AUSTIN — A powerful if lame-duck House member is challenging Gov. Greg Abbott's chief of staff's recent declaration that the governor's office must sign off before state agencies issue any new rules or regulations.

House State Affairs Committee Chairman Byron Cook of Corsicana on Tuesday accused Abbott, a fellow Republican, of trying to "consolidate authority" in his office without the required approval of lawmakers and Texas voters.

"What I'm concerned about is that we do things right and follow constitutional authority," Cook said in an interview.

In a letter to Abbott, he decried what he said amounts to an unconstitutional power grab.

"Nothing in our state's constitution or statues gives the Office of the Governor the power to veto or delay the proposal of a rule," Cook wrote.

Abbott spokeswoman Ciara Matthews, though, insisted that guaranteeing his office conducts "a preliminary review" is prudent and "well within the governor's constitutional authority."

Cook's public objection marked a rare rebuke by an influential Republican in the Legislature to a steady push since the early 2000s — by both Abbott and his GOP predecessor, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry — for more gubernatorial power.

While governors once had only limited control of agencies, which were overseen by boards appointed by more than one governor, Perry and Abbott have wielded much more clout because of greater longevity and changes in laws letting them directly appoint some key department heads.

Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana (Courtesy)

Exerting more influence over the budget, recent governors also have chipped away at the near-total control that the Legislature — including the lieutenant governor, who presides over the Senate — once exerted in fiscal matters. After his first session as governor in 2015, Abbott successfully weathered, with help from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, objections to some of his budget vetoes. They cut out spending in "informational items," not in line items, which previously had been all a governor could strip out.

Cook, an independently wealthy businessman who has clashed with Abbott before, said he is speaking out for posterity — not because of petty personal grudges.

"It would be a lot easier to say I'm almost done, I'll ignore this," he said of the rules matter.

"Something like this has extraordinary consequences and it probably sets up a precedent where a governor 20 years from now can look back to this thing we did in 2018 and say we can make other big changes," even though there's no specific legal authority to do so, he said.

Cook asked Abbott, who is seeking a second term in the Nov. 6 election, to clarify his chief of staff Luis Saenz's June 22 letter about regulations.

Saenz, citing a 1981 federal directive by former President Ronald Reagan, asked agency heads to submit all contemplated regulations to the governor's office, along with analysis and cost estimates. Rules are agencies' attempts to flesh out what the Legislature's intent was for a law. The agencies' interpretations can greatly affect businesses and how Texans receive education and health care.

A weak governor — on purpose

While Saenz said the Reagan policy helped "eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies and provide[d] a dispassionate 'second opinion' on the costs and benefits of proposed agency actions," Cook said Saenz fails to recognize that the 1876 Texas Constitution intentionally created a weak governorship.

Among the nation's governors, Texas' governor "is ranked next to last when it comes to executive powers," according to Governing Texas, a 2013 textbook by W.W. Norton & Co.

The state constitution reflected ascendant Democrats' determination, in the aftermath of the Civil War, never to again chafe under powerful executives such as those imposed on Texas by Northern Republicans during Reconstruction. Back then, the Democrats objected to legal and political equality for blacks.

It's true the U.S. Constitution places all the executive power in the federal government with the president, Cook wrote.

But "the drafters of the Texas Constitution chose to disseminate executive power across several elected offices and grant each limited and defined powers" he said.

Cook said current state law requires agencies to submit rule proposals to the lieutenant governor and House speaker, and doesn't give the governor's office a formal role in rule review. Informally, the governor's aides, experts, affected parties and lawyers in the attorney general's office often consult with legislative aides about a proposed rule, Cook explained. The Legislature can change that to enhance the governor's clout — but only by passing a law or constitutional amendment, he noted.

"If there's better ways of doing things, we certainly should be open to them," he said. "But you need to go through the right way of doing this."

Matthews, the Abbott spokeswoman, said screening out state regulations that might be harmful flows naturally from the governor's existing authority.

"As the chief executive of the state, Governor Abbott has a constitutional duty to faithfully execute the law and ensure that all state agencies under his direction approach the regulatory process in adherence with these laws as written and passed by the Legislature," she said in a written statement. "Additionally, a preliminary review of proposed rules and regulations allows for a thorough assessment of the effectiveness, cost, benefit, or potential harm these ideas might have."

Possible chokepoint?

While more than 20 agency heads received Saenz's letter, Cook said his staff has learned from the governor's office that only one lawyer working for Abbott will be delegated the duty of reviewing proposed rules. That's "unrealistic" and would create a potential chokepoint, Cook said.

Cook, an eight-term state representative who chose not to seek re-election this year, has been a close ally of outgoing Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio.

In last year's regular session and special session, Straus and Cook clashed with Abbott and Patrick over several items. The most notable was their resistance to Patrick's unsuccessful push to regulate transgender Texans' use of bathrooms, which the GOP lieutenant governor said was important to safeguard the privacy of women and girls.

Earlier this year, Cook called out Abbott for alleged hypocrisy on the so-called bathroom bill.

Cook recalled that during the regular session, Abbott's former chief of staff, Daniel Hodge, told him the governor wanted the House to kill the bill — which Cook did, in both the regular and special sessions, by refusing to let it out of his committee. That was even though, Cook noted with disdain, Abbott's public stance was to initially waver on the bill, then vaguely support it — and eventually add it to the special session agenda.

Abbott's office and Hodge have declined to respond to Cook's assertion.