Moore County Journal

Ever since last month’s winter weather disaster, Gov. Greg Abbott has worked to lay blame squarely on the state’s electrical-grid operator — despite the fact that it is overseen by the Abbott-appointed Public Utility Commission.

But as state lawmakers dig in on their response to the crisis, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is making it harder and harder to look away from the commission, shining a harsh spotlight on Abbott’s people and their decisions.

Last week, Patrick called for the resignation of the PUC chair at the time, DeAnn Walker — and hours later, she called it quits. Then, after a regulatory watchdog told the commission earlier this week that the Electric Reliability Council ofTexas had overcharged power providers by $16 billion during the storm, Patrick demanded the PUC retroactively reduce the costs — and Abbott deemed it an emergency item for the legislative session the next day.

The watchdog later revised its estimate of the overcharges to $4.2 billion, but that did not dampen Patrick’s wrath. The lieutenant governor’s focus on the PUC took its most dramatic turn yet Thursday evening when he showed up at a state Senate committee hearing to personally grill Arthur D’Andrea, the new commission chair tapped by Abbott — and the only member left.

Finally, Patrick ended the week with his most direct challenge to Abbott. In a Friday evening statement, Patrick called on Abbott to “intercede” and replace D’Andrea, daring the governor to abandon his 9-day-old appointee who previously worked as assistant general counsel to Abbott.

Abbott quickly rebuffed Patrick.

Even before Patrick’s statement, Capitol observers said they could not recall anything like the Patrick-D’Andrea showdown in recent memory.

“It’s highly unusual, and I’ve never seen a lieutenant governor come and sit down and participate in a hearing as if he or she were a senator — and also address someone in that way in a public manner — if they do not intend to put pressure on him to resign,” said Sandie Haverlah, a lobbyist for nonprofits. “That clearly is an affront to the governor because D’Andrea serves at the governor’s will.”

Asked before Patrick’s statement Friday if Abbott remains confident in D’Andrea’s ability to chair the PUC, Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze replied, “Absolutely.” And in a letter released after Patrick called for D’Andrea’s ouster, Abbott told Patrick that he agreed with D’Andrea “about his inability to take the action you requested,” referring to the sought-after price correction.

Abbott has been resistant to blaming PUC, which regulates the state’s electric, water and telecommunication utilities, since the early days of the storm, instead choosing to excoriate the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Asked at a Feb. 18 news conference whether he held any responsibility for the crisis, given his office’s relationship with the PUC, Abbott kept the focus on ERCOT, saying, “I’m taking responsibility for the current status of ERCOT.”

“This is not a word that I would normally use to describe Dan Patrick, but I think he was always a little more circumspect, particularly with regard to ERCOT,” said Adrian Shelley, the Texas director of the consumer rights group Public Citizen. “Abbott was just immediately out there taking cheap shots at ERCOT.”

What is driving the dynamic is the source of growing speculation in Austin. There is a political backdrop: Patrick has never been able to fully shake rumors that he is interested in the governor’s office, despite insisting he would never run against Abbott and repeatedly saying he plans to run for a third term as lieutenant governor in 2022.

In the context of this session, it has been a notable reemergence for Patrick, who kept an unusually low profile in the opening weeks. That began to change in early February, when he picked a fight over playing the national anthem at professional sports games and made preparations to release a list of legislative priorities.

Then came the storm, which left millions of Texans in the cold and dark, raised uncomfortable questions about the state’s power grid and scrambled the agenda at the Capitol.

Patrick said the crisis prompted him to hold off on releasing his priorities for a few days so he could readjust them to reflect newly pressing issues. His list of 31 priorities ended up being topped by “ERCOT reform” and “power grid stability,” coming in second and third, respectively — right after the must-pass budget.

But things changed further for Patrick after Walker and outgoing ERCOT CEO Bill Magness appeared before state House and Senate committees in late February. The lieutenant governor panned their performances in a lengthy statement and called on them to resign, becoming easily the highest-ranking elected official to begin broadening the post-storm blame game to the PUC.

By the end of the day, Walker had submitted her letter of resignation, effective immediately.

Abbott had already called on ERCOT leadership to resign but had not said anything about the PUC. After Walker announced her resignation, Abbott’s office offered a statement thanking Walker “for her years of service to the State of Texas.”

