{"id":297,"date":"2021-02-23T19:18:19","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T19:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/articles\/broken-power-grid-a-product-of-a-broken-democracy\/"},"modified":"2021-02-23T19:18:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T19:18:19","slug":"broken-power-grid-a-product-of-a-broken-democracy","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/articles\/broken-power-grid-a-product-of-a-broken-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken power grid a product of a broken democracy"},"template":"","class_list":["post-297","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","article_type-blog-post"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"This hearing is a critical first step towards accountability but these problems will continue to harm our communities as long as we have a democratic system that bends policy in the direction of wealth and profit instead of the well-being of Texans","featured_image":5925,"article_type":164,"authors":["{\"site_id\":\"78\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":298}"],"related_issues":[70,100,113,406,408],"related_work":false,"location":null},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"Following the aftermath of a devastating winter storm that left millions of Texans without power or water due to critical failures in life-sustaining infrastructure\u2014a crisis that resulted in an incalculable loss of life and an estimated $50 billion<\/a> in economic damages\u2014 a joint legislative hearing will be held this Thursday to determine what went wrong.\r\n\r\nIt must be noted, a similar process happened in 2011 following a severe winter storm, where Texas lawmakers learned what needed to be done to avoid a repeat and did nothing<\/a>.\r\n\r\nWhat happened last week was not unexpected or unprecedented<\/a>. For years the politicians in power have refused to fix known vulnerabilities in our power grid to sustain the myth that deregulation benefits our state while lining their campaign coffers with industry money and advocating on behalf of special interests instead of the people they serve.\r\n\r\nSimply put - our broken power grid is a product of our broken democracy.\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\nKnowing there was catastrophic and avoidable risk tied to our deregulated grid \"ERCOT<\/a>system, Governor Abbott, his political patrons at the Public Utilities Commission and others gambled with the lives and livelihoods of Texans by refusing to fix the problems they themselves exacerbated with their negligence.\r\n\r\nAnd when those problems turned into a deadly crisis, we saw a number of oil and gas-funded politicians quick to blame sustainable wind energy that performed above expectations<\/a> during the blackout and slow to answer the urgent needs of their constituents.\r\n\r\nWorse still, while Greg Abbott and Dan Crenshaw spent their time attacking renewables, we saw Ted Cruz jet off to Cancun, Ken Paxton left to Utah<\/a>, and John Cornyn went MIA.<\/a>\r\n\r\nThis while so many of their constituents were unable to heat their homes, access safe drinking water, or find useful information from their elected representatives.<\/a>\r\n\r\nTrue accountability for what happened last week begins at the ballot box, but Texas leadership makes it harder to vote than anywhere else in the country<\/a>, undermines fair representation with gerrymandered maps, and allows unlimited campaign contributions from industry interests to state officeholders tasked with regulating those industries, including the oil and gas and energy industries.\r\n\r\nIn a functional democracy, politicians who govern poorly are held accountable during elections.<\/strong> Voter suppression, gerrymandering and a completely unregulated campaign finance system make accountability a highly elusive concept in Texas.\r\n\r\nThat Governor Abbott and other political leaders have cynically and falsely assigned blame to renewable wind energy to score political points and evade accountability while more than 4 million Texans were actively suffering only underscores the power that special interests hold over our political system. Until the people have power over our democracy in Texas, we cannot fully hold those in power accountable or rely on state leadership to make necessary and equitable investments in our aging, poorly regulated infrastructure that will certainly face more tests in the future due to extreme weather events caused by climate change.\r\n\r\nHowever, instead of focusing on these urgent priorities at the legislature, Governor Abbott and the politicians in charge have clearly signaled they are committed to making it even harder to vote<\/a> with proposed legislation that would unfairly create more barriers to democratic participation for historically marginalized communities.\r\n\r\nThese are the same Texans who bear disproportionate harms from disasters like we experienced last week. We saw countless examples of that across the state.<\/a>\r\n\r\nThankfully, while many politicians failed us last week, there were countless stories<\/a> of Texans stepping up to care for family members, neighbors and even complete strangers to help keep people warm and safe.\r\n\r\nHolding power accountable is a huge part of the work we do at Common Cause<\/strong>, and we cannot have accountability without participation from everyone impacted by the state\u2019s ongoing crisis of leadership and service.\r\n\r\nWe welcome Thursday\u2019s hearing as a crucial first step toward accountability but we won\u2019t get far unless we begin to empower voices of marginalized communities, increase civic participation, advance voting rights and reform our corrupt campaign finance system at the same time.<\/strong>"}}]},"yoast_head":"\nBroken power grid a product of a broken democracy - Common Cause Texas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/articles\/broken-power-grid-a-product-of-a-broken-democracy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Broken power grid a product of a broken democracy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/articles\/broken-power-grid-a-product-of-a-broken-democracy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Cause Texas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/common-cause-share-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/articles\/broken-power-grid-a-product-of-a-broken-democracy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/articles\/broken-power-grid-a-product-of-a-broken-democracy\/\",\"name\":\"Broken power grid a product of a broken democracy - 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