Rep. Chip Roy
A bipartisan group of Texas members of Congress will have to wait until early next month to see passage on a long-sought measure that will release more than $4 billion dollars in aid to parts of Texas that bear the brunt of hurricanes.
Legislation that swiftly passed the U.S. Senate on Thursday afternoon came to an abrupt halt on the U.S. House side at the hand of a Texan — U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, an Austin Republican.
The bill allocated over $19 billion in disaster funding for nine states and two territories. But most Texans in Congress were focused on the bill’s provision that created a 90-day deadline for the Office of Management and Budget to release billions in grant funds to Texas that Congress approved more than a year ago after Hurricane Harvey.
The disaster funding bill had languished in both chambers. But then, on Thursday, congressional leaders and President Donald Trump were able to break the logjam, and the bill swiftly passed the Senate, 85-8. The chamber’s two Texans — Republicans John Cornyn and Ted Cruz — voted for it.
By that point, most of the U.S. House was headed home for the Memorial Day recess. Members are not expected to return until June 3. The hope, among backers of the bill, was that the House would pass the bill with a voice vote – a measure that would only work if there were no objections within the chamber.
Some Texas sources had anticipated an objection to the move, but that it turned out to be a fellow Texan shocked a number of them Friday morning.
Roy’s core objection was procedural: He didn’t like the notion of moving the bill forward after the House had left town, with little time to process legislation of that scale, according to a statement he released Friday. He further blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not holding members in Washington to vote on the bill.
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With the assumption that the bill passes when Congress returns from Memorial Day recess at the beginning of June, the OMB could end up waiting until late summer to release the funds — a time frame that blows past much of hurricane season, which begins June 1.
Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Whoever heard of a hurricane hitting Texas in the summertime? Chip Roy is a minion of Ted Cruz, who sent out an ill-timed press release lauding the quick delivery of Harvey funds before Roy’s little power ply. He learned at the feet of the master, Ted. Anyway, just a reminder that CD21 is one of the DCCC-targeted districts this cycle. We don’t have a candidate yet, but Wendy Davis has expressed interest in running. I figure this stunt will come up in the course of the campaign next year.
A look a Chip Roy’s voting record is pretty shocking for someone in a marginal district. He is easily in the top 5 in Congress in far right wing craziness.
It looks like he is betting that he can squeak by in 2020 and then get his district redistricted to remove most of the Austin suburbs from his district.
It looks like Dan Crenshaw is attempting the same kind of thing with his 100% anti LGBT/pro Trump/anti Dreamer voting record, and become the advocate of all that Turning Point USA stands for.
A lot of GOP Congressmen are making life really difficult for GOP gerrymandering efforts. Since pretty much all of them, save Will Hurd, are so extreme as to be completely unacceptable to moderates and Dems, they may hand all 4 seats gained by Texas to the Dems in one way or another.
It seems like there are 10 GOP reps in Texas who have assumed that theyll hang on in 2020, and that redistricting will help them. Only problem with that is that would probably require 2 or 3 of the new seats to be ceded to the Democrats and making Allred and Fletcher safe. Hurd is the only one that sees the potential danger.