Best mugshot ever
Within weeks of Hurricane Harvey making landfall, Texans lodged more than 3,000 complaints against hundreds of gas stations, hotels and grocery stores, accusing them of selling such essentials as gasoline or water at exorbitant prices.
Despite promises from Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott to hold price gougers accountable, few of those complaints have resulted in prosecution, or even an initial investigation, records obtained by the Houston Chronicle show.
When a state of disaster is declared, Texas law prohibits businesses from charging highly inflated prices for necessities. The law is designed to protect consumers who may need to stock up on food, gas or water, or those who need a hotel room to escape a natural disaster.
Several consumers contacted by the Houston Chronicle said they filed complaints because they believed the state would go after the businesses aggressively. State officials say they are taking the accusations seriously, but it takes time to determine whether the complaints are legitimate.
“We are not going to frivolously or unadvisedly enter into any legal action with any company or any entity in any case, even in the instance of price gouging,” said Marc Rylander, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office. He said more legal actions, such as lawsuits, could be filed in coming days.
Paxton’s office received more than 3,340 price gouging complaints against more than 1,000 companies from Aug. 25 to Sept. 8, records show. About 790, or 24 percent, of those came from the Houston area.
At the end of September, Paxton’s office had launched investigations into 82 companies and filed three lawsuits.
Paxton’s office said there now are more than 5,000 complaints logged in its system. The increase comes from consumers reporting excessive pricing for repairs or rebuilding of flood-damaged homes.
Rick McElvaney, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said there often are not enough lawyers in the attorney general’s office to cull through all the complaints. It also can take many weeks before a lawsuit is filed.
“The attorney general filing three lawsuits within the first two weeks was pretty quick,” McElvaney said. “But I am in a wait-and-see approach to see how many more they will do.”
So it’s a little early to say whether this is A Thing or not. Fair enough. It would be nice to know how things proceeded after Ike and Rita, or how long these things normally take in other states, so we might have a better idea when to check back. I don’t want to cry wolf so I’ll be patient for now, but not for long. Paxton, like Abbott before him, has no trouble being first in line to file a lawsuit against the feds when it suits his purposes, so he deserves no benefit of the doubt on this, a core function of his office. If he doesn’t show some results in a timely fashion, we need to hammer him for it.