AUSTIN — Cities and counties couldn’t move ordinances on topics starting from gas-powered garden mowers to rental-housing evictions underneath a sweeping, pro-business invoice the Senate superior on Monday.
Zoning, noise and nuisance ordinances wouldn’t be affected.
However native governments couldn’t regulate on any topic coated by eight Texas authorized codes, together with agriculture and property, except “expressly approved” by state regulation.
Advocates for native management say the invoice, which received last Senate passage Tuesday, hinders their means to handle distinctive native wants.
Dallas County Decide Clay Lewis Jenkins mentioned that, though the invoice “primarily will have an effect on cities,” he opposes it.
“What’s good for Muleshoe isn’t essentially good for Dallas,” he mentioned. “There are nuances that needs to be left to the native elected officers, who’re simply changed.”
Cities might hold sure ordinances designed to handle therapeutic massage parlors; the restrictions on retail gross sales of cats and canine, if adopted earlier than April 1; and payday lending ordinances handed earlier than Jan. 1.
The invoice would inhibit cities and counties from crafting new restrictions on the ever-evolving “predatory lending” trade, critics mentioned.
The measure would impede makes an attempt to provide tenants a chance to “remedy” issues with their leases, reasonably priced housing advocates warned. For instance, cities might not require a grace interval to pay lease, back-rent and costs earlier than a landlord might start the eviction course of, they mentioned.
Enterprise teams such because the Texas House Affiliation, the Texas Affiliation of Builders, the Texas Affiliation of Enterprise and the Nationwide Federation of Impartial Enterprise-Texas countered that cities and counties are making a complicated combine of necessities which can be pricey for companies to navigate throughout the state.
“If we need to stay the envy of the nation, we should move this invoice to forestall a patchwork of laws,” mentioned Conroe GOP Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Senate creator.
For a number of periods, entrepreneurs and “single mother, small enterprise homeowners” have requested the Republican-controlled Legislature to rein in “activist cities” that had been “enacting job-killing ordinances,” Creighton mentioned.
As an alternative of ready for localities to exceed their authority by banning hydraulic fracturing and regulating tree removals and paid sick go away, the invoice would preempt native authorities regulation in areas already regulated by the state, he mentioned.
“This new strategy will get forward of potential overreach sooner or later,” Creighton mentioned.
Austin Democratic Sen. Sarah Eckhardt agreed with the Texas Municipal League that the invoice would trigger “numerous lawsuits.”
Corporations that fail to win native authorities contracts may clog the courts and enchantment to lawmakers, she warned.
“Is that this physique, is the Legislature ready to put in writing county and metropolis ordinances, as a result of this laws would require that,” requested Eckhardt, a former Travis County choose.
Creighton replied, “Sen. Eckhardt, this invoice doesn’t require something different that what the day-to-day needs to be now inside our Texas Structure and Texas statutes.”
Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, requested if the invoice would upend ordinances regulating sexually oriented companies and barring discrimination based mostly on race, faith, intercourse and sexual orientation.
The measure wouldn’t, Creighton responded.
The proposal would let people and commerce associations sue cities and counties over ordinances that they declare violate state codes on agriculture, enterprise and commerce, finance, insurance coverage, labor, pure assets, occupations and property.
Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, famous the invoice would give cities and counties three months “to amend their ordinances to return into compliance” earlier than a go well with could possibly be filed.
At a listening to earlier than a Home panel final month, a Dallas metropolis corridor official registered town’s opposition to the invoice.
“We did drop a card, and we oppose it,” mentioned Dallas Metropolis Council member Tennell Atkins, who heads the council’s legislative affairs committee.
Requested if particular measures he desires the council to move could be thwarted by the invoice, Atkins repeated that the council opposes the measure.
Early Monday, an aide to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner despatched senators an electronic mail saying the invoice “creates uncertainty in regulation and exposes authorized legal responsibility to native taxpayer {dollars}.”
Houston’s payday lending restrictions and a decade-old ordinance regulating unlicensed boarding properties for the mentally in poor health could be jeopardized, wrote Invoice Kelly, director of presidency relations for Turner.
“Home Invoice 2127 creates many extra issues than it solves,” Kelly wrote. “The Metropolis of Houston has by no means regarded to dictate the paid go away of personal companies, which appeared to be the unifying difficulty amongst those that testified on the listening to supporting this invoice. Why, then, embody eight codes price of preemption when the goal is so very small?”
In early March, Abbott supported the invoice in a speech during which he particularly panned ordinances that ban gas-powered garden gear, corresponding to one Dallas metropolis officers have thought-about.
The invoice was authored by Republican Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock, who accused the municipal league of “fear-mongering to try to shield liberal mayors from pushing their anti-business agendas.”
On Monday, Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who’s the longest-serving senator, mentioned the invoice would pressure residents to go to Austin on issues as soon as reserved to native authorities. He talked about spaying and neutering animals, and background checks for tow-truck drivers.
“Would you not agree that is going to tremendously set again native management?” requested Whitmire, who’s operating for Houston mayor.
Creighton replied, “Dean, we’re not in any manner setting again native management. We’re clarifying native ‘uncontrolled.’”
Senators rejected a number of amendments provided by Democrats and tentatively accepted the invoice 18-13. After the Senate by the identical margin gave it last approval Tuesday, it returned to the Home for concurrence in Senate modifications.