Patrick further increased pressure on the PUC on Monday, when he called on ERCOT and the commission to retroactively reduce the market price for power during the week of the blackouts. The next day, Patrick got backup from 28 of the Legislature’s 31 senators, who sent a letter to D’Andrea — who Abbott had just appointed to replace Walker as PUC chair — urging him “in the strongest possible terms to immediately correct the billing errors.”

D’Andrea and the PUC have declined to do so, citing unforeseen consequences of meddling in an electricity market that has already been settled. D’Andrea held firm to that viewpoint as Patrick questioned him for nearly a half an hour Thursday evening, claiming D’Andrea had told him otherwise in a recent phone call.

In his Friday evening statement, Patrick asked Abbott to “replace Mr. D’Andrea on the PUC when he fills the other two vacancies there.”

“Mr. D’Andrea’s position requires both professional competence and honesty and he demonstrated little of either in the hearings yesterday,” Patrick said. “I believe most Texans who watched the Senate Jurisprudence hearing would conclude that D’Andrea should not have full authority over ERCOT or be part of the solution moving forward.”

Less than an hour after Patrick’s statement, Abbott’s office released the letter to the lieutenant governor. In the letter, Abbott involved his past experience as a state Supreme Court justice and attorney general to back up D’Andrea, and he told Patrick that the governor “does not have independent authority to accomplish the goals you seek.”

“The only entity that can authorize the solution you want is the legislature itself,” Abbott wrote. “That is why I made this issue an emergency item for the legislature to consider this session.”

Not every senator is with Patrick, at least when it comes to the pricing correction. The three senators who did not sign the letter were Sens. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe; Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin; and Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills. Hancock told The Dallas Morning News that he wanted to stay neutral in the debate because he chairs the Senate Business and Commerce Committee, which has held the chamber’s post-storm hearings.

Creighton’s office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Lawmakers in the House, meanwhile, have taken what they see as a more deliberative approach, with some pledging to “have all the facts” before taking action on the issue.

During a House State Affairs Committee hearing Thursday, state Rep. Chris Paddie, a Marshall Republican who chairs the committee, appeared to take a jab at the Senate’s 28-member letter that asked D’Andrea to reverse the charges.

“Before we take a position or any of us individually send you, sir, a letter or anything else,” Paddie told D’Andrea, “I’m going to be real sure when I sign my name on something that I have all the facts, and that it’s accurate.”

After the hearing, House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, said in a statement he appreciated the committee for its “deliberative examination” of the issue and said he looked forward to another hearing next week on the conversation.

And over the past week, Phelan has floated the idea for legislation that would create a loan fund by drawing money from the state’s savings account, which is also known as the “Rainy Day Fund.” That new fund could help electricity and natural gas producers bolster facilities against future cold-weather events.

The proposal, filed Friday by state Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, is modeled after the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas, otherwise known as SWIFT, which has helped fuel the building of tens of billions of dollars in new water projects in recent years.

In the meantime, it seems inevitable that the heat on the PUC will not recede, despite Abbott’s early efforts to shield his appointees from the storm fallout.

“I think it’d be hard to reach any other conclusion,” said Doug Lewin, a climate and energy consultant. “Clearly Abbott jumped out to say it was them, and I think … Patrick has been beating the drum that it’s ERCOT and the PUC and really putting an emphasis on the PUC.”

Cassi Pollock contributed reporting.

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Austin and Travis County officials can continue enforcing their mask mandates after a district judge delayed action on the Texas attorney general’s request to immediately stop the mandates.

That means city and county officials can continue to require masks until at least March 26, when District Judge Lora Livingston will hold a trial.

“People have been wearing masks for a year. I don’t know that two more weeks is going to matter one way or the other,” Livingston said during a Friday hearing, according to the Austin-American Statesman, which first reported the news.

Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the city of Austin and Travis County on Thursday — following through on his earlier threat to do so if those officials did not roll back their mask mandates after Gov. Greg Abbott lifted nearly all coronavirus restrictions.

