen Whitley of Tarrant County have all faced the ongoing crisis created by the Covid-19 pandemic, with no end in sight. They also struggled to help their constituents deal with the unprecedented winter storm in February and the loss of electricity.

Of the five, only Whitley is a Republican and Whitley is the only one of the five not to plead Gov. Greg Abbott’s order banning mask mandates. He said his lawyers informed him that the governor had the power to issue the anti-mask order. Nonetheless, Whitley joined the other judges in expressing his disagreement with Abbott.

“I do not agree at all to withdrawing local control from the judges. We are a huge state, 254 counties. Whitley said local control has been a Republican principle for years. “So it bothers me tremendously that we have state leadership throwing local control out the window. “

Even though Tarrant County attorneys told him Abbott had the power to issue the mask order, Whitley said he believed the governor was solely politically motivated. “For me,” he said, “instead of focusing on the people involved in the pandemic, they focused on the politics of the problem. Just let the local people do what they do best and take the politics out of this deal. Whitley said he gave his advice to the governor on the matter, but to no avail.

All of the judges agreed that more Texans know who they are now and know more about the role of a county judge. Jenkins and Hidalgo both said they now have a security detail which was not necessary before the pandemic and the ideological battles that accompanied it.

Brown, who was elected in November 2020, noted he had been in office for about two months when the governor first sued him. But the publicity hasn’t been that bad, Brown said, as people now realize they can contact the county judge to get things done.

Discussing the pandemic as well as winter storm Uri, Brown said, “We cannot count on the leadership of the state to deal with the disasters that are occurring more and more frequently.” When Travis County received the Covid-19 vaccines, the state did not provide advice on how to distribute them. He reached out to Hidalgo County Judge for his opinion. She told him he must have a plan. As a result, he said, Travis County “has implemented one of the largest mass vaccination efforts” in the state.

There was no state-level plan, Brown said, adding, “I think the same thing happened with the winter storm.” The state was not ready for the freeze and people were left without power and water in Austin. Brown credited Texas Emergency Management Division chief W. Nim Kidd with providing a certain amount of water, but Travis County also obtained water from neighboring states as well as Mexico. . This is “an example where we are solving a problem caused by a failure at the state level,” he said. He put the blame on ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

Jenkins County Judge noted that the ERCOT has received a lot of blame, but “ERCOT is a salesperson hired by the Utilities Commission and the PUC is appointed by the governor. So it all comes back to our governor and our state legislature. Two years before that happened, during the Parliament, I testified… on the need to replace and modernize the pipeline system. The pipeline system froze; they caused this mess. ERCOT did a bad job. But it’s like blaming air traffic controllers for not being able to handle a bunch of planes that didn’t have winterized on them. This clearly falls on our condition.

Jenkins said city workers trained for a massive power outage in the summer and used that training to help during the winter storm. He said Dallas was fortunate not to lose its water supply system, and this situation happened “because our state did not have the foresight to design a water supply system that would keep the lights on, whether it’s hot or cold “.

Editor’s Note: Andy Brown is a board member of the Capital of Texas Media Foundation, the parent association of Austin Monitor.

Photo made available via a Creative Commons license.

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