July 3, 2020
Abbott Abstains from Life-and-Death Decision
as SREC Spurns Doctors with Convention Vote
By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
State GOP Could Be Messing
with Texas Deadly Conduct Laws
with Convention in Epicenter
The State GOP's decision to keep its biennial convention in Houston on track for mid-July with Governor Greg Abbott's silent blessings will spark on a debate on whether the party is violating the letter and spirit of criminal laws against reckless endangerment.
The Republicans could be gambling that prosecutors from Harris County or surrounding communities won't pursue misdemeanor or felony charges for public health problems and potential death that can be tied to the incoming event that's set to take place in the U.S. coronavirus epicenter in less than two weeks.
Abbott has wielded unprecedented power since the initial outbreak here in March. But the governor hasn't attempted to nullify existing criminal law despite his gutting of his own authority to enforce COVID-19 restrictions that he's imposed in the past four months. The state GOP convention could present a first test.
Texas Penal Code § 22.05. Deadly Conduct
(a) A person commits an offense if he recklessly engages in conduct that places another in imminent danger of serious bodily injury.
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The Texas GOP voted on Thursday night to stumble forward with plans for an in-person state convention this month in the heart of the nation's coronavirus epicenter in a horrifying act that laws against reckless endangerment are designed to prevent.
Faced with the most critical decision of a long and successful political career, Governor Greg Abbott gave the convention in the flesh a passive green light by refusing to use his power to stop the event even though he acknowledged its potential to be a deadly disaster when it's staged in two weeks in downtown Houston.
"One thing that’s so important is we obviously have so many people who would be attending who would be coming from a variety of locations across the state of Texas," Abbott said in an interview with the Fox affiliate in Houston. "These people are very valuable, very important, to the Republican Party. My top concern for them is their health and safety. The last thing that I would want to have happen is for any of them to contract COVID-19 or worse, lose their lives over it."
The governor's statement gives the impression that he wasn't aware that the Texas Medical Association had urged the Republicans to cancel their plans to converge on the state's largest city as a consequence of the dramatic threat that it will pose to the public health and safety.
The State Republican Executive Committee - with the implicit nod from the governor's official indifference - voted 40-20 to spurn the pleas from the state's largest physicians association about the obvious dangers from a massive public gathering in a city where the virus case count skyrocketed 156 percent in June.
With the hospitals in the state's largest city operating on emergency disaster plans amid a coronavirus patient tidal wave, Abbott still has 10 days to pull the plug on the catastrophic convention in the making by exerting the leadership that he'd relegated to the sidelines before the SREC vote.
The governor had appeared to be taking the coronavirus seriously on Thursday in a state where it's been raging out of control for a month when he issued a statewide mask order that medical and scientific experts said Texas needed weeks ago. Abbott closed the bars across Texas one week ago in the first major setback for the reopening that he said would be safe in a state where the virus had been contained with some rural hot spot testing missions.
The activists who voted to keep the convention on track for the second week of June have demonstrated a stunning naivete about the monumental damage that they're doing to their state and a party that's already on the brink of collapse with President Donald Trump leading the ticket this fall.
But Abbott's vote is the only one that really counts as the leader with the singular authority to shut the madness down before the state party does any more to make Texas the laughingstock of the nation for years to come.
Allowing the state GOP convention to proceed as planned creates the appearance of a party that's in a deep state of desperation and disarray and grasping for miracles in a state where the Democrats' odds of taking Texas back this fall are soaring today in the SREC vote wake. The Democrats can reclaim a state House majority with a net gain of nine seats or more in the general election when they have a better chance than ever to knock U.S. Senator John Cornyn off as well with all-systems go on the convention.
State GOP Chairman James Dickey - an Abbott ally who praised the governor when conservatives were blasting him throughout the pandemic - said the party had an “emergency fallback contingency plan" that could shift the convention to the Internet if needed.
"The convention is prepared with multiple precautions and safety measures for attendees. Thermal scanners will be present at entryways. Expanded seating will be in place for social distancing in caucus and general session meetings. Meeting areas will be deep-cleaned thoroughly after each gathering to prepare for the next meeting. Hand sanitizer stations will be found throughout the convention center. Sponsors have donated masks which will be readily available for delegates’ and attendees’ use in compliance with Governor Greg Abbott’s most recent order."
more to come ...
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