{"id":589479,"date":"2023-09-02T01:27:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T22:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/texas-cities-prepare-for-battle-as-sweeping-law-restricting-local-authority-takes-effect\/"},"modified":"2023-09-02T01:27:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T22:27:02","slug":"texas-cities-prepare-for-battle-as-sweeping-law-restricting-local-authority-takes-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/texas-cities-prepare-for-battle-as-sweeping-law-restricting-local-authority-takes-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"#Texas cities prepare for battle as sweeping law restricting local authority takes effect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/09\/texas-state-capitol_021823getty_cities.jpg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Representatives of Texas cities are girding themselves for a wave of legal battles as a new \u201cblanket preemption\u201d law takes effect in the state.<\/p>\n<p>Under the measure, which officially went into effect on Friday, vast swaths of law that cities have traditionally handled \u2014 from employment to water rights \u2014 were replaced by the state code.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>But on Wednesday,\u00a0a Travis county judge ruled that\u00a0the law\u00a0was unconstitutional \u2014 a violation of the \u201chome rule\u201d protections that guarantee broad latitude to the state\u2019s cities.<\/p>\n<p>Both the law itself and the ongoing court battle surrounding it have left cities uncertain what local rules will be impacted, and for how long \u2014 ambiguity that will likely have to be sorted out in court.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very confusing what h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ens next,\u201d Austin council member Vanessa Fuentes told The Hill.<\/p>\n<p>Legislative Republicans\u2019 passage of House Bill 2127 on largely partisan lines last summer sparked a vicious and protracted legislative battle this summer that pitted cities against the state and workers\u2019 organizations against business.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That is because the law gives blanket authority to any person in Texas to sue a municipality if they feel that its laws are stricter than the state\u2019s \u2014 as long as they can prove it harmed them.<\/p>\n<p>HB2127 replaces local ordinances covered by eight broad sections of the municipal code with state law \u2014 from \u201cbusiness and commerce\u201d to \u201clabor\u201d to \u201cagriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Potential causes of such suits include\u00a0passing new laws, restricting payday lending or pet breeding, imposing mandatory rest breaks for construction workers and mandating that employers guarantee sick time.<\/p>\n<p>Conservatives argue that this still gives cities a lot of authority. \u201cThey can do zoning,\u201d said Rod Bordelon of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a right-wing advocacy group that supported the bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Or, he said, cities \u201ccan regulate police and public safety, how to engage in fire and police protection, fireworks displays any issues dealing with how to run their particular city and codes relating to their city.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>The law\u2019s supporters \u2014\u00a0largely legislative Republicans and business trade groups\u00a0\u2014 hold that it is essential to protect against what they see as a creeping progressive campaign to dominate state political life. They also argue that the \u201cpatchwork\u201d of local regulations across the sprawling geography of Texas\u2019s cities makes it impossible for small businesses to do their jobs.<\/p>\n<p>But cities and workers\u2019 rights groups argue that claim isn\u2019t necessarily true: Because the law is so sweeping \u2014 think how many issues of municipal life touch on the category of \u201cbusiness and commerce\u201d \u2014 no one actually knows how far the potential lawsuits can go.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And they argue that the\u00a0state legislature \u2014 which meets only briefly every other year,\u00a0where most bills do not pass and which is largely controlled by conservative Republicans \u2014\u00a0is an inappropriate forum for addressing the everyday issues that mostly concern city governance.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Both supporters and detractors of the law told The Hill that Wednesday\u2019s ruling\u00a0had\u00a0little effect on whether it would take effect on Friday \u2014\u00a0or whether suits would begin rolling in..<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because the legislation doesn\u2019t technically \u201cdo\u201d anything \u2014 it only provides\u00a0that license to sue.\u00a0Whether those suits are valid will get worked out in court, just as the constitutionality of the larger law will.<\/p>\n<p>Though the law\u2019s opponents have been portrayed by its supporters as being exclusively liberal, and do include many legislative Democrats, they also comprise bipartisan representatives of dozens of Texas cities. A number of small metropolitan cities filed comments supporting the lawsuit against the measure that was at the center of Wednesday\u2019s ruling, including many that are quite conservative.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr5_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re hearing from a lot of our city leaders who \u2014 regardless of what side of the aisle they\u2019re on \u2014 they\u2019re struggling with this preemption, because it\u2019s really going to limit what they can do,\u201d said Christy Baker-Smith,\u00a0research director at the National League of Cities\u00a0(NLC), an advocacy group that represents America\u2019s cities and towns.<\/p>\n<p>Under the measure, cities have 90 days after lawsuits challenging local ordinances are filed to amend or repeal the allegedly offending law \u2014 which means that it will likely be 2024 before any of these cases end up in court, Bordelon of TPPF said.<\/p>\n<p>Once they do, it will be up to the courts to sort out the question of whether H.B. 2127 applies in a given area as the broader legal challenge to the measure works its way through the state judicial system.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr6_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Municipalities could soon be confronted with many such cases. State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R), the bill\u2019s House sponsor and principal architect, called open season on lawsuits against them on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling that day,\u00a0Burrows\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Burrows4TX\/status\/1696927913394815332\">wrote<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cshould deter no Texan from availing themselves of their rights when HB2127 becomes law on September 1, 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fuentes of Austin said that the city was bracing itself. \u201cWe anticipate that lawsuits will start coming in,\u201d Fuentes of Austin told The Hill, \u201cbut from my conversations with the city attorney and our legal team, \u201cour city is ready to defend.