Good morning and welcome to On Politics, a day by day political evaluation of the 2020 elections primarily based on reporting by New York Instances
Good morning and welcome to On Politics, a day by day political evaluation of the 2020 elections primarily based on reporting by New York Instances journalists.
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Vice President Mike Pence wore a masks as he arrived on the White Home on Wednesday.
Texas’ legal professional normal clashes with Democratic mayors.
HOUSTON — Few issues outline life in Texas greater than pink versus blue. Particularly in these irregular instances.
At first, the Republicans who run Texas resisted shutting the state down over the coronavirus, whereas the Democrats who run the state’s main cities — Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio — took cost and put native lockdowns and different restrictions in place.
It was a narrative repeated typically on this divided nation, as Democrats took a cautious, shutdown-oriented method and Republicans feared that the remedy was worse than the illness. However in Texas, all the things is extra pronounced, from the blue skies to the state delight to the pandemic politics.
So the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, lastly issued a stay-at-home order, however later flexed his muscle over native officers with this caveat: His statewide virus-related insurance policies outmoded their metropolis and county orders. And the way did Democratic metropolis leaders reply? A few of them went about their enterprise and saved their native guidelines in place.
However the back-and-forth heated up on Tuesday.
The Republican legal professional normal, Ken Paxton, threatened authorized motion in opposition to metropolis and county leaders in Austin, Dallas and San Antonio, telling them that their native restrictions have been illegal and extra strict than these issued by Abbott. Face masks in public? The governor suggests sporting them, however doesn’t require it, Paxton reminded officers. Municipal stay-at-home orders? The governor ended the state’s order this month, so the native ones are “unenforceable,” Paxton’s office noted.
Democrats disputed Paxton’s reading of their local orders. And some have pointed out that the attorney general who is telling them what is and what isn’t lawful is the same attorney general who was arrested on felony charges of securities fraud in 2015 after being indicted by a grand jury, in a long-running case that has dragged on.
Paxton has been battling Democratic leaders on other fronts, too. Yesterday he asked the state’s Supreme Court to prevent elections officials in at least five counties, including Dallas and El Paso, from providing mail-in ballots to voters who feared that casting their ballot in person might expose them to the virus.
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