ADVERTISEMENT 2
ADVERTISEMENT 3
Error: No articles to display
ADVERTISEMENT 1
ADVERTISEMENT 4
EVA RUTH MORAVEC, Associated Press
Should Ebola or another infectious disease plague Texas again, the governor may declare a state of emergency and cede control of the situation to a state commissioner, under a bill the Texas Senate passed Tuesday.
The measure cleared the upper chamber 25-5 and now heads to the House.
Georgetown Republican Charles Schwertner, a physician, said his bill addresses vulnerabilities exposed last year when a Liberian man contracted Ebola and died in Dallas. Two nurses also contracted the disease but survived.
Schwertner said Texas avoided a wider outbreak, but "we are foolish to think that something like this will not happen in the future."
The bill would also permit law enforcement to detain someone who may be infected for 24 hours. It specifies if the person is infected with, has been exposed to, or is the carrier of a communicable disease.
Schwertner said the legislation is the first of its kind nationwide.
Texas' health commissioner already can issue "control orders" restricting the travel and movement of people infected with, or at risk of spreading, infectious diseases. But there are no legal consequences until someone violates those orders.
Former Gov. Rick Perry said that provision was so problematic that it prompted him in October to urge President Barack Obama to impose an air travel ban from countries hardest-hit by Ebola.
The new bill allows for immediate quarantine enforcement and says police can detain individuals under a "control order" for up to a full day.
Perry left office in January but is expected to announce a 2016 presidential run soon.
The issue flared up even more publicly for another likely 2016 hopeful, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who imposed a mandatory quarantine on health workers returning from West Africa.
Nurse Kaci Hickox, who made a flight connection in Newark, was quarantined in a hospital isolation tent even though she tested negative for Ebola. Hickox complained her civil rights were violated, but Christie was undeterred.
PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press
Texas would cut $3 million from programs to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and spend that money instead on abstinence education under a contentious Republican-sponsored measure tucked into the state budget Tuesday night.
The GOP-controlled House overwhelmingly approved the budget amendment, but not before a tense exchange with Democrats that veered into the unusually personal.
Republican state Rep. Stuart Spitzer, a doctor and the amendment's sponsor, at one point defended the change by telling the Texas House that he practiced abstinence until marriage. The first-term lawmaker said he hopes schoolchildren follow his example, saying, "What's good for me is good for a lot of people."
Democrat state Rep. Harold Dutton asked Spitzer if abstinence worked for him.
Shouts of "Decorum!" soon echoed on the House floor as Spitzer responded and the back-and-forth intensified. Efforts by Democrats to put the debate in writing for the record — usually a perfunctory request — failed.
The measure is a long way from final approval. It must still survive budget negotiations with the Senate, although that chamber is equally dominated by conservatives.
Texas in 2013 had the third-highest number of HIV diagnoses in the country, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. Texas also has one of the highest teen birth rates, and its public schools are not required to teach sex education.
Another Republican-sponsored amendment that passed Tuesday night would prevent schools from distributing sex education materials from abortion providers.
PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press
New Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's plan to lower taxes in Texas and send hundreds more armed troopers to the Texas-Mexico border is within reach after Republicans muscled a $210 billion budget through the House early Wednesday.
A pre-dawn vote of 141-5 sent the spending blueprint to the Senate, where the biggest question might be whether the plan is far enough to the right for new Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a staunch tea party favorite.
Not that there isn't plenty for Republicans to like.
Social conservatives cut $3 million out of programs to prevent HIV and sexual transmitted diseases and piled that money into expanding abstinence education in schools. Abortion opponents — having already won restrictions that have plunged the number of Texas abortion facilities into single digits — tucked into the budget new bans that prohibit abortion providers from putting sex education materials in classrooms.
Democrats, outnumbered 2-to-1 in the House, angrily opposed both measures but left little mark on the GOP budget after 17 hours of debate, failing to divert spending elsewhere, particularly to schools.