One of the most nonsensical things that has happened during this 18-months-long Covid nightmare, a nightmare positively brimming with deadly and nonsensical nonsense, is our governor’s most recent executive order.
A week ago or so, Gov. Greg Abbott used his emergency authority to prohibit any local government — including school districts — from doing much of anything to respond to the emergency.
This is truly counter-intuitive. The governor declared a public health emergency then, instead of enacting measures to address the emergency or enabling local governments to do so as local conditions warrant, he acted to make it all but impossible for anyone else to respond effectively to said public health emergency.
As you probably know by now, that executive order has spawned such a blizzard of lawsuits that it is difficult for anyone to know where we stand, what’s possible and what’s not. By the time this column appears in print, it is likely that the legal landscape will have shifted, then shifted again.
Confusion reigns and I’ve come to hold a feeling of abiding sympathy for anyone sitting on a school board right now.
I had intended to use this commentary to call out Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell for running away from this issue. School boards across the county could use a bit of help managing this crisis — and, make no mistake, with the number of campus Covid infections already skyrocketing, it is a crisis.
Gravell could follow the lead of county judges in the state’s most populous counties and take the heat off of school trustees by calling for campus-level masking requirements. In fact, it is my belief that he should do that very thing.
After all, Gravell has proven throughout this pandemic to have a good heart. Only the most recent example was an open letter to the community last week that showed his compassion, and his understanding of the depths of this problem.
But, similar to school trustees, Gravell finds himself between a rock and a very hard place. Many of those other county judges lead largely Democratic counties sympathetic to masking requirements for school-aged children. This is not the case in Williamson County. Many of Gravell’s partisans are actively hostile to anything that smacks of an effective pandemic mitigation strategy.
Indeed, I’ve heard that Gravell told one county department head that people would “burn down the courthouse” if he helped local school districts by pushing for masking requirements.
(Editor’s note: This is a second or third-hand report and I’ve not tried to confirm it … but, given the belligerence I’ve witnessed at commissioners court, I would be surprised at neither his sentiment nor the predicted response. There are some bat$h*t crazy people living in Williamson County.)
So, while I wish that our county judge had displayed more courage, I can’t say I blame him for his well-intended but otherwise milk-toast response.
Which leads me back to our governor.
It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans were staunch in their support of local control. Over the last decade or so, that support has morphed into … something else, mostly a philosophy that “local control” is good but only when local governments do what the state wants them to do.
It reminds me of Fezik’s line from The Princess Bride: “I do not think that means what you think it means.”
I reference this because, to our current crop of top state officials, “local control” really has more to do with the state’s relationship with the federal government, not very much at all to do with the state’s relationship to cities, counties and school boards.
In other words, to these people, “local control” is just another way to assert “state’s rights.” You may take whatever meaning from that you wish.
Our kids — and the people responsible for their safety — don’t need our governor to engage in divisive political theater. They need a governor who follows public health science and who remembers that the most important level of government is that which is closest to the people.
The Ragged Edge 