Abbott calls on Texas candidates to ‘back the blue’ by opposing cuts to police funding
Gov. Greg Abbott called on Texas candidates Wednesday to sign a pledge against defunding police departments as a national civil rights movement has prompted cities to rethink the role of law enforcement.
In a video released Wednesday, Abbott called on Texans and candidates from both parties to sign a pledge showing they “back the blue.”
“Some cities in Texas want to defund and dismantle police departments in our state. This reckless action invites crime into our communities and threatens the safety of all Texans, including our law enforcement officers and their families,” Abbott said. “We cannot let this happen in Texas.”
Abbott is expected to sign the pledge during a news conference at 2 p.m. Thursday from the Austin Police Association’s office and announce “a new legislative proposal to protect police funding in communities across the state.”
The call is Abbott’s latest move in his effort to discourage Texas cities from allocating less funds to police forces, and it comes just weeks after he traveled to Fort Worth to announce that next session lawmakers will propose legislation that would freeze a city’s property tax revenue if it defunds its police department.
Last month’s announcement came just a week after the Austin City Council unanimously voted to redirect roughly $150 million from the city’s police department — with about $20 million to be immediately removed, according to the Austin-American Statesman.
Since then, Abbott has tweeted that he is considering a proposal that would allow Austin’s police department to be consolidated with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Meanwhile in July, Fort Worth voters renewed a half-cent sales tax, known as the Crime Control and Prevention District, for the next decade that will help fund equipment, vehicles and neighborhood patrol officers for the Fort Worth Police Department.
At last month’s press conference, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price vowed not to cut funding to the Fort Worth Police Department to tackle issues related to public safety.
Lawmakers who flanked Abbott and Price at the press conference, like Sen. Jane Nelson, a Republican from Flower Mound and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, already tweeted their support Wednesday afternoon of Abbott’s “Back the Blue” pledge.
Meanwhile, other like Rep. Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso who serves on the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, pushed back on Abbott’s framing of the issue.
“It’s not a matter of fund/defund. It’s a discussion about what policing should look like,” Moody wrote on Twitter. “We need to stop w/this needless back & forth about austerity cuts to (law enforcement).”
In a joint statement, Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prairie and chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Democrat from Houston and chair of the the Legislative Study Group and the County Affairs Committee, said that they agree, and oppose defunding the police. But they criticized Abbott’s pledge, which they said is a distraction “from the real issues we need to address,” like responding to the pandemic.
“Texas House Democrats are committed to ensuring all Texans live in safe, secure communities and that means law enforcement has the resources it needs,” the statement read.
In the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody in May, a national conversation has arisen around police funding and police brutality, and it is shaping to be a central issue that lawmakers will debate when they reconvene for the legislative session in January.
The Texas Legislative Black Caucus unveiled the George Floyd Act last month, a sweeping bill aimed to curb police use of force and further criminal justice reforms in Texas by banning chokeholds and requiring officers to intervene when excessive force is used.
This story was originally published September 9, 2020 at 2:33 PM.
