Texas House, Senate fail to reach compromise on bill curtailing governor's pandemic powers
A bill that would curb the governor's powers during a pandemic has died after a committee of appointed members of the Texas House and Senate missed a midnight Saturday deadline to issue a compromise report on the measure.
The initial version of House Bill 3, known as the Pandemic Response Act, would have created an oversight committee with powers to strike down any governor's order, waiver or suspension. The legislation, a priority for House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, came in response to Gov. Greg Abbott's use of sweeping powers under the state's disaster declaration during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many conservative Republicans chafed at Abbott's coronavirus restrictions, which followed the recommendations of public health experts, including state health officials and the governor's medical advisers. Abbott's pandemic performance, however, was not a central feature of debate about the bill.
Phelan has called the legislation “the House’s blueprint for pandemic response," and Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican and top lieutenant of the speaker, carried the measure.
Read more: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2021/05/30/covid-texas-legislature-bill-limiting-governor-power-dies/7430431002/
