Texas Border Business
McALLEN, Texas – “We’ve mostly seen these larger urban cities trying to regulate private employment practices, like hiring, scheduling, wages, and benefits, but then also stepping into regulating products – trying to get rid of gas-powered motors,” NFIB State Director Annie Spilman said in an interview with KURV’s Sergio Sanchez. “These cities are infringing on businesses that don’t even have offices or employees in the city. If you do business within the city limits, you fall under those mandates.”
Discussing how the bill maintains cities and municipalities’ ability to address local concerns, Spilman said:
“At what point do the cities start overreaching? That’s the question. They’re supposed to be dealing with local safety and transportation and zoning and nuisances and things like that. They’re not supposed to be regulating banks and doctors and businesses – those are the things that we discuss on the statewide level or the federal level for the sake of consistency. So that these major streams of commerce can truly follow the law and be compliant and not have to deal with a patchwork of regulations across the state of Texas on top of state and federal laws.”
READ: FACT CHECK: Local Control Is Alive and Well in Texas
Finally, Spilman described the economic headwinds small business owners face and how these city ordinances often exacerbate these challenges:
“Our small business owners don’t have compliance officers or attorneys. It’s incumbent on them to figure it out so they don’t get fined by the city. […] They’re being resilient but to have their own local government working against them in many cases, there’s only so much that a small business can handle to keep their doors open and their workers employed.”
CLICK HERE to listen to the full interview.
Background:
The Texas Regulatory Consistency Act would give local job creators one set of rules to follow statewide while ensuring cities and counties retain their authority to address local concerns. NFIB and local job creators testified before both the House and Senate in support of the bill, with one NFIB member saying: “We need the protection of the state, when it comes to cities telling us how to run our businesses.”
READ: San Antonio Small Businesswoman Touts Benefits of Texas Regulatory Consistency Act
CLICK HERE to urge your lawmaker to stand up for small businesses.