“I told Travis County and the City of Austin to comply with state mask law. They blew me off,” Paxton tweeted Thursday. “So, once again, I’m dragging them to court. [Mayor Steve] Adler will never do the right thing on his own. His obstruction won’t stop me from keeping Texas free and open.”

Paxton’s lawyers pushed for an injunction hearing Friday, but Livingston said it wouldn’t be fair to give the defendants only a day to prepare, the Statesman reported. Livingston said after she hears arguments on March 26, she’d also rule the same day.

Travis County Judge Andy Brown counts the two-week delay as a win. It buys the area some time to keep requiring masks while residents get vaccinated. It will also keep the mandate through most school’s spring break holidays.

Abbott’s latest order states “no jurisdiction” can implement local restrictions, except a county judge and only when hospitalizations in a region exceed 15%.

“This case raises a pressing question: who is ultimately responsible for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergencies?” Paxton’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. “The Texas Disaster Act charges the Governor—not an assortment of thousands of county judges, city mayors, and local health officials—with leading the State’s response to a statewide emergency.”

Reference

Read the lawsuit Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed against Austin and Travis County.

But Brown and Austin Mayor Steve Adler argue that local public health officials maintain the authority to create orders on the local level to protect their community from pandemics. It’s different, they argued, than using emergency powers.

Brown said if the judge rules differently, it will have “huge ramifications” on local government moving forward.

Local government needs to be able to move quickly on issues of public health, he said, emphasizing that it’s “the whole point of the way our state government is set up.”

Paxton did not respond to a request for comment.

Abbott has been criticized by public health experts and lawmakers in Texas and nationally for his decision to remove mandates.

Even though Texas’ situation has improved, an average of almost 200 residents are dying from the virus every day. As of March 10, 9% of Texans have been fully vaccinated. But not everyone yet qualifies for the vaccine.

The pandemic has especially impacted Texans of color — including in El Paso where Paxton previously blocked a county judge from ordering non-essential businesses to shut down. Black and Hispanic Texans face systemic barriers to being vaccinated despite being more likely to suffer the virus’ worse consequences.

“We return to court March 26. No matter what happens then, we will continue to be guided by doctors and data,” Adler tweeted. “Masking works.”

Disclosure: Steve Adler, a former Texas Tribune board chair, has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

COVID-19 testing has dropped to its lowest point in Texas since last fall, and health experts say the trend reflects the overall improvement in the course of the pandemic statewide.

During the February winter storm that left millions of Texans without access to electricity or water, testing rates dipped below 50,000 tests per day on average for the first time since September.

Testing levels rebounded after the winter storm, but the number of tests reported in March is still significantly lower than during December, January and February at the peak of the pandemic in Texas.

Medical experts say that while testing is still an important tool for tracking outbreaks and assessing the severity of the pandemic, they’re not surprised that the demand for testing has decreased as people get vaccinated and see transmission levels drop around the state. The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases was 3,032 on Thursday, compared to almost 20,000 in January, and the state’s positivity rate — or the percentage of tests conducted that came back positive — has dipped below 10% for the first time since October.

Testing rates are down across the country as well, which concerns some experts who say testing is crucial for identifying new cases and stopping the virus’ spread, but also reflects the overall improvement the country is seeing in terms of cases and vaccinations.

When transmission rates drop, testing rates will follow, said Dr. Mary Peterson, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Driscoll Health System in Corpus Christi.

Peterson said in January and February, when infections were soaring and people were traveling for the holidays, testing reflected people’s anxiety.

“Now the main focus really is vaccination,” Peterson said. “That’s what’s going to end this pandemic.”

Even though COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are decreasing in Texas, there are still significant levels of disease in the community, and with new variants spreading, testing is crucial to staying on top of the virus, said Dr. James McDeavitt, senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at the Baylor College of Medicine.

McDeavitt said the public messaging has largely shifted from encouraging people to get tested to encouraging people to get vaccinated.

“With all the publicity this past week and the opening of Texas and the mask discussion, there’s probably a group of the population that is less focused on testing than maybe they were before,” McDeavitt said.

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While a devastating winter storm left millions of Texans in the freezing cold and dark for multiple days last month, Debra Spencer lost power in her home just once, for 15 minutes.

