{"id":284288,"date":"2026-05-08T11:43:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/284288\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T11:43:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:43:23","slug":"by-threatening-public-safety-grants-greg-abbott-exerts-control-over-texas-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/284288\/","title":{"rendered":"By threatening public safety grants, Greg Abbott exerts control over Texas cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the fourth time in less than four weeks, Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> has forced a Texas city to yield to his will by threatening to withdraw public safety grants administered by his office.<\/p>\n

In Texas, where Republicans dominate state leadership and Democrats hold sway in many big cities, the GOP governor is turbocharging the use of financial threats to force compliance on matters that typically fall under local control. <\/p>\n

The latest state-local clash came earlier this week after Texas conservatives protested plans to hold a Muslim-only celebration at a water park owned by Grand Prairie. Although organizers modified advertising to welcome anybody wearing modest attire to the June 1 Epic Eid event, Abbott weighed in Wednesday to demand the event be scrapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s religious discrimination. It\u2019s unconstitutional.\u201d Abbott posted<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City must cancel the event and commit to never allowing something like it again by May 11th,\u201d he added. If not, the governor warned<\/a>, Grand Prairie would lose $530,000 in public safety grants. <\/p>\n

Within hours, the North Texas city canceled the event, telling The Texas Tribune doing so was in its \u201cbest interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 40 Democratic state lawmakers responded Thursday with a letter<\/a> urging the governor to withdraw the threat, saying Abbott acted to improperly exclude participants from a public facility based on their religion. The event had been held without controversy in the two previous years, the letter added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said the funding hold had been lifted, \u201cand the Governor expects full contract compliance moving forward.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Texan, regardless of their faith, is entitled to equal treatment in public spaces,\u201d Mahaleris said in a statement. \u201cGovernor Abbott will continue to use every necessary tool to ensure local governments follow the law and do not facilitate discrimination at taxpayer expense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbott\u2019s Grand Prairie showdown followed successful efforts last month to force Houston<\/a>, Dallas and Austin<\/a> to quickly change policies limiting police cooperation with federal immigration agents. The governor threatened to take back nearly $150 million in public safety grants from the three cities, and Dallas was warned that it also risked more than $55 million in public safety funding for World Cup events.<\/p>\n

The spree of demands was not the first time Abbott has used this playbook. <\/p>\n

The governor threatened to withhold state grants from the Dallas County sheriff in 2015<\/a> and the Travis County sheriff in 2017<\/a> to protest policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration agents. In October<\/a>, Abbott warned cities and counties they could lose transportation funding if they don\u2019t remove road markings that \u201cadvance political agendas,\u201d including rainbow crosswalks that celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. <\/p>\n

Abbott\u2019s increasing threats of financial retribution, political experts say, are another sign of Republicans embracing the use of executive power to achieve policy goals \u2014 even in Texas, where the state\u2019s constitution grants somewhat limited power to governors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an interesting use of executive power in a state that technically envisions the governor is weak constitutionally,\u201d said Joshua Blank, research director with the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. <\/p>\n

Two conditions make that possible, he said. <\/p>\n

First, Blank said, Republican lawmakers \u201calmost uniformly support\u201d Abbott\u2019s goals and aren\u2019t likely to push back.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the second is this overall embrace within the Republican Party of executive action that\u2019s hard not to look at as a consequence of Trump\u2019s approach to the presidency,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said the Texas governor role started evolving into a more \u201cmuscular\u201d office under former Gov. Rick Perry<\/a>, who used political appointments, executive orders and vetoes to increase the office\u2019s impact. Abbott has \u201ctaken it even farther in some ways,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe, more so than Perry, is the kind of true leader of the Republican Party,\u201d Rottinghaus said. \u201cPerry did so with finesse, and Governor Abbott\u2019s doing so with force. \u2026 That\u2019s a rarity in Texas. That\u2019s a new phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbott\u2019s recent funding threats have also produced quick wins on hot-button issues important to his Republican base \u2014 immigration and perceived threats posed by Islam \u2014 amid a tense election cycle. <\/p>\n

Anti-Islam rhetoric has been a central issue<\/a> in this year\u2019s Republican primaries, with conservative activists pushing party leaders to take a harder line against Muslims and candidates claiming Muslim immigrants wish to impose their values on other Texans.<\/p>\n

In addition, Blank said, Abbott\u2019s focus on police interaction with ICE provides another inroad to Republican voters, fewer and fewer<\/a> of whom now consider immigration or border security to be the state\u2019s most pressing issue under the second Trump administration. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt took away one of, if not the primary issue that Republicans in Texas have used to mobilize their voters,\u201d he said. \u201cSo what we have now is a turn towards Texas cities, in this case, to raise the immigration issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disclosure: University of Houston and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the fourth time in less than four weeks, Gov. Greg Abbott has forced a Texas city to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[132,2314,102,2133,1279,392,56,58,57,1724,11672,287,2424,2647,1564,293,513,6748],"class_list":["post-284288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-austin","tag-criminal-justice","tag-dallas","tag-democrats","tag-grand-prairie","tag-greg-abbott","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-immigration","tag-islam","tag-politics","tag-republicans","tag-rick-perry","tag-state-government","tag-texas-legislature","tag-university-of-houston","tag-well-b-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}