Texas’ larger cities would face financial penalties for cutting police budgets under bill House tentatively approves – By Juan Pablo Garnham and Jolie McCullough (Texas Tribune) / May 6 2021
Previously, the Senate approved a bill that would ask for an election if cities decide to reduce law enforcement budgets.
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The Texas House on Thursday voted to financially penalize the state’s largest cities if they cut their police budgets.
House Bill 1900 comes after a year of civil rights advocates calling on cities to reduce what they spend on policing and to reform police behavior. Those calls were spurred by high-profile deaths at the hands of police like George Floyd’s in Minneapolis and Mike Ramos’ in Austin.
Among Texas’ largest cities, only Austin cut its law enforcement funding last year, though almost all of that decrease came from an accounting shift of money that still allows traditional police duties to remain funded, but potentially in different city departments. Still, the city’s response to some activists’ calls to “defund the police” prompted harsh and immediate backlash from Republican state leaders, who have pointed to fast-rising homicide rates throughout the state and country as a reason to maintain police funding levels.
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