It wasn’t luck. Spencer lives in Lubbock, one of the few areas of the state not connected to Texas’ independent power grid. She watched as the rest of her state plunged into chaos with mass power outages, causing death and widespread damage.

So when she learned that the city of Lubbock was preparing this June to join the Texas grid, run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, she started anxiously emailing all of her state representatives asking them to reconsider the move.

“I was up here just going, ‘Oh no. I don’t want to do this,’” Spencer said.

The plan for Lubbock to join the Texas energy grid has been in the works since 2015, and already millions of dollars have been poured into constructing transmission lines.

But as ERCOT leaders have been cast as villains of the February disaster, more officials are pushing back against the move.

“There’s a whole lot of unknowns today that could end up costing a lot of money, that could set the ratepayers in Lubbock today in a worse position than they were,” said Republican state Sen. Charles Perry, who represents Lubbock. “At the same time, you don’t know exactly what the new grid transformations or reforms look like. If there’s a way to pause, take a deep breath and survey, that would be my recommendation.”

Many Lubbock officials are still optimistic about joining the ERCOT, which isn’t regulated by the federal government. They’re hoping the Texas Legislature’s proposed reforms will prevent another disaster from occurring, but they haven’t ruled out pushing for a delay if it appears winterization efforts are faltering.

“By nature, after a crisis, we want to point fingers,” said Lubbock Mayor Dan Pope. “Choice is a big part of our decision, but so is a diverse, affordable, safe supply. …Those are still our plans and I think that’s still very desirable for our citizens.”

Nevertheless, ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission that oversees it have emerged as public enemy No. 1 in recent weeks as officials look to assign blame for the many failures that lead to 4.5 million customers being out of power at the storm’s height. Nearly half the ERCOT board and its CEO have resigned, in addition to two members of the PUC.

ERCOT’s also being sued for wrongful deaths. On top of this, the PUC’s own independent monitor said ERCOT overcharged power companies by about $16 billion, though energy grid officials say the number is closer to $3 billion.

The failures of Texas’ independent power grid have led to some counties mulling a way out. A Harris County commissioner briefly proposed cutting ties with ERCOT after constituents wrote to him about relatives passing away from hypothermia without power and heating. He explored building transmission lines out to the national grid before abandoning it because of the high price tag.

Lubbock officials initially planned to join ERCOT once its 15-year-long contract with Xcel Energy, a member of the Southwestern Public Service Company, expires. This left two choices: building a new power plant or joining ERCOT. Both would cost millions, but joining ERCOT would give constituents more choices in their electric retailers, officials said.

Lubbock City Councilperson Jeff Griffith he still feels confident Lubbock will move forward with the plans to join ERCOT.

“We analyzed this heavily, for years, as to changing [electric] grids,” Griffith said. “One thing a lot of Lubbock residents wanted was to be in a deregulated market with a competitive environment.”

Griffith said 70% of the city’s electric load would shift to ERCOT, but other parts of Lubbock County would remain on other parts of the Southwestern regional grid. Competitive electric retail would not start immediately after the transition.

Ultimately, Griffith said, the city’s electric utility board could recommend the city council to pause the transition if those members felt ERCOT’s corrective plans were inadequate.

ERCOT spokesperson Leslie Sopko said as of right now, there are no plans to pause the city’s connection project, and the commission is not aware of efforts to stop it.

Warren Lasher, ERCOT senior director of system planning, said electric providers Oncor and Lubbock Power and Light are currently finishing construction on the connecting transmission circuits.

“We are also working with [Lubbock Power and Light] on the final arrangements for them to participate in the ERCOT market,” Lasher said in an email, adding that their timeline has distribution circuits transitioning to ERCOT’s grid “scheduled to be implemented in late May.”

In a press release, Lubbock Power and Light said despite concerns about joining ERCOT since the winter storm, the Southwestern Public Service Company experienced its own share of problems with rolling power outages.

Disclosure: Oncor has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Last summer, finance experts for the state of Texas and its cities and counties were anxiously looking at a sagging economy, higher demand for some government services during the pandemic and potential shortfalls in their own budgets.

That’s behind them now: With the passage of the latest federal COVID-19 legislation, those governments are now looking at windfalls they couldn’t imagine a few months ago. And most of their current budget problems are over.

