"This was a very tough session for all cities, not just Houston, in the state of Texas, so it was very tough," Bill Kelly, the city of Houston's director of government relations, said. "There were some positives, but when you go to a session with a $33 billion, you really hope for more."
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This year was Kelly's fourth legislative session. He spent the entire session in Austin working on legislation on behalf of Houstonians, and he and his team have published their legislative report.
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Wins, he says, included $50 million to mitigate flooding in Kingwood, a law that allows the city to use hotel occupancy taxes to update the George R. Brown Convention Center, and a bill that will enable law enforcement to impound cars involved in street takeovers.
"They're literally moving cars that are really souped-up from urban area to urban area and running a race," state Sen. Paul Bettencourt said.
Bettencourt sponsored the bill in the Senate, which was authored by State Representative Ann Johnson.
Losses include not passing a law that would have prevented gun accessories like those used in the shooting death of HPD officer Bill Jeffrey.
"That is particularly focused on law enforcement's protection and our men and women of HPD," Kelly said. "We've already had an officer go down on it, and I pray we don't have another before 2025 when we can correct this."
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The biggest disappointment, Kelly said, was House Bill 2127-the so-called preemption bill, which takes power from cities and gives it to the state. It is also called the Death Star Bill because of what leaders in Texas' large cities say it does to their ability to pass new laws.
"When you preempt cities from taking any action, it really does strike at the protections that we have tried to offer for the populations," Kelly said. "A governance model for less than 500 people for the third, fourth largest city in America just doesn't make sense."
The legislation prevents cities from passing certain laws, giving the state a lot more power.
"It's probably the most radical transfer of power from local communities to elected officials, politicians in Austin that we've ever seen," Rick Levy, the president of Texas AFL-CIO, said. "Vast sections of the policy are completely off-limits to local officials. That includes water breaks in the heat of the summer. But it also includes payday lending restrictions. It includes certain zoning requirements. It includes 10 different areas of the Texas code."
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Sen. Bettencourt disagrees with that assessment.
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"The city still has a role," Bettencourt said. "They still do everything they do. They just can't reach out and say, 'Oh, today we're going to ban fracking. Oh, today we're going to ban plastic bags.'"
The law, which takes effect Sept.1, comes at a time when Texans are not overwhelmingly thrilled with the state government.
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A UT-Austin Texas Politics Project poll released last week reveals only 19% strongly support the idea of giving more power to the state and less than half say they view state government as either very or somewhat favorable.
"I think the partnership in local government and state government is broken," Kelly said.
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