SAN ANTONIO — The City of San Antonio is suing the state of Texas over a bill that they say puts major limits on local regulation.
House Bill 2127 bars cities and counties from passing regulations — and overturn existing ones- that go further than state law in a broad swath of areas including labor, agriculture, natural resources and finance.
The bill’s backers argued it was needed to combat what they call a growing patchwork of local regulations that make it difficult for business owners to operate and harm the state’s economy.
“We want those small-business owners creating new jobs and providing for their families, not trying to navigate a byzantine array of local regulations that twist and turn every time” they cross city limits, said state Rep. Dustin Burrows, the Lubbock Republican who carried the bill in the House.
City staff said the bill will prevent them from taking several necessary local actions. Staff said HB 2127 would prevent Texas cities from adopting or enforcing ordinances related to matters already regulated by the State Agriculture code, Business and Commerce code, Finance code, Labor code, and more.
“The issue is this upends our system of self-governance, of our democratic governance in the state of Texas for cities like San Antonio that have constitutions," Nirenberg said. “In the area of property code for instance, we have the ability to say, create a policy where 18-wheelers can’t park on a neighborhood street. That’s one of the areas that’s quote on quote preempted by this bill."
Nirenberg noted the bill is unconstitutional and could cost local taxpayers.
“People who don’t like any particular ordinance are going to sue. It certainly creates a lot of doubt and is going to end up employing a lot of attorneys all throughout this state," Nirenberg said. “We’re reassuring the public we’re going to continue to do our jobs under the auspices of this bill, but it certainly creates a lot of doubt and is going to end up employing a lot of attorneys all throughout the state.”
District 4 City Councilwoman Adriana Rocha-Garcia has stressed the bill poses potential risks for tenants' rights.
"It will jeopardize our responsible bidder ordinance, noise mitigation which we have taken up recently, heat related illness (water break ordinance) that we were planning to take up, and then the proactive apartment inspections. Those are just a few of the ones that are really critical," Rocha-Garcia said.
District 10 City Councilman Marc Whyte supports the bill's prospect for benefiting businesses.
“Just imagine a company trying to do business in Austin, San Antonio, Houston and having to comply with different regulations in each of the cities, how cumbersome that would be, how expensive it would be for the business to hire lawyers to sort through the different patchwork of laws. This Regulatory Consistency Act would do away with that," Whyte said.
The City of Houston has already taken legal action to the block the law earlier in July.