Texas Faces Corporate Backlash
with Right-Wing Summer Agenda

Capitol Inside
September 4, 2021

The most radically conservative, partisan and subservient Texas Legislature in history may have crippled economic development and expansion here for years to come with a summer agenda that's being widely portrayed across the country a shameful attack on women, minorities, critical thinking and democracy.

Major American corporations are denouncing the Texas Republicans' abortion prohibition as an act unprecedented government overreach and infringement in individual freedom, liberty and personal choice - the GOP battle cry buzz words for the majority party in Austin in 2021. Many of the same business forces have condemned the GOP election bill that cleared the Legislature this week as a racist bid to dilute turnout by Black and Hispanic voters at the polls next year.

GOP leaders and lawmakers ignored the warnings - and the Texas reputation as a business mecca could be in serious peril as a consequence of the gluttonous indulgences at the state Capitol this spring and summer. The outcome of the second session and the terrible reviews that are coming in from businesses has the potential to be especially devastating in suburban Texas House districts where the number of independent voters have appeared to be soaring since the Donald Trump election challenge and riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Elon Musk - the Tesla and Space X chief executive - may have served up the most sugarcoated review that the monolithic Republicans in Austin can expect when he implied late this week that Governor Greg Abbott misrepresented his position completely on the new Texas abortion ban and other socially conservative bills that GOP lawmakers approved in a second special session last month.

“In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness,” Monk said in attempt to mitigate the damage that the Texas governor had done with the apparently false public portrayal of his positions. Musk said he prefers to stay out of politics.  

Abbott sought to use Musk as an prime example in an interview on CNBC late this week on a positive effect he envisions on the recruiting of business to the Lone Star State.

"This is not slowing down businesses coming to the state of Texas at all," Abbott asserted. "In fact it is accelerating the process of businesses coming to Texas,” Abbott said.

“You need to understand that there’s a lot of businesses and a lot of Americans who like the social positions that the state of Texas is taking,” the governor added - a statement that he has not tried to substantiate since Musk raised the specter that Abbott might have been lying about him. Abbott hasn't revealed yet whether Musk could have been fibbing to the public himself after the governor threw him under the bus.

With Space X at Boca Chica Beach in the Rio Grande Valley and a new production plant under construction in the Texas Capital City, Musk had become the face of business relocation to the Lone Star State up to now. But he might not want to be after being embarrassed and allegedly misquoted by the governor here. His distancing from Abbott could have the effect of diminishing the governor's credibility with big business.

Lyft CEO Logan Green served up an appraisal of the new Texas abortion law that countless of other businesses have or will begin to echo.

"This is an attack on women's access to healthcare and on their right to choose," Green tweeted this week.

The Legislature's dramatic lunge to the right in 2021 could be the impetus for a realignment of corporate America with Democrats - with President Joe Biden depicting the new law as "almost un-American" on Friday. Biden said a bounty hunter provision in the Texas law would be toxic.

"TX SB8 threatens to punish drivers for getting people where they need to go— especially women exercising their right to choose. @Lyft has created a Driver Legal Defense Fund to cover 100% of legal fees for drivers sued under SB8 while driving on our platform," Green said.

Uber said it agrees with the Lyft boss' assessment of Texas bill that's the tentative law of the land even though it hasn't been officially upheld by the Supreme Court.

Dallas-based American Airlines has denounced the abortion ban as well.

The Internet hosting company GoDaddy made its position on the Texas abortion law clear on Friday night when it took down a web site for snitches that the Texas Right to Life had put up in a vigilante recruitment effort.

Big business will see the Legislature's back-to-back bans on critical race theory as another reason to avoid Texas as a dumbing-down law that will culminate in a less educated workforce here. Many major corporations will see the CRT prohibition as an attempt to cover up the truth about the state's past and long history of racism.

more to come ...