At least two San Antonio City Council members are calling for the city to take legal action against the state over a new law that restricts local governments from setting local rules on some aspects of business and commerce.
City Attorney Andy Segovia met in executive session with the council last week to discuss the city’s approach to House Bill 2127, which was signed by Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this month.
The law prohibits local governments from setting rules beyond what the state already specifies on issues related to agriculture, business and commerce, finance, insurance, labor, occupations, property, local government and natural resources. It also opens the door for individuals or businesses to sue the city for creating or maintaining any ordinances that go beyond its authority in those fields.
Organized labor groups have deemed it the “Death Star bill” due to its potentially wide-ranging impact, but city attorneys responsible for adhering to the changes say they don’t yet know how much it will impact the council’s work.
The new law goes into effect Sept. 1.
So far two councilmen, Manny Pelaez (D8) and John Courage (D9), have called for the city to sue the state to prevent the law from going into effect.
“I would applaud and encourage us to be the name plaintiff to file a lawsuit to kill this,” Pelaez said of HB 2127 at Thursday’s council meeting.
Meanwhile, Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4) pushed Segovia to help the council navigate it.
“I’m wondering what the game plan is?” Rocha Garcia said. “Do you talk to your fellow city attorneys [in other cities]?”
The council later met in executive session after Segovia promised to address the issue behind closed doors.
“We shouldn’t be discussing litigation here on the dais — that’s an executive session discussion,” Segovia said.
For a council whose members are often divided over business matters, the discussion showcased some rare unity against HB 2127.
The bill has the support of Republican state Reps. John Lujan and Mark Dorazio, as well as the Hispanic Chamber, who say it will provide businesses with much-needed regulatory consistency.
Among the council, just one member, Councilman Marc Whyte (D10), has expressed support for the law. Whyte told colleagues Thursday he thought suing the state over HB 2127 would be a “big mistake.”
“I think we need to let some time play out here. … I think we’re going to see that this is going to really help business,” said Whyte, who has political ties to Republican state lawmakers, including the bill’s author, Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock). “It’s going to allow us here in the city to actually focus on the issues that we should be focusing on.”
Several council members said even after the meeting with Segovia, they haven’t been able to get clarity on how the law might apply to a number ordinances they’re currently considering.
Last month members of the council’s Planning and Community Development Committee tried unsuccessfully to get an opinion from the city attorney’s office on whether the law would prevent them from requiring rest breaks for construction workers during the hot summer. Without that answer, several members suggested they go ahead with their plans and test the law’s strength in court.
If the city is sued and loses, it can be forced to pay for its opponent’s legal fees, but no other damages, according to the new law.
“I feel like we sort of have to test the boundaries to figure out how it’s going to effect us,” Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) said.
A game of hypotheticals
Even with HB 2127 in place, the state still gives cities explicit authority to regulate many issues within the now-restricted codes. For that reason, some proponents of the law say they think its impact will be much smaller than critics anticipate.
“I haven’t heard a good answer yet on what this bill is going to prevent us from doing that we need to be doing,” Whyte said in an interview Thursday. “It’s all far-fetched hypotheticals.”
Among the matters council members still want to know whether they can regulate, Pelaez said, are watering during droughts, fencing, billboards, horse-drawn carriages and 18-wheelers parked on city streets, Pelaez said.
“Every time we ask the city attorney, ‘How this would play out?’ … Andy’s answer is, ‘Councilman, I’m unable to answer that because of how vague the statute is,'” Pelaez said.
In a nod to that frustration, Pelaez noted that during a hearing on the bill, its author said it would not impact cities’ ability to regulate billboards. However, the billboard industry is already cheering the new law and discussing how it might help clients “address stringent local sign regulations.”
“The representations [the bill’s supporters] made are totally unimportant. … Courts will only look at the [statute],” Pelaez said.
Whyte — who like Pelaez and Cabello Havrda is an attorney — disagreed, saying cities never had authority to venture outside of the issues the state gives them power to regulate. Figuring out which city ordinances did that and getting rid of them isn’t an unreasonable burden, he said.
Joining forces
Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who chairs Texas’ Big City Mayors group, sounded ready to fight the new law.
“I haven’t met a soul in San Antonio — Republican, Democrat, independent or something in between — that doesn’t want to have more of a voice and how their quality of life is determined,” Nirenberg said Thursday.
“If that’s the case, this needs to be … a bipartisan, nonpartisan effort to stop the creep towards authoritarianism … that is happening underneath our noses in the state of Texas,” he said.
Pointing to the state’s every-other-year Legislature, Nirenberg added, “If you have an egress-ingress issue for your business, if you have a tractor-trailer parked in your neighborhood, is that something that you want to wait for the Legislature to address?
“I don’t think so. You’re going to be calling your City Council.”
