Texas Grid Failure Stirs Feud Between Cities and State

AUSTIN, Texas — For the Republicans who have run Texas state government for years, trying to undermine the Democrats who lead the state’s largest cities has been a blood sport for years. They have sought to overrule local officials on disputes involving everything from pandemic restrictions and plastic bag bans to protections for immigrants.

But this week, the collapse of the state’s power grid gave Democrats a chance to turn the tables. With the state reeling from a rare winter storm that caused widespread power outages, Democrats have mobilized public anger over the Republicans’ oversight of the energy industry, opening a new front in their battle to erode the party’s dominance of every statewide office and both chambers of the legislature.

While Democrats have made important inroads in recent election cycles, Texas Republicans have staved off the kind of game-changing gains that flipped states like Arizona and Georgia.

“Those in the Legislature and those in the executive branch of government have been spending too much time trying to run cities and counties and not enough tending to state issues,” said Sylvester Turner, the Democratic mayor of Houston, the largest city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the country. “And now it’s coming back to bite them. Before you can try to run my house, you’ve got to make sure you’re running your own.”

Such appraisals come at a time when Greg Abbott, the Republican governor, was already under fire for his handling of the pandemic. Even before thawing freezers forced health officials in Houston to scramble this week to administer thousands of vaccine doses, Latino leaders in hard-hit South Texas were pleading with Mr. Abbott to allow city officials along the border to put into place stricter mitigation measures.

At the same time, a steady drip of other scandals has focused scrutiny on the Republicans wielding power at the state level in Texas. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, remains under a cloud of legal trouble as he responds to abuse of power claims including a lawsuit by former aides who say he took bribes from a real estate developer.

The Republican-dominated Texas Legislature is also no stranger to intrigue. In one episode, a secret audio recording in 2019 by a conservative activist showed Dennis Bonnen, the former speaker of the Texas House, plotting against fellow Republicans by seeking to enlist the support of hard-line activists to take them down in primary challenges.

As attention shifts to the electricity crisis, Mr. Turner, the Houston mayor, figures among Democrats who have been sounding the alarm for years that the state’s power grid was at risk of failing.

After a 2011 debacle in which a rare winter storm knocked out power around the state, Mr. Turner, then a state representative, warned the following year that state regulators were giving utilities too much leeway. Other Democrats around the state are now issuing calls for sweeping changes in the state oversight of the industry.

“A lot of areas of Texas probably already felt like it was in an emergency before the blackout — Covid case numbers, peak hospital numbers and the vaccine scramble,” said Ana Sandoval, a Democrat and member of the San Antonio City Council. “State leaders need to take the blindfold off and realize energy is not just about economics. It’s a life-and-death issue.”

Some Republicans are joining in the calls for greater accountability. Governor Abbott declared reform of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s grid, an emergency item for the State Legislature. Representative Dade Phelan, the Republican speaker of the Texas House, called for hearings to examine the factors contributing to the grid’s collapse.

“People are suffering right now because we have failed,” said State Representative Tony Tinderholt, a retired military officer regarded as one of the most conservative members in the House. Like millions of other Texans, Mr. Tinderholt, his wife and two young children were left without power in their home in Arlington, and took refuge in a hotel.

“And when I say ‘we,’ I’m talking about the Legislature, ERCOT and the power companies,” Mr. Tinderholt said.

Much of the rest of the United States features electricity systems that are interconnected, but Texas has long stood out for having its own grid. While the system has been praised by hard-line conservatives as an example of the state’s go-it-alone mettle, the unusual setup originated when the Democrats who once wielded control over Texas politics sought to shield companies in the state from federal regulators overseeing interstate electricity sales.

The Republicans who rose to power in Texas in the 1990s had their own ideas about turbocharging the electricity industry. Around that time, Texas energy giants like Enron (before its spectacular collapse in a 2001 accounting scandal) were winning plaudits for aggressive moves into power…