A new Texas mega-law, in addition to overriding local laws granting water breaks to construction workers in Austin and Dallas, also affects tenants facing eviction during a natural disaster. And cities that try to pass local laws regulating noise or limiting lawn-watering could land in court. Via Bloomberg:
These are among dozens of local policies that could be targeted by a sweeping new Texas law that limits the power of cities to make their own rules. The unprecedented legislation, which was signed by Governor Greg Abbott, prohibits cities from enforcing or creating regulations that are stronger than the state’s in broad policy areas including labor, finance, agriculture, occupations, property and natural resources.
“It's such a broadly written bill that the impact on local government is just going to be more vast than I think anybody would ever have ever have thought,” said Brooks Williams, the city manager of Ferris, Texas, outside of Dallas. “Our state is way too large to have this one-size-fits-all approach.”
Supporters say it’s an attempt to create a more standardized regulatory landscape for businesses that are still recovering from the economic stress of the pandemic. Opponents, who have nicknamed the legislation the “Death Star” bill, see it as the latest escalation in a years-long Republican-led effort to rein in the power of Texas’ left-leaning metros. Local tenant and worker protections are among the first casualties, but city leaders and advocates are still trying to understand how far the preemption will reach.
The message that Texas cities can’t make their own rules could have an outsized impact on the big metro areas like San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Houston, which are the drivers of the majority of the state’s economic output, and have attracted an influx of new people and businesses, said Luis Figueroa, the chief of legislative affairs at Every Texan, a nonprofit economic development group.
This is similiar to the NRA-designed law the Pennsylvania state legislature has written to override any attempt by cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to impose local gun laws. After all, it's so much more useful to Republicans to talk about gun violence in the inner cities than to actually do something about it!
Under the law, individuals or businesses will now be able to bring lawsuits against cities if they feel they’ve been harmed by a local ordinance that they argue falls under the state’s preemption categories. NFIB has said that the law “provides every opportunity to avoid an unnecessary lawsuit” by requiring 3 months’ notice before they are filed and putting the burden of paying for attorney’s fees on the loser of the suit.
But advocates worry that this could embolden private entities to challenge a variety of city policies they don’t like, said Ana Gonzalez, the deputy director of politics and policy at the Texas AFL-CIO. “It will open floodgates of expensive and wasteful litigation on cities and counties.”
Obviously, the law was badly needed because as we know, Texas has a reputation for being heavily regulated and hostile to business! This means, for example, that local authorities couldn't zone or regulate chemical plants in residential areas for safety reasons. Extreme, I know -- who would build a chemical plant where people live?
