About 150 years ago, Gen. Philip Sheridan was sweltering in the relentless heat of a Texas summer. He was not happy: “If I owned Texas and all Hell,” he groused, “I would rent out Texas and live in Hell.”
Summer has always been hot here, but 2023 has been something else, thanks to a hellish “heat dome” that has been baking us since late spring, sending daily temps up to 116 degrees. But worse, a more punishing heat has hit us from an even stranger unnatural dome: The Texas State Capitol. That’s where our malicious governor Greg Abbott and his GOP majority of extremist right-wing lawmakers rig the rules to make life easier and richer for corporate elites – and much harder for working people.
In this year’s legislative session they rammed a nasty piece of plutocratic meanness into law that critics dubbed “Death Star.” It annihilates the basic right of local officials and voters to govern their own cities and counties. In particular, it empowers autocratic state officials -- and even corporate executives! – to nullify decisions by localities to protect workers and others from corporate abuse.
In a cruel case of bad timing, the first local law targeted for nullification by the Texas GOP is a humane requirement in Dallas and other cities that developers provide 10-minute water breaks for construction workers. This in a state with America’s highest rate of heat-related deaths and presently suffering biblical-level heat. Triple-digit temperatures kill, yet Abbott, his air-conditioned legislative cronies, and his corporate campaign donors whined that a required water break was an “oppressive burden” on the extraordinarily-rich construction industry.
Here’s a new rule I’d like to see: No lawmaker or lobbyist is allowed to oppose heat protections for workers unless they spend July and August with no air conditioning for themselves.
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Texas: What the Hell? Stay Hydrated, They Say. Unless You’re a Construction Worker