Recently, freshman State Rep. Matt Rinaldi (R-Irving) has responded to the call by Governor Abbott to address what has become a “patchwork quilt of bans and regulations that is eroding the Texas model.”
His first target? Plastic bag bans which have crept from California into Texas cities. The bans have taken root across the state, from Austin to Brownsville, to Laredo, to, most recently the City of Dallas, with no sign of stopping their march across Texas. As is apparent to Abbott and Rinaldi, and clear to most citizens, efforts must be made to “reign in a regulatory environment that is beginning to expand its tentacles far and wide.”
The proposed legislation by Rinaldi, HB 1939, would reverse the regulatory snowball dead in its tracks. It would kill existing bans and fees previously enacted by cities and prevent other municipalities from doing the same:
“An ordinance or regulation adopted by a municipality purporting to restrict or prohibit a business from, require a business to charge a customer for, or tax or impose penalties on a business for providing to a customer at the point of sale a bag or other container made from any material is invalid and has no effect.”
Rinaldi took to Facebook to explain his impetus for filing the legislation.
“Gov. Abbott warned that ‘Texas is being Californianized and you may not even be noticing it. It’s being done at the city level with bag bans, fracking bans, tree-cutting bans. We’re forming a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas model.’ I agree. Today, I filed HB 1939 to repeal bag bans and surcharges like those enacted by Dallas and Austin, which erode consumer choice and the rights of business-owners.”
Both State Rep. Rinaldi and Governor Abbott are right—local officials must be stopped from continuing their crusade against liberty all under the guise of local control.