The bad news started just under a year ago. After a few weeks of the “novel coronavirus” in Texas, Comptroller Glenn Hegar said the state was going into a recession. He told lawmakers to get ready for a stream of terrible economic news. He wouldn’t put a number to it, right at first, other than to say the state government would come up “several billion dollars” short of what had been forecast in the vibrant Texas economy of pre-pandemic days.

By midsummer of last year, Hegar had seen enough to say that the current budget, which runs through the end of August 2021, appeared to be $4.6 billion out of balance. Lawmakers returning for the 2021 regular session, he said, should be ready to either cut that much spending out of the current budget or ready to find some new source of money big enough to cover the shortfall.

Worse, he expected those economic clouds to persist into the next two-year budget cycle — the period for which the current Legislature is writing a spending plan.

It was bleak news topped by bleaker news.

And now, it’s as if it never happened.

The economy began improving earlier than Hegar and others had expected. By the time the Legislature was ready to start work in January, Hegar offered a much less gloomy forecast: He expected the shortfall in the current budget to be under $1 billion — real money, but not a big hit in a quarter-trillion-dollar state budget.

One of the big-ticket items that had been expected to cause problems — Medicaid — benefited from an increase in federal matching funds. The economy was improving. Vaccines had been developed, and though demand still far outstrips supply, that news generated a wave of optimism.

And now, the federal government, which has already poured billions of dollars into pandemic-triggered health and economic relief, is adding $1.9 trillion more. The package includes roughly $17 billion for local and state governments in Texas.

And just like that, we’re out of the financial woods. The state that was expecting a $4.6 billion shortfall in the current budget, and an even larger problem with the two-year budget that follows, now appears to have more money available than it was planning to spend.

Before this fable reaches the happily-ever-after mood, it’s worth talking about history and about caveats. In fact, as soon as Texas lawmakers get a good look at the numbers, they’ll be busy managing expectations, telling people with new ways to spend state money to go soak their heads. It’s one-time money, for one thing — not a promise that the feds will be back with another sack of cash when this one is empty.

And the older legislators will recall the global financial crisis that preceded the state’s 2009 legislative session. The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, was the federal relief package of the day, and the money pumped into the state balanced the two-year budget lawmakers were writing that year. Without it, they’d have been involved in deep spending cuts.

It seemed the worst was past. But the federal money ran out before the recovery got to Texas, and dire economic projections led the next Legislature, in 2011, to make huge cuts in state spending, including cuts to public education spending that loomed over the next four election cycles in Texas. The economic trends are different now, but you’ll probably hear the cautionary history again — especially when someone gets too excited about spending that federal money.

The Texas Legislature’s budget worries have lightened considerably since the grim forecasts of last spring and summer.

But state lawmakers still have a list of things to fret over, starting with COVID-19, an energy grid that came to pieces when the state needed it most and high-profile debates over elections, voting, police brutality and funding. But the budget that many expected to lead the list will now be a lot less painful to write.

It won’t last forever, the way it does in the fairy tales, but that’s pretty happy news.

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As many Texas universities take the extraordinary step of canceling or significantly reducing spring break during the pandemic, some schools are hosting on-campus events and continuing the weeklong break in March despite concerns about college students using the time to travel and infect others.

In the early weeks of the pandemic in March 2020, colleges across the state extended spring break and then moved to online-only classes afterwards largely due to initial fears about facilitating the spread of the coronavirus. Now, a year later, college officials face a dilemma with what to prioritize during spring break: keep students from spreading the virus or provide them with a mental health break.

But spring break for many is now coinciding with Gov. Greg Abbott rescinding a statewide mask mandate and allowing businesses in the state to open up 100%. After Texas college towns initially emerged as coronavirus hot spots during the beginning of the fall semester, university officials are hoping the same won’t occur after the spring break period.

Multiple universities, including Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University, have decided giving students the opportunity to party during a sustained break in March is too risky. Instead, they are opting to have days off throughout the semester to provide a break without the chance for a weeklong vacation.

Texas Christian University in Fort Worth gave students three days off — Tuesday through Thursday — this week and hosted in-person activities like an outdoor pool party, live music performances and a petting zoo as a way to discourage students from traveling. Many other schools, including the University of Houston and the University of Texas at Austin, opted for weeklong spring breaks next week.

