ICYMI: Abbott Sits on $70 Million While Texas Flood Victims Suffer
Houston Chronicle exposes Abbott’s delay tactics: “The governor has the authority to send money to areas still reeling from natural disasters like floods without lawmakers giving the green light”
State. Rep. Walle in the Houston Chronicle: “You don’t need a bill to get these people the dollars they need now. The governor can write a check”
AUSTIN, TX – New Houston Chronicle reporting confirms a troubling reality: Governor Greg Abbott has the power to deliver disaster relief right now but refuses to act. While $70 million sits unused in Abbott’s disaster fund, with another $150 million arriving Sept. 1, Texans continue to suffer without adequate disaster relief. The Chronicle confirms that Texas law gives Abbott explicit authority to “use all available resources of state government” during disasters, no special session required. Abbott previously wielded these same disaster powers for political projects, reallocating $250 million for Trump’s border wall, but claims he’s powerless to help flood victims. Instead, less than a quarter of his special session agenda addresses disasters, with the session dominated by Republican redistricting schemes and Trump’s partisan priorities that failed during the regular session.
Read more below:
Houston Chronicle: Democrats say Greg Abbott is holding up flood relief. Are they right?
As the fight over redistricting drags on in Texas, the state’s response to last month’s deadly flooding has come to a virtual standstill – and members of both parties are pointing fingers.
The Legislature is on track to wrap its special session this week without any action on flood recovery, including $250 million in relief funding. Gov. Greg Abbott says the funding has been held up by “derelict” House Democrats who derailed the session he called when they fled to blue states to deny a quorum and block the GOP effort to redraw U.S. House districts.
Democrats say the Republican governor doesn’t need their approval to send millions of dollars to the Hill Country now, and that Abbott is using the flood relief as both leverage and political cover to add five new Republican congressional districts.
On paper, the governor has the authority to send money to areas still reeling from natural disasters like floods without lawmakers giving the green light — and he’s used that authority several times, including after hurricanes, during the COVID pandemic and to free up money to build a border wall.
Recent governors, including Abbott, have increasingly used their emergency authority to move state money, part of an uptick for what has historically been a weak office, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. That trend has reached an apex under Abbott.
“The governor has a lot of authority to be able to maneuver money during a disaster,” said Rottinghaus, who has studied the governor’s office.
Abbott specifically has direct authority over a pot of money within his office that is set aside to respond to disasters, and he’s drawn from that fund regularly. After Hurricane Harvey, for instance, his office sent $50 million to the city of Houston, one of several recovery grants Abbott authorized totalling more than $100 million.
Right now that pot has about $70 million available, and it will be replenished with another $150 million after the new fiscal year begins Sept. 1.
Abbott’s office cautioned that the money has to last for two more years, when the Legislature next meets to draft another budget. So Abbott wants lawmakers to authorize an additional $250 million in disaster relief specifically for the floods.
They added that his agenda for Legislature goes much further than just relief funding, including calls to improve early warning systems and emergency communication in flood-prone areas – policies that he can’t enact on his own.
The governor also has the authority to shift funds within state agencies, as he did for the border wall construction. But he can only do that when the Legislature is not in session, and he needs approval from the Legislative Budget Board, a panel of state leaders that oversees spending. Lawmakers can then backfill any funding gaps in supplemental appropriations bills when they are in session again.
Because the budget board is nearly all Republican members, there typically isn’t much dissent, Rottinghaus said. “The governor can more or less operate as he sees fit,” he said.
Four years ago, Abbott transferred $250 million from the state’s prison agency to the disaster fund in his office so the money could be spent building a border wall. He also authorized the transfer of Medicaid funding from the state’s health agency to help with Harvey recovery efforts in 2017.
Democrats say he could have used that authority in the weeks between the July 4 flooding and the start of the special session on July 21. They also say he could easily make the transfers after this first special session wraps and before he calls another one to push through redistricting.
“This issue is being hijacked by political gamesmanship,” said state Rep. Armando Walle, a Houston Democrat who sits on the Legislative Budget Board. “You don’t need a bill to get these people the dollars they need now. The governor can write a check.”
Abbott’s office says that while lawmakers are in session, those types of transfers are not an option.
“Only the Texas Legislature can appropriate funds,” said Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesman for the governor. “If Texas House Democrats care about the Texans they abandoned, they will return to Austin and do the job they were elected to do."
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