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr7_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>As the cities mount their defenses to those cases, they will also be playing offense in the broader legal battle over the law.<\/p>\n<p>The state attorney <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a>\u2019s office has already filed an appeal of the county judge\u2019s Wednesday ruling, which will likely take the question of the law\u2019s constitutionality to a local state appellate court. Fuentes said the judges there would probably be more sympathetic to the cities than to the state.<\/p>\n<p>But from there the challenge will likely head to the Texas\u2019s conservative Supreme Court, which is much more closely in line with the state\u2019s Republican leadership.<\/p>\n<p>And in that court, predicts\u00a0Rod Bordelon of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), which is a major supporter of the law, cities will lose.<\/p>\n<p>They have argued \u2014 and Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble ruled \u2014 that the law represents an \u201cunconstitutionally vague\u201d takeover of municipal authority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTexas voters have endowed Houston and all constitutional home rule cities with sovereign power to create a brilliant patchwork of local regulations if they choose to do so,\u201d city of Houston lawyers wrote in the\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/bbc8dea1a49ed98f626812405\/files\/d63760e6-7fba-907a-ba74-65e6fd3655f5\/COH_Original_Petition_Challenging_HB_2127.pdf\">suit<\/a>\u00a0Gamble decided in their favor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is the whole point of constitutional home rule.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The suit also argued that the measure was overruled by an even bigger principle of preemption: the ones that apply to federal law.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Supreme Court, plaintiffs argued, \u201chas held for federal preemption of state laws that \u201c[t]he concern with uniformity does not justify the displacement of\u201d local laws that serves the ends of particular state laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The law\u2019s supporters, on the other hand, argue that a plain reading of the Texas state constitution justifies it. The TPFF, for instance, has written that the Texas Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the state gets to decide \u201cwhether uniform statewide regulation or nonregulation is preferable to a patchwork of local regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And Bordelon predicts the same will happen in this case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat the [state] Supreme Court should find \u2014 and what they will find \u2014 is that any questions of what is applicable will be case by case and ordinance by ordinance,\u201d Bordelon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Depending how the ongoing legal battles play out, Texas\u2019s foray into blanket preemption may only be the first of many\u00a0nationwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Representatives of the NLC,\u00a0the\u00a0advocacy group advocating urban rights, said that H.B. 2127 represents the most extreme example of a broad and largely bipartisan phenomenon: a push by states nationwide to curtail the authority of cities on issues from housing to gun control.<\/p>\n<p>That is part of a broader shift in national politics as state legislatures of all s<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trip<\/a>es try to assert more authority over America\u2019s growing and increasingly powerful cities, Baker-Smith of NLC told The Hill.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While often portrayed as a phenomenon of red states, Baker-Smith said that preemption bills are on the rise around the country, and that more of them tend to be passed in blue states than red ones.<\/p>\n<p>But when it came to the more narrow category of what she called \u201cabusive preemption\u201d \u2014 which she loosely defined as states overruling cities on local issues that did not concern the state as a whole \u2014 Baker-Smith said that red state legislatures were the primary offenders, overruling local control on issues ranging from LGBT rights to\u00a0\u2014 in the case of Jackson, Miss. \u2014 police authority.<\/p>\n<p>Even within this broader movement, however, Baker-Smith said the Texas bill was unprecedented \u2014 the nearest equivalent, a strikingly similar Florida bill that would have also been enforced by lawsuit,\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1DFQlZtbem_u81izriqIBqhiSsC75cY4Rscc5A-shHvE\/edit\">was vetoed by notably conservative Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/a>\u00a0(R) in 2022 because of the risk of \u201cunintended and unforeseen consequences and costly litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since states tend to copy preemption bills from each other and from advocacy groups \u2014 another reason why preemption drives have increased \u2014 Baker-Smith said she expected other states to follow Texas\u2019 lead.<\/p>\n<p>Bordelson of TPPF said that while it was early, he also\u00a0expected other states to follow suit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere will be a lot of states and other interest groups keeping an eye on how it plays out in Texas, particularly after a lot of individual challenges,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sure some states would be interested in modeling laws over what works here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2023 Nexstar <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Media<\/a> Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/state-watch\/4183870-texas-cities-prepare-for-battle-as-sweeping-law-restricting-local-authority-takes-effect\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Representatives of Texas cities are girding themselves for a wave of legal battles as a new \u201cblanket preemption\u201d law takes effect in the state. Under the measure, which officially went into effect on Friday, vast swaths of law that cities have traditionally handled \u2014 from employment to water rights \u2014 were replaced by the state&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":589480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/09\/texas-state-capitol_021823getty_cities.jpg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[117,139252,134343,134418,134353,139529,73014,134345],"class_list":["post-589479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-business","tag-business-economy","tag-campaign","tag-congress-blog","tag-court-battles","tag-defense-national-security","tag-health-care","tag-state-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}