In the wake of the Austin City Council’s insane decision to partially defund the police, Governor Greg Abbott has received proposed legislation for the state to take over the Austin Police Department.
Just in time for Christmas:
The Legislative Council has sent draft language for a proposed law that would transfer control of the Austin Police Department to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
One way or another we will pass a law to keep Austin safe.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 21, 2020
More on the text of the proposal:
Terry Keel, a former Travis County sheriff and state lawmaker, is one of the authors of the drafted language. Former State Rep. Ron Wilson is also behind the language.
According to Quorum Report, the draft language states that “if the governor determines that the safety of a municipality’s residents is threatened because the municipality is providing insufficient municipal resources for public safety, the governor may issue a determination” that DPS should control the city’s police department. Keel previously told KVUE DPS and the city’s police department would work as a “special municipal police department division” that would answer to the DPS director.
I looked but cannot currently find the actual text of the proposed bill in the LegiScan database.
I’m of two minds about the proposal. Austin voters have made their bed by voting for the hard left, and both fairness and subsidiarity demand they be forced to lie in it. On the other hand, the protection of life, liberty and property is the very first duty of government. If the Austin City Council is unwilling to keep the city’s citizens safe, then the power and money necessary to do so should be removed from their hands.
Tags: 87th Texas Legislature, Austin, Austin City Council, Austin Police Department, Crime, Greg Abbott, police, Ron Wilson, Terry Keel, Texas
If DPS were to take over APD, wouldn’t that render many of APD’s current administrative staff redundant? Not the beat cops or detectives, but people like the civilian employees in various departments?
Or do you think that DPS would still need that staffing to handle the additional load imposed by running APD?
#DefundAustin
#RecallEmAll
#CarthagoDelendaEst
I assume that all regular full-time APD staff would come over to start. Down the road there might be some consolidation, but DPS and APD fulfill mostly distinct LEO functions, so I doubt DPS would want to consolidate too much.
If you try to fight ants one ant at a time you are going to lose.
The lefto-puke infestation in this country has gotten to a place where fighting them piecemeal, one small situation at a time, is a futile endeavor.
We need a final solution to the lefto-puke problem or the lefto-pukes will own us forever as we are very close to experiencing.
We are at the stage of a war when we have basically lost by default because we refused to fight and the lefto-pukes are going to start their final mopping-up operations, hunting us to extinction.
If American patriots would be willing to do what it takes we could win America back and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN in thirty days by simply running our of lefto-pukes.
The likelihood is rather small because decent folks seem either paralyzed by self-doubt or just have abandoned giving a sh!t about it all.
I don’t know if we still can win.
But I do know that by not even trying we are just giving it all away to the lefto-pukes for free.
I bet they can’t believe it is so easy for them. Like a walk in the park.
Have we become so depraved that we don’t value the best we have, anymore?
Have we become so detached from reality that we don’t see we are on a ship and ships can sink?
Why?
The best accomplishment of mankind ever, by far, and we value it so little as to watch it all taken over by lefto-puke ants in the name of inanity?
In the name of every thing that has ever been decent, in the name of every man who ever gave his life for America, to keep it free, in the name of every noble effort that went into building this amazing feat of civilization, in the name of the only country like this on the planet, in the name of the only place an American can really call “the Land of the Free”, why?!
Your first instinct to allow Austin voters to lie in their own feces is the correct public policy position. Having the state take over a police department while mandating additional funding over and above what the local politicians deem appropriate either reeks of taxation without representation or socialization of Austin’s cost of policing to the rest of the state’s tax payers (e.g., from Austin property taxes to Texas sales taxes), The governor should assure the capital grounds and University of Texas are secure, interests the entire state can abide, and otherwise do little more than stand back and trumpet the disaster that is the leftist orthodoxy.
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There being still a decent remnant in the city, and children who haven’t caused this dereliction by the city’s “leadership”, it is appropriate to look for ways to protect public order.
What is not being addressed is judges and prosecutors who are failing to enforce criminal law and eliminating the requirement for bail. What can be done about this horrorshow?