Gov. Greg Abbott, choosing hardball politics over good governance and leadership, embarked on a retaliatory veto spree as he killed 77 bills before a Sunday deadline last week. Even longtime state government watchers seemed befuddled by the growing standoff between Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and how it might play out from here.
Abbott, angered that property tax relief legislation he wanted was not passed