GOP Boss Who's Fairly New Texas Resident
Gives Governor Scolding on Job Description

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
August 6, 2020

Newly-elected Texas GOP Chairman Allen West is running the risk of being accused of trying to sabotage the party's odds of keeping the state red this fall by attacking Governor Greg Abbott for the executive orders he's issued during the coronavirus crisis.

“Orders, dictates, mandates, decrees, and things of that nature … that’s not what we’re about in Texas," West declared in an interview on Thursday with the hard right group Empower Texans. "That’s not what we’re about in America."

A former Florida congressman who ousted James Dickey from the partisan leadership post last month, West implored Abbott to summon state lawmakers into a special emergency session to give them a chance to weaken the governor's emergency powers during a public health emergency.

“I think that America and Texas, we are three branches of government, not three branches of rule,” West said. “I think it’s key for everyone to understand that no elected official has the power to make a decision about who or what is essential.”

That is an inaccurate statement based on the fact that the Republican governor does indeed have that authority under state law in the midst of an official emergency that he's declared.

With the GOP more bitterly divided than it's ever been in Texas, West could be devoting his time and energy into an attempt to unite the faithful less than three months before a general election when Democrats have an excellent chance to carry the state and top it off with their first state House majority in almost two decades.

But West appeared to be driving the wedge even deeper when he rallied instead behind a handful of tea party who've called for a special session to investigate a $295 million contact tracing contract that Abbott awarded to a firm that had no experience in the task it's being paid to carry out.

“We are supposed to have taxpayer funds that are apportioned based upon the Legislature and making sure that’s a part of our budget process,” the new state GOP chief added. “So, yes, we should have a special session because that’s what the people expect; and that how’s you govern, not rule,”

West probably shouldn't be getting his hopes up for the special session that isn't going to happen no matter what the state Republican chairman and his Texas Freedom Caucus say about a governor might be offended by the lecture on how he should be performing a job that he's had for almost six years - a span of time that might be longer than the party chief has been a resident here.

West might not be in tune with the public in general as someone who've voiced his opposition to Abbott's statewide mask order despite polling that shows that three out of every four Americans support face-covering mandates during the pandemic.

It's not clear if West realizes that the conservative lawmakers who share his view on the need for an election-year special session might seize on such a gathering to try to oust House Speaker Dennis Bonnen who's been public enemy number one in the eyes of Empower Texans.

West would hope for better results in a special session than GOP lawmakers had in Pennsylvania when they voted last month to force Democratic Governor Tim Wolf to cancel an emergency disaster declaration that the state Supreme Court eventually upheld.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a first-term Democrat, went on the defensive on Thursday in the face bipartisan pushback on an executive decision that authorized $30 million in additional emergency funding without first seeking the Legislature's approval.

But Lujan Grisham pointed to several precedents under governors from both parities and appeared in solid position to keep her powers intact.