Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said that, although the bill “primarily will affect cities,” he opposes it.
Business groups such as the Texas Apartment Association, the Texas Association of Builders, the Texas Association of Business and the National Federation of Independent Business-Texas countered that cities and counties are creating a confusing mix of requirements that are costly for businesses to navigate across the state.
Companies that fail to win local government contracts might clog the courts and appeal to lawmakers, she warned. Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, noted the bill would give cities and counties three months “to amend their ordinances to come into compliance” before a suit could be filed.At a hearing before a House panel last month, a Dallas city hall official registered the city’s opposition to the bill.
Houston’s payday lending restrictions and a decade-old ordinance regulating unlicensed boarding homes for the mentally ill would be jeopardized, wrote Bill Kelly, director of government relations for Turner.