Health officials and university officials previously warned about cases spiking during holiday breaks for Thanksgiving and the winter season, where many college students traveled home to be with their families. Campus leaders and epidemiologists are now worried that students may contract and spread COVID-19 during spring break if they travel or gather in large groups.

While many campuses said they didn’t record an increase in COVID-19 cases after spring break in their community last year because most students didn’t return to campus, UT-Austin was an exception. Last year, after UT-Austin students took a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico during spring break, 60 travelers tested positive for COVID-19.

Diana Cervantes, assistant professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, said spring break won’t cause as much of an increase in statewide coronavirus cases compared to the winter holidays because there isn’t as much travel universally. However, she said she is concerned about COVID-19 spread among young adults who engage in high-risk activities.

“With spring break, the biggest high risks are going to be people who are young adults,” Cervantes said. “College kids have been ‘Zooming,’ and they’ve been having online classes. And they get to the point where they’re just like, “Hey, it would be great to get out and do other things and take a break.’ And that’s the biggest concern.”

UH spokesperson Shawn Lindsey said in a statement that having a break is healthy for students during a challenging semester, but the university is discouraging travel during the break.

“There has been no compelling reason for the University to make a change to the calendar with regard to spring break,” Lindsey said in a statement. “Our cases remain relatively low. Our contact tracers have found no cases of transmissions within classrooms, nor have we had any large outbreaks in our facilities.”’

Brett Stawar, president and CEO of the Port Aransas Tourism Bureau, said he doesn’t expect most college students to wear masks on their vacations there. He said some unmasked young adults will go to bars at full capacity late at night, but many will be gathering on the beaches or non-enclosed spaces, where experts say there is less risk of spreading the coronavirus.

“I think spring breakers are going to come down and enjoy themselves. They’re young adults and will probably want their freedoms,” Stawar said. “Some of the bars and scenes will be more crowded if they have dance floors. … We’re going to have later gathering times for patrons and certainly that would mean more risk of exposure.”

Tourism and city officials in popular vacation areas in the state, such as South Padre Island, said few students have visited so far, and they are primarily expecting to see families on vacation — not students. Many Texas students are taking their break in other states like Florida or international locations like Cancún or Cabo San Lucas, officials said.

Destiny Neal, a junior at TCU, said having a break in the springtime is important for her mental health and the well-being of other students. But she worried other students would still travel even though they did not have Monday and Friday off.

“I think it’s a good strategy to use with what we have, but I’m still concerned that people won’t be as responsible,” she said. “And I wish we had the full break just to actually get a break.”

If students travel, UT-Austin is recommending that they should get tested for COVID-19 one to three days before their trip and avoid travel if they test positive. When students return, the university is encouraging students to get tested three to five days afterwards and self-quarantine for seven days. If they don’t get tested, they’re encouraged to self-quarantine for 10 days when they get back.

“We encourage you to make good decisions during spring break, just as you did during winter break, and follow the university’s public health guidance: wWear a mask (double up!), avoid gatherings (especially indoors) and try to limit your contacts,” Soncia Reagins-Lilly, UT-Austin’s vice president for student affairs and dean of students, said in an email to students.

Joe Pettibon, vice president for enrollment and academic services in the provost’s office at Texas A&M, said the school canceled the weeklong spring break due to concerns about people traveling and gathering in large groups.

“Any time there’s been a time where people have had time to gather in larger groups or with people that they’re not normally around, that has increased the spread of the virus, so that raised concerns about spring break,” Pettibon said.

Instead, Texas A&M shortened spring break to one day and gave the community a day off on a Tuesday in March and a Friday in April to help their mental health.

Texas Tech University president Lawrence Schovanec said the university shortened spring break to one day because travel could jeopardize the safety of the campus community. The university also provided students with a day off on a Friday in February and a Monday in April to help their mental health.

“When we made that change (to spring break), several students wrote to me unhappy about that change, saying they had planned to travel and this disrupted their plans,” Schovanec said. “In some cases, they have very legitimate reasons — they wanted to go see their family. Others, however, mentioned their plans either to go skiing or to beaches.”

