Texas Municipal League<\/a>, said HB 2127 has had a \u201csignificant impact\u201d on city operations. The TML, an advocacy group that represents the majority of Texas\u2019 cities at the Capitol, receives multiple calls per month from local leaders about the law and whether they can adopt certain ordinances, he told lawmakers.<\/p>\nLongley said the law\u2019s broad structure, which prohibits local governments from adopting ordinances preempted by nine sections of state code, makes it hard for cities to determine if they can pass new rules. He said some cities may be wary of creating new ordinances that risk violating the law, while others have changed or repealed past ordinances to avoid lawsuits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it certainly has shaped behavior at the local level and given cities something to think about and consider whenever any ordinance is proposed: How does this work within this new framework under the act?\u201d Longley told lawmakers June 4. \u201cSome cities have gone in and repealed ordinances that they believe aren’t preempted, but there’s no objective standard here.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 2025 study from George Mason University named Texas as the fifth-most regulated state in the nation, with more than 274,000 rules and restrictions on the books. Streamlining HB 2127 to ensure some local ordinances are removed could help reduce that number, Quintero said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere we are, three years from the date of the passage of that bill, and there’s not been a whole lot done,\u201d he told lawmakers. \u201cI tend to view [HB] 2127 as a partial answer to that problem. … We labor under too much government, and if we are to move Texas in a better direction, then we need broad-based preemption mechanisms like the Death Star bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vasut suggested updating state law to \u201crequire cities to kind of do a sunset review of some of their ordinances\u201d periodically to ensure they are not preempted, which Quintero called \u201can excellent idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
More details<\/p>\n
State Rep. Richard Pe\u00f1a Raymond, D-Laredo, said he supported the law because it allowed legislators to step in when they felt local rules may harm their constituents. He added that few people tend to vote in municipal elections and may not always know about the ordinances local officials are passing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a very, very small percentage of people who will vote for the members who get on their city council, and those council members\u2019 [decisions] affect 100% of the people that live in that city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Raymond argued that it was fair for city council members and other elected leaders to push back against HB 2127, and said he did not believe municipalities were intentionally violating the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say they have the right to say, \u2018Man, we’re going to fight this tooth and nail.\u2019 That’s OK,\u201d Raymond said. \u201cThey have that right as [local] elected officials, just as we have the rights of elected officials in the state Legislature to say that we don’t agree with what certain cities are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other Democratic lawmakers questioned how the law was fair for Texas\u2019 diverse cities, which they said have unique needs based on their region and size.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat uniqueness is part of what gives us Texas its character,\u201d Rep. Armando Lucio Walle, D-Houston, said. \u201cWhy even have a city council; why even have a mayor if we’re going to be the one that dictates what you do and can’t do?\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed a sweeping regulatory measure designed to prevent cities and counties from adopting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[117890,117894,117895,132,134,133,117889,117897,5902,115907,117888,20346,117893,117898,33270,19099,117892,117896,117891,117886,2332,293,21900,20870,117887,33275],"class_list":["post-329997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-2023-law","tag-2023-legislative-session","tag-88th-legislative-session","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-bill-longley","tag-blue-texas-cities","tag-city-of-dallas","tag-death-star-bill","tag-hb-2127","tag-house-bill-2127","tag-houston-lawsuit","tag-interim-hearing","tag-james-quintero","tag-local-ordinances","tag-local-preemption","tag-local-regulation","tag-state-preemption","tag-texas-death-star-law","tag-texas-house","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-municipal-league","tag-texas-public-policy-foundation","tag-texas-regulatory-consistency-act","tag-tppf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329997","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=329997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}