AUSTIN — It’s only a week into the special session, but bills targeting local control of cellphone use and annexation have already been fast-tracked through Senate hearings, despite opposition from cities.

“Almost all these bills come out of the Senate,” said Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League. “The question is whether the House will be able to hold out.”

Senate Bill 1, a revenue cap authored by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, won Senate approval on Monday; if enacted it would leave local governments without the money to hire employees, pursue economic development or buy new equipment, critics say.

Bettencourt said in a statement that, “Texans are crying out for property tax relief,” but whether the topic is taxation or annexation, Sandlin said that such preemption bills are part of a national trend.

In Pennsylvania, Helen Gym, a member of the Philadelphia City Council, said cities there are seeing the same local-versus-state dynamic play out on a range of issues: restricting the use of plastic bags, for example. 

About 15 Texas cities have bag bans, and the fate of such regulations has been the subject of legislative proposals and lawsuits. 

There’s also been a state vs. city fight over Philadelphia’s paid sick leave for all full-time and part-time employees who work 40 weeks per year.

Opponents of local sick-leave laws say they that uniformity is paramount and that policies should be set at the state level.

Gym said cities such as Philadelphia are acting because “our state has stalled out” on a variety of issues. 

“They need to be focused on big issues like funding our schools,” Gym said in a telephone interview, referring to state lawmakers. “Instead they’re spending time fussing about plastic bags.”

Meanwhile, on Monday, lawmakers in Austin approved SB 15, which would prescribe statewide rules on cellphone use while driving and preempt local ordinances.

Queried about whether Pennsylvania has yet seen a state effort to preempt local rules on cellphone use, Gym said she didn’t think so, adding, “please don’t give our state any bad ideas.”

But Gym will have an opportunity to see Texas lawmakers at work later this week when she, along with about 150 other elected officials from around the U.S., travel to Austin for a meeting of Local Progress, a national association of progressive lawmakers.

Their goal: to “share strategies for fortifying the power of cities and fighting threats from state and federal lawmakers,” according to a statement.

As for other Texas preemption efforts, Sandlin noted that Senate committee members have also approved SB 14, which would preempt local rule-making on cutting down trees, something that’s historically been left up to cities.

The bill drew opposition from Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio officials, as well as from residents. 

In the SB 14 author’s statement of purpose, state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, wrote that some 50 Texas cities impose “burdensome” regulations on removing trees that “prohibit or increase the cost of development of private property.”

But critics ask why tree removal on private property should be subject to state law when matters such as zoning are left to local ordinances.

Committee members said they were simply trying to prevent abuses of property rights. 

“If an individual buys a piece of property in Texas they own title to the property and the corresponding dirt and trees that make up the property,” Hall said, when he introduced the bill in committee.

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com.