Brian Harrison has discovered the separation of powers, and he has discovered it at a very convenient moment: the one when a Democrat is about to inherit the governor's office.
To be fair, Harrison has been a critic of Abbott's emergency powers before, which is more than most of his party can say. But the party is the point. For years, Texas Republicans watched Greg Abbott turn the Disaster Act into a master key. He used it to override local mask and vaccine rules. He used it to keep a border "disaster" declaration alive month after month, for years, as a platform for Operation Lone Star and a stream of money and political theater. An emergency is supposed to be temporary and exceptional. In Abbott's hands it became a permanent condition of governance.
Where was the constitutional anxiety then? The Republican establishment treated those powers as a feature, not a threat. The principle only turned urgent when the incoming governor became someone they don't control.
The tell is the timing. Texas lawmakers meet in regular session in January, so Harrison could simply file his bill then. But a bill passed in a regular session lands on the desk of the new governor, who is not likely to sign a measure written to tie her hands. Only a special session, which only Abbott can call, would deliver the bill to a governor who will sign it. Calling it before the handoff is not a defense of constitutional structure. It is a way to rig the rules after the votes have been counted.
Left-of-center Texans should resist the urge to gloat, because this is also a test of our own principles. Gina Hinojosa campaigned on declaring a high-cost emergency and using executive orders on electricity rates and fuel taxes. The anger is real. Texans are squeezed by utility bills, insurance and gas prices, and a state that spent years letting the grid and the cost of living drift deserves to be shaken. But the Left spent years arguing that Abbott's border emergency was a manufactured pretext for unaccountable power. We cannot now say that manufacturing an emergency is fine when our governor does it for a better cause.
That is the lesson of the Abbott years. Emergency powers don't stay with the people who claim them for good reasons. They are inherited, stretched and abused by whoever comes next. If the Left believes that, it should say so loudly, now, while it is the one holding the keys. A governor who wants durable change on rates and taxes should go to the Legislature and fight for it. It is harder, and it is also the only kind of change that survives the next election.
So here is a proposal that is neither a trick nor a tantrum. If Abbott and Harrison truly believe emergency authority has grown too large, let them prove it. End the border disaster declaration, and put real limits on declarations: a hard expiration, legislative sign-off for extensions, and clear definitions of what counts as an emergency. Pass it in the regular session, in daylight, with a governor of either party on the receiving end. Hinojosa should say she will sign a well-drafted version, and mean it.
If that isn't what Republicans want, we will have learned that the separation of powers was only ever a slogan they pull out when they lose. Power constrained only for your opponents is not a constraint. It is a weapon waiting for a new owner.
