Good morning, 

As the world struggles with the implications of the Wuhan Coronavirus, President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday issued state of emergency declarations for the nation and state, respectively.

That’s the focus of today’s Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Monday, March 16, 2020
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• Over the weekend local governments around Texas announced restrictions on public gatherings. For example, Austin set a prohibition on assemblies of 250 people or more in Austin, while Dallas set theirs at 500.
     
• With county parties scheduled to hold their nominating conventions soon, the fate of the state’s Republican Party Convention, set currently for May 14-16, could be impacted. The Democrats’ convention is scheduled for the first week in June. 
      
• Members of the Texas House had a conference call with the Commissioner of Education on Sunday afternoon to discuss how the state’s public education system should proceed. Such meetings should be open to the public. Will a transcript and recording be made available so Texans know what policies are being considered that affect our kids and our money?
     
• At this point, it is unclear if Texas students will return to school this academic year. Yet lawmakers and public education bureaucrats are still apparently trying to figure out how they can come back in time for administration of the STAAR test. The testing company must have good lobbyists. 
         
• Texas Scorecard’s managing editor Brandon Waltens attended the governor’s press conference on Friday, at which the state of emergency declaration was announced.
          
• According to Abbott, 39 cases of the virus had been positively identified in Texas as of Friday, not including those quarantined at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
     
• Waltens asked Abbott about a provision in state law allowing taxing jurisdictions during a state-declared emergency to hike property taxes beyond the limits enacted last year. The governor said he would “have to take a look at it.”
     
• The governor then added: “Locally, pretty much the only type of governmental entity that would be affected would be a hospital district and they weren’t subject to having their rollback rate changed. And so, for the other jurisdictions their resources are not foreseeably going to be taxed right now.”
         
• Texas’ primary runoff elections and party conventions have not yet been affected by the situation. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Louisiana’s sec­re­tary of state “is mov­ing his state’s pri­mary from next month to June over con­cerns re­lated to the coro­n­avirus out­break.”
      
• Some have suggested that the governor’s emergency declaration would lift restrictions on the unlicensed, open carry of a handgun by Texans. While true, experts tell us this only applies for the 168 hours after the declaration is declared and applies to those evacuating or re-entering a disaster area. 
       
• “Texans should proceed at their own legal risk. The default rule remains that carrying a handgun without a license remains a serious crime under state law.” – Tony McDonald

• The fiscal crunch brought on by the confluence of the coronavirus and Russia-Saudi Arabia oil war is leading some observers to wonder if the State of Texas will have enough money to fund the 2020-2021 budget that was passed last year. The state budget blew past population and inflation numbers while using surplus dollars to grow government rather than provide meaningful tax relief for Texans.
     

• Our friends at The Texan wrote last week about the effect the declining price of oil could have on the state’s Economic Stabilization Fund (known as the “rainy day fund”). The Texan’s Brad Johnson wrote, “should the oil price hold at roughly $33 bbl, the state could lose about 40 percent of its projected oil revenue for every severance tax dollar collected above those 1987 levels — compared with its $58 bbl projections.”
     

• This is a good reminder that Republican lawmakers erred philosophically and practically when choosing to spend like drunken frat boys on spring break in adopting the budget. It might have been fun in 2019, but the bill will be coming due for taxpayers just when it will be the hardest to pay.
     

• Fiscal restraint should always be the order of the day. Unfortunately, we have learned, even Republican legislative majorities find it way too easy to spend other people’s money.

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