Texas Local and Government Control Video
- Historically, Texas has been pro-state’s rights.
- John Foster Dillon was the federal judge who emphasized the power of states over the powers of local governments. John Foster Dillon did not trust local governments because, during his time, a lot of the municipal governments were marred with corruption. For example, William M. Tweed appointed his close friends to critical political positions, and later on, they would contribute to the stealing of more than $45 million from the local taxpayers.
- Thirty-one states in the U.S use Dillon’s rule.
- The concept of the Home rule is that local governments, which are considered constituents of a state, are allowed to rule themselves as they deem fit as long as they obey state and federal laws and regulations. An excellent example is a city of Austin in Texas, which is a home rule city.
- The practical problem with Austin requiring fingerprint background checks for rideshare drivers is that this would discourage new drivers. Therefore, having very few drivers in Austin meant that one could easily get a ride to Austin and not get one back to his or her city.
- The legislature overturned Austin’s ordinance on fingerprint background checks by passing a state-wide bill for regulating all rideshare companies.
- Based on this example, Dillon’s rule, particularly in Texas home-rule cities, works in such a way that the state legislature can enact the state laws if the home rule ordinances do not make total social and economic sense and don’t favor the general public at large.
- Uber and Lyft fought both Austin and Houston on their plans to require fingerprint background checks mainly because they thought that the process was unnecessary, extremely expensive, and it would discourage new drivers altogether. The amount of money spent fighting was millions of dollars.
- In my opinion, I think the state should have won this fight. This is because the state, when enacting rules, takes into consideration the interests of all the cities, unlike the local government, which only considers the interests of its people and the city itself.