Tarrant County lawmaker among Republicans suing Abbott over COVID-19 contact tracing
Five Republican state lawmakers, including two who represent the surrounding Tarrant County area, are suing Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Health and Human Services in an effort to void the state’s contract with a Frisco-based company to provide contact tracing services during the novel coronavirus’ outbreak.
In a lawsuit filed in Travis County District court on Monday, Republican state Reps. Mike Lang of Granbury, Bill Zedler of Arlington, Kyle Biedermann of Fredericksburg, Steve Toth of The Woodlands and Sen. Bob Hall of Edgewood, allege that the contract awarded to MTX Group did not follow competitive bidding rules and violates the Texas Constitution’s separation of powers.
“The request for proposal for the contract was inadequate, the contract bid process was a sham, and the contract impermissibly exceeds two years,” the lawsuit reads.
In recent months, the state’s contract with MTX has come under fire as lawmakers have questioned how a little-known private information technology company was awarded a $295 million contract over larger companies, like IBM and AT&T.
An investigation last month by the Houston Chronicle found that workers hired to do contact tracing faced technical problems and had accomplished little work.
Abbott dismissed the lawsuit Thursday during a press conference in Dallas.
“I’ve been sued too many times for me to count. Every lawsuit that’s been filed against me I either won in court, or has been dismissed, either by the courts or by the parties. This lawsuit will meet that exact same fate,” Abbott said.
In an email Thursday, MTX’s chief financial officer declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday it could not comment on pending litigation.
The lawmakers, except for Hall, are members of the Texas House Freedom Caucus, and had previously called on Abbott to loosen his stay-at-home order to the greatest extent possible. They’re represented by Arlington attorney and State Republican Executive Committee member Warren Norred, who also represented Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther, who was jailed and fined for defying court orders designed to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Public health experts have said contact tracing, the process by which health officials contact everyone who may have interacted with an infected person, is key to containing the virus’ spread. However, both Texas and Tarrant County have struggled to ramp up contact tracing efforts to match the pace of the virus’ growth.
In late April, the state had set a goal of Texas employing 4,000 contact tracers by June 1, and pointed to contact tracing as key to reopening the state.
The lawmakers suing the state raised issues with the fact that members of the Texas Legislature have not been given an opportunity to vote on the contract tracing program or discuss it, since the legislature currently isn’t in session.
Abbott first declared a state of disaster due to the pandemic on March 13, and has since renewed it multiple times. Chapter 418 of the Texas Government Code, also known as the Texas Disaster Act of 1975, allows the governor to declare a state of disaster by executive order or proclamation, and authorizes a wide breadth of responses, such as reallocating state resources and waiving state laws that hinder agencies’ abilities to respond to the pandemic.
However, the lawsuit argues the act was applied unconstitutionally and that under the Texas Constitution’s separation of branches of government, the Legislature is tasked with policy-making decisions.
The lawmakers suing the state “do not contend that the Governor is required to call a special session in the face of disease threat, but that he cannot use a perpetual state of emergency to create state policy on his own,” the lawsuit reads. “Using a serious but manageable disease threat which some refer to as ‘the new normal’ and authorizing multiple-year contracts entrenching a new bureaucracy and effective government program is not an appropriate use of the Governor’s power.”
During Thursday’s press conference, Abbott pushed back on the argument that the Legislature has not been involved in the decision-making process throughout the pandemic. He pointed to multiple calls he holds each week with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, in addition to role the heads of various committees have played in making decisions on allocating federal funds and reopening schools.
“And so those are just several of multiple examples of the way the legislature continues to play a role as we work our way through this process,” Abbott said.
This week’s lawsuit is not the first time Abbott’s emergency powers have been challenged over the course of the pandemic. In late May, Steven Hotze, a Houston GOP activist, and Zedler, the GOP lawmaker from Arlington, asked the Texas Supreme Court to strike down Chapter 418 of the Texas Government Code and argued Abbott’s executive orders violate provisions of the Texas Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
Last month, the Texas Supreme Court dismissed the emergency petition on the basis that the court lacked the jurisdiction. In a concurring opinion, Justice John Devine wrote that Abbott’s emergency-related order are not “categorically immune from judicial review.”
“Disaster or not, the Texas Constitution doesn’t appear to contemplate any circumstances in which we may condone such consolidation of power. For better or worse, we have witnessed first-hand how end-running the traditional law-making process can threaten our everyday liberties,” Devine wrote.
Abbott has also faced legal challenges over his shutdown of bars and statewide mask mandate.
