Evacuees fill up cots at the George Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, that has been turned into a shelter run by the American Red Cross to house victims of the high water from Hurricane Harvey. | Erich Schlegel/Getty Images Harvey highlights Texas city-state divide

AUSTIN, Texas — Hurricane Harvey is laying bare a sharp divide between Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas city officials that's grown wider recently amid debates over sanctuary cities, transgender rights and more.

While Abbott and local officials insist they are setting aside politics to focus on rescue and recovery efforts in the state, they’ve been sparring over everything from whether Democratic-led Houston should have issued an evacuation order to whether the state should enforce a ban on policies aimed at protecting undocumented immigrants from federal authorities.


It’s emblematic of the fights between GOP governors and Democratic mayors across the country since the dawn of the Trump administration. While Democrats haven’t won a major statewide office in Texas in 15 years, the state’s biggest cities — including Houston, Dallas and Austin — have Democratic mayors, and San Antonio has an independent mayor. All of those cities are suing the state over its new sanctuary cities law, which was signed into law by the governor in May.

And Abbott, along with conservative state officials, has been battling cities for months over other liberal priorities, including ride-sharing requirements, fees on plastic bags and nondiscrimination clauses that protect transgender rights.

At one point earlier this summer, the governor drew fire for a tweet saying that after leaving the capital city, he could smell the fragrance “of freedom that does not exist in Austin, Texas.” Last month, Abbott also initially refused to meet with mayors of several cities who wanted to voice their concerns about bills that would override municipal authority.

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Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston, argues that Texas Republican officials began turning on cities this year in an effort to score political points with conservative voters.

“The reality is that Texas is a red state with blue islands,” said Jones. “Democratic cities and counties are the last remaining foil to find a common opponent for Republicans to focus their opposition on.”

Moreover, the storm hit just after a special legislative session in which Abbott tried unsuccessfully to limit the ability of cities to collect property taxes and regulate transgender bathroom use.

When the storm hit, “everyone was still in political mode,” Jones said.

At a news conference Monday, Houston’s Democratic mayor, Sylvester Turner, said the ban on sanctuary city policies, which would allow police officers to ask about a person’s immigration status during an arrest and require police chiefs to comply with federal immigration detainer requests, should be put “on the shelf” while recovery is in process. The law is set to go in effect on Friday.

He urged people within Houston’s large immigrant community to seek help during the storm regardless of their legal status and reassured them that they are welcome at area shelters.

“I and others will be the first ones to stand up with you,” said Turner. “If someone comes and they require help and then for some reason [someone] tries to deport them, I will represent them myself.”

Abbott didn’t mention Turner’s comments on shelving the sanctuary city ban at a news conference later in the day in Corpus Christi, reiterating his praise for the commitment of city and county leaders in their response to the storm, which has ravaged the Gulf Coast and is flooding Houston.

He also sidestepped a bubbling political controversy over whether Houston should have evacuated the city. On Friday, the governor said that Houston residents should evacuate, while both Republican and Democratic city and county officials said that message was a “mistake.”

But conservative radio host Alex Jones honed in on Turner, calling him “negligent” for not issuing an evacuation order, suggesting the issue could become a flashpoint for post-disaster politicking.

Abbott isn’t currently facing any challengers from the right or left as he seeks reelection in 2018, and Turner isn’t up for reelection until 2019.

But lessons from other natural disasters underscore the political consequences of recovery efforts.

In neighboring Florida, lingering tensions between Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum over the response to Hurricane Hermine last year have become talking points in the 2018 governor’s race.

Republicans are leveling charges against Gillum, a Democratic candidate for governor, for turning down state assistance at the time.

“We did not tell him to turn down help during Hurricane Hermine,” said Evan Power, the head of the local GOP in Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, in a statement about Gillum’s campaign over an unrelated issue.

In Texas, once Harvey finally dissipates, wrangling will start over the disbursement of disaster relief funds.

And homeowners will be left dealing with the consequences of another of Abbott’s regular session priorities — a bill that goes into effect Friday tamping down on insurer lawsuits in the case of natural disasters.

Longtime Democratic state Rep. Garnet Coleman said he thinks the impact of the insurer lawsuit bill in the aftermath of Harvey is “going to be a real problem.”

“I hate to criticize someone in the middle of something,” said Coleman from his home in Houston. “But what good is it, if you have insurance if you can’t use it?”

Matthew Dixon contributed reporting from Tallahassee.