'We still have power!' GOP lawmaker demands emergency lame-duck power grab

GOP Texas state Rep. Brian Harrison is calling on Gov. Greg Abbott to convene a special session to curb the governor’s emergency powers before Democrat Gina Hinojosa is sworn in, in a lengthy post on X.

“Republicans lost last night, but Democrats were not sworn in,” Harrison wrote, saying Republicans still hold “total power in Texas” and have ten weeks to act. He argued that without action, Hinojosa will “inherit the powers of a DICTATOR,” because Texas’s emergency powers laws, which he called “almost certainly unconstitutional,” would let a governor modify, ignore or create laws, including criminal laws, “on a whim.”

Harrison said he has long argued that no governor of either party should have unchecked emergency powers. He urged the legislature to pass, and Abbott to sign, legislation like HB911, which he filed in 2022. Harrison said the bill would prohibit the governor from suspending or modifying statutes, end emergency orders after 30 days unless the legislature ratifies them, bar the reissuing of expired or rejected orders, require orders to be narrowly tailored, and subject them to expedited judicial review.

He wrote in 2022 that “legislative bodies allowing a single executive branch official to both write and enforce laws is the biggest threat to our constitutional system of divided government.”

Harrison encouraged every elected Republican in Texas to join his call. “The future of liberty in America is literally on the line in Texas,” he wrote.

Hinojosa is set to become the first Latina governor of Texas, and the first Democrat elected to the position since Ann Richards in 1990.

This is not the only way Texas Republicans are considering to curb the power of newly elected Democrats. According to Quorum Report's Scott Braddock, GOP members of the state Senate are convening to consider changes to the rules that would prevent Lt. Gov.-elect Vikki Goodwin from wielding the traditionally expansive powers afforded to her as Senate president.