MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
We go now to Texas, which gets a new governor next week. Former Attorney General Greg Abbott will replace fellow Republican Rick Perry, the longest-serving governor in Texas state history. Abbott laid out his vision for the state in a recent speech to a conservative think tank. As NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports, of some of Abbott's comments set up a battle between the Republican state government and big cities, which are led by Democrats.
WADE GOODWYN, BYLINE: It was the kind of speech that nearly always passes unnoticed, an oration to a group of public policy wonks full of dogma and legislative strategy. But then soon-to-be Texas governor Greg Abbott began talking about how Texas's cities have passed laws and regulations that were leading to the California-ization of Texas.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
GREG ABBOTT: The truth is Texas is being California-ized 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.
GOODWYN: Texas Republicans have long held out California as the model for all that is evil. The Texas model that Abbott refers to is to free businesses from the red tape of environmental and legal obligations and tax burdens. But while Texas's state government is Republican through and through, its cities are most blue - Democratic. And since it's clear the state is not going to regulate businesses or the environment, Texas cities have begun passing their own laws. Abbott says the state legislature needs to put a stop to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
ABBOTT: This is a form of collectivism. Some cities claim that the trees on private property belong to the community, large cities that represent about 75 percent of the population in this state.
GOODWYN: Of course, it's not just trees. It's regulations about the oil and gas industry, like the fracking ban inside city limits passed by the small city of Denton. And the new governor doesn't like charging consumers for plastic bags or requiring permits for businesses like junk yards. (SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
ABBOTT: Unchecked overregulation by cities will turn the Texas miracle into the California nightmare faster than you can spell TPPF.
GOODWYN: That's the Texas Public Policy Foundation where Abbott was speaking. Abbott's call to arms is not some idle threat. Most of the legislature is right behind him. And his comments certainly haven't gone unnoticed in the cities. Even the conservative Dallas Morning News took offense in an editorial entitled "Since When Did A Plastic Bag Ordinance Become A Collectivist Plot?"
MAYOR MIKE RAWLINGS: I believe that the city is the ultimate form of democracy.
GOODWYN: Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings does not want to fight new governor and Republican legislature over each and every Dallas law and regulation the state doesn't like. Why not? Because Dallas will lose. It's about power.
RAWLINGS: To the victors go the spoils. This is not about ideology but ultimately about who's in charge and the rules that they want to make.
GOODWYN: So the Democratic Dallas mayor will make an argument that Republicans have themselves been making for decades - local control is the best control.
RAWLINGS: Decentralizing power is a very important decision to make. What Dallas needs to do is different than what Big Spring needs to do.
GOODWYN: The cries that this is the height of Republican hypocrisy have been ringing from the Democratic heavens - oh sure, it's all about local control, until the Democrats are in local control. But Republicans say that's not so. Chuck DeVore is the vice president of policy at the conservative and influential Texas Public Policy Foundation where Greg Abbott was speaking. And DeVore says it's not hypocrisy for the state to intervene if it's in the cause of freedom.
CHUCK DEVORE: Hypocrisy is not present however in the justification. And what we're trying to do here is to secure liberty. And it matters not whether your liberty is eroded by the federal level, the state level or the local level. If it's eroded, it's eroded.
GOODWYN: The start of the 140-day session of the Texas legislature began yesterday. For the state's cities, it's likely to be quite the ride.
Wade Goodwyn, NPR News, Dallas.