Keandra Hunt, a junior at Texas Tech, said she appreciates the wellness days, but they aren’t much of a break because she will be using that time to catch up on assignments. She said she disagrees with using concerns about people traveling to justify canceling spring break, because people will still use those days to travel.

“If you’re having these three-day weekends once a month, then that gives students the opportunity to travel because students will travel regardless,” Hunt said. “Students … can go out and then come back and get COVID. If we just had a normal spring break period, there might be an influx of COVID cases all at once versus this influx once a month.”

Disclosure: Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Houston and University of North Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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A fight has broken out among Texas Republicans over Gab, the embattled social network favored by the far right.

The state GOP made clear Thursday it would not delete its Gab account after vice chair Cat Parks called on it to do so two days earlier — and got backup from Gov. Greg Abbott, who said “anti-Semitic platforms like Gab have no place in Texas.” That sparked fierce criticism from the company — and new questions from fellow some Republicans about Abbott’s own commitment to fighting perceived censorship by social media giants.

The party has had a Gab account since at least January, when GOP discussion over social media policy was at a fever pitch in the wake of Twitter’s decision to ban outgoing President Donald Trump after the deadly U.S. Capitol riot.

Gab promotes itself as a “free speech” alternative to social media behemoths like Facebook and Twitter. It has become a haven for neo-Nazis and other extremists, though, and it got national attention in 2018 when the man who fatally shot 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue had posted anti-Semitic messages on the site beforehand. The company itself has a history of trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes.

Earlier this year, Gab was among the alternative social media sites where Trump loyalists plotted the storming of the U.S. Capitol.

The Texas drama surrounding the platform began Tuesday, when Parks, who has been taking steps to differentiate herself from chair Allen West, issued a statement calling on the party to deactivate its Gab account. She said she looked into the site after “multiple grassroots Republican activists reached out with concerns” and found “several comments on [the Republican Party of Texas’] posts contained anti-Semitic and racist tropes.” She said she “noticed that this was a common theme on Gab.”

“The Republican Party of Texas will not tolerate anti-Semitism and racism to proliferate under our watch,” Parks said, adding that Gab “is not a viable or healthy outlet for RPT to share our message of opportunity, liberty and personal empowerment.”

On Wednesday evening, seemingly out of the blue, Abbott gave Parks an assist, tweeting a video from his official account in which he appeared alongside GOP state Reps. Craig Goldman of Fort Worth and Phil King of Weatherford.

“Anti-Semitic platforms like Gab have no place in Texas and certainly do not represent Texas values,” Abbott said, going on to hold up a bill. “What does represent Texas values is legislation like this by Rep. King and Rep. Goldman that fights anti-Semitism in Texas.”

It was not clear what legislation Abbott was referring to, but Goldman and King are the authors of an Abbott-backed 2017 law that required state contractors to verify they are not involved in any boycotts of Israel. After a federal judge blocked the law in 2019, Abbott signed a bill narrowing its scope.

Abbott’s video with Goldman and King prompted a critical statement from Gab CEO Andrew Torba, who called the governor’s Gab attack “despicable and false.” Noting the “Texas GOP itself is on Gab with a verified account,” Torba disputed that the site is an “anti-Semitic platform,” saying Gab “protect[s] the political speech of all Americans, regardless of viewpoint, because in this age of cancel culture nobody else will.”

Torba — as well as other Abbott critics — also pointed out that just six days ago, Abbott traveled to Tyler to throw his weight behind legislation that he said showed Texas was “taking a stand against Big Tech political censorship.”

On Thursday afternoon, the Texas GOP indicated it would not heed the calls to abandon Gab. A tweet from the party account said it supports “the 1st Amendment, including free speech platforms & VC [Parks’] right to criticize such.”

“TexasGOP has no plan to deplatform from any of our social media accounts,” the tweet said. “The 1st Amendment still shines brightly in the Lone Star State.”

The dustup marks another chapter in tensions between Abbott and West, a potential primary challenger to the governor in 2022 who has been critical of his response to the coronavirus pandemic. The episode also shows more daylight between West and Parks, who has sought to pave her own path at the party as West’s sharp-elbowed leadership has miffed some fellow Republicans.

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