Open for Business – Just Not the State’s Business
On March 18, 2020 the Texas Capitol was closed to the public by the State Preservation Board in response to the Governor’s Executive Order shutting down most economic and social activity across the state due to the perceived rise in COVID-19 cases. Now, almost five months later, it remains closed.
Despite repeated calls by members of the Legislature for a special session to allow the members to address the draconian measures placed upon businesses, schools, and governmental bodies to operate, the Governor has refused to call a special session and continues to disregard the constitutional provision, “No power of suspending laws in this State shall be exercised except by the Legislature.”
The Texas Constitution provides that “The Legislature shall meet every two years at such time as may be provided by law and at other times when convened by the Governor.”
The expectation is that the elected representatives of the people will come together each odd-numbered year to plot the course of action of the state. Meeting only every two years, the citizens of Texas are already limited in the time they can come to Austin to voice their concerns face to face with their representatives. Now, still five months away from convening the 87th Legislature, from all appearances at the Capitol, it appears that every action (in the name of safety) will be taken to prevent the people from showing up and participating in government.
Consider the following:
- Interim committees of the House and Senate, in the name of safety, have not met in the Texas Capitol since the Governor’s Executive Orders in March. Interim studies and discussions have been put on hold.
- The Texas House, in the name of safety, has proposed rules for their committees that include a protocol where the expectation is that chairs will “limit testimony to invited testimony and to use videoconferencing for such testimony.” A committee chair may allow invited testimony on specific protocols if videoconferencing is not possible. What happens if you are not invited? (proposed rules)
- The Sunset Commission met and failed to pass rules to allow for, in the name of safety, virtual meetings when members who opposed the precedent were unable to reach an agreement on what a compromise might look like. The biggest roadblock was how to receive public testimony while adhering to the excessive and ineffective safety protocols set out by the Governor’s executive orders.
- The Texas Legislature cannot convene in a special session without the call of the Governor.
- The Texas Legislature cannot even meet in the Capitol until the State Preservation Board re-opens it. The State Preservation Board meets at the call of —you guessed it—the Governor.
Our economy has taken an unprecedented hit from the government actions since the first of the year. Rather than have the benefit of knowing that the day will come when citizens can come and confront law makers face to face for the consequences of those actions, early plans appear to be to thwart all such meetings.
Enough is enough. It is easy to see the benefits such actions may provide, but we are ignoring the unintended but serious consequences. For those shut out of their schools, most lost an entire half year of instruction last year. Some they will never recover. For those shut out of their businesses, we have seen increased unemployment, mental anguish, domestic abuse, suicide, foreclosures, and other monetary difficulties. For those who cannot visit loved ones in nursing homes, we have seen people confined to isolation in a single room literally die of loneliness and broken hearts. For those shut out of their government, we march closer to tyranny.
When a single branch of government can halt all economic activity and frustrate the efforts of the other branches to hold it in check, we are out of balance. When protesters can flood our streets and engage in lawlessness with impunity, but citizens entering a business without a mask can be fined $250, we are out of balance. When a single branch of government can foil the attempts of individuals to face their elected officials in their State Capitol, we are out of balance.
Responding to a message of fear, most Texans initially made the sacrifices the Governor requested. But more and more information is surfacing about prevention and early intervention for COVID. And the great news is that the most effective treatments are also some of the safest and least expensive. That’s bad news for pharmaceutical companies or anybody wanting to make money off of the next big vaccine, but great news for everybody else.
Individuals no longer have to accept the “government approved” treatment of taking Tylenol and waiting to check yourself into the hospital when you are too sick to stay at home. While government bureaucrat doctors are using debunked “scientific” trials where hydroxychloroquine was prescribed in toxic doses to claim the drug is not safe, other doctors across the nation are speaking up about the success they have had in treating patients with the drug, resulting in quick and complete recoveries without a need for hospitalization at all.
Watch my past interviews with ‘boots-on-the-ground’ doctors here:
Note to government doctors: Toxic doses of any drug are . . .toxic.
Governor, it is past time to open up the Texas economy, to open the Texas Capitol to allow legislators and the people they represent to conduct the business of the state, and to allow doctors to treat COVID patients as they see fit without fear of reprisals from the Texas Medical Board!