Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appeared with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other leaders including Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price Tuesday to address Austin’s defunding its police. Gov. Abbott proposed legislation that would forbid any city from being able to increase property taxes until it restores funding to satisfy the proposed law.
There will be sausage-making when the legislature convenes in January 2021. It’s impossible to predict at this point exactly what the law, if one passes, will look like. There may be more than one. Austin’s batty brand of leftism makes it a frequent target of the more conservative legislature. The lege will have more ideas for punishing it next year.
Former Travis County Sheriff Terry Keel, for instance, has proposed taking APD away from the city entirely and putting it under the state Department of Public Safety. Former Mayor Lee Leffingwell has endorsed Flannigan’s opponent in November, Mackenzie Kelly of Take Back Austin. Everyone seems to recognize that Austin has a problem, other than those elected to set budget and policy and the fringe activists they listen to.
Today’s move by the state’s top leaders suggests they have a galvanizing issue at a time when they might have gone into session more divided. Austin’s move has probably taken Texas off the map for the Democrats in the upcoming presidential election.
Democrats: bowing to the enemies of our civilization because they share goals with them.
Send them a bill for 1000x the cost.
The police vacuum will be partially filled by private security contractors...for a price.
For the time being, the state should hire all the laid off Austin police, then put them in Texas State Trooper (Highway Patrol) uniforms and station them all in Austin. Then send Austin the bill to pay for them.
Then augment their numbers with police laid off from other police departments willing to relocate. So Austin would be up to its eyebrows in cops. And all working under state, not city rules.
And those arrested by them would go to state, not city, jails, under state laws, even if they are dozens of miles away from Austin.
With no police on the streets in Austin then who’s going to protect the looters, rioters, arsonists, child molesters, and murderers from the wrath and fury of an armed populace?
Nobody should side with Austin. Let’s see how they make out and how long it will take them to reverse course.
Everyone in Texas goes on and on about how bad Austin is, but just wait.
Sooner or later the state of Texas will need an enema, and then we’ll be darn glad to have Austin!
DemoRats insist and persist in promoting policies proven not to work and that leads to destructive results. Throw facts, reason and logic to the wind while claiming to have the higher ground in governance. It’s madness and lunacy yet it’s onward Warriors of Social Justice and Equality. To the abysses they go gladly. So many fools it’s bewildering.
The only good thing about Austin is that it is surrounded by Texas.
I will never again even pass through that city without being well armed. As it is, I usually carry there anyway, but now it is required. The Schitty Council has made it clear that they’re not interest in the safety of the public, so we have to act accordingly.
Either that, or just boycott the whole damned place - don’t visit, don’t buy products from any Austin company (and let them know why, so they can feel the pressure and then turn it on the idiots in the government).
Leave ‘em alone and let ‘em burn.
Did I just see a flying pig? I just agreed with Art Acevedo!
Send in a team of baby sitters from the local high school until the adults can be found.