Texas returns to pandemic

AUSTIN, Texas – Republican Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas is back in a pandemic that killed more than 36,000 people here, a third in the United States, and led Monday night’s largest red state America Towards a Set of Battles on Voting, Police, and Immigration. they are likely to delve deeper into political divisions in the coming months.

In his last State of the Union address before participating in the vote for a third term in 2022, Abbott called for the outlawing of police budget cuts and ordered the Republican Party majority. in the Texas Capitol that prioritized “electoral integrity,” not to mention that there was no evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 election.

He also demanded more gun protection in the books at a time when the NRA is recently seeking to rejoin Texas and more anti-abortion laws in a state that already has some of the country’s most restrictive measures.

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Democrats used his rebuttal to narrowly break Abbott’s handling of the pandemic and paint a more bleak picture than his optimistic assessments, saying an uneven response continues to let cases spread and leave cities without power to manage outbreaks.

“Our return is already materializing,” Abbott said. “Jeans are back at work. Students return to school. Families restore routines. Every day that passes with more vaccines and greater immunity, normalcy returns to Texas.

Abbott, who has not ruled out the 2024 presidency, first handed over his statewide first-time television to Texas, rather than in front of state Capitol lawmakers, where concerns COVID-19 continue to restrict meetings.

But that gave Abbott an even larger-than-usual audience to defend his response to the pandemic – which has been attacked by members of his own party – at a time when Texas, like most of the United States, is finally sees hospitalizations and cases fall after reaching the record. maximums in recent weeks.

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He praised the front-line hospital workers for their resilience and said expanding broadband access was a priority after a pandemic that forced millions of people to work and go to school from home. There was no mention of direct relief for jeans workers, but a demand for legislation to protect companies from pandemic-related lawsuits.

He also called on Texas to increase border security again in a few weeks under Biden’s presidency, which follows that Texas will win a court order that halted the new administration’s plans to issue a 100-day moratorium on deportations.

Democrats, who are still being wiped out of a demoralizing election cycle in which their massive expectations in Texas unfolded up and down the ballot, didn’t even wait for Abbott’s speech before exploiting his treatment of ‘a pandemic. Along the border, the city of Laredo still faces one of the worst outbreaks in the nation.

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“As the governor tries to analyze the lives lost and the severity of the crisis we face, Texans everywhere know things are not going well and are getting worse,” Texas Democratic Party President Gilberto Hinojosa said. “We have to demand more from leaders or we will never get to a point where each of us has a good shot at moving forward.”

The state of the state is usually when the governors set their legislative priorities for the coming year. In Texas, lawmakers meet for only five months every two years, giving lawmakers only until the end of May to try to deliver Abbott’s priorities to his desk.

This legislative session in Texas is the first since there have been massive shootings that shook the state before the pandemic, the deadliest of which was a gunman who allegedly confessed to attacking Mexicans when he opened fire on a Walmart and killed 23 people. Abbott formed a working group on internal terrorism and extremism after the attack, but did not mention the shooting during his speech Monday night.

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Abbott also did not establish or support any specific police reform after George Floyd’s death last year sparked a global calculation about police brutality and racial prejudice. Abbott, who attended Floyd’s funeral in Houston, did not mention the race as he said lawmakers “must provide law enforcement with the tools and training they need to ensure the security their communities deserve. .

Below is a replay of Abbott’s speech and the Democratic response: