Yesterday, Abbott renewed his COVID disaster declaration for another 30 days.

Texas is now lagging behind the rest of the nation as one of only 12 states that have refused to lay down their unconstitutional executive power. This marks the 31st month of COVID emergency declared by Abbott, and many Texans are wondering what is going on.

For the most part, the majority of Texans have returned to normal life for over a year now. It is rare to see masks in public, and life has mostly resumed its pre-pandemic normalcy. Even more disturbing and bizarre is that this comes after President Joe Biden declared the pandemic to be over in a recent interview.

Executive overreach was a major priority for Republicans, but lawmakers refused to rein in Abbott by passing any law to restrict his unconstitutional actions. We are now reaping the effects of our Legislature’s inaction. It appears we will have to wait almost another year, and that is if lawmakers decide to do their jobs and protect our state from an ever-growing and powerful executive branch.

The one advantage of the emergency orders, from TFR’s perspective, is that they have prevented local governments from enforcing despotic COVID policies on lockdowns and masking. However, lawmakers could have been dealt with this in the regular legislative session or any of the three special sessions in 2021, but they refused to act.

Now, we are at the whim and discretion of Abbott. How long will he continue his executive overreach? Only he can answer that. Texas taxpayers are watching, and so is TFR.

The next legislative session is set to begin in January of 2023. Your elected officials need to hear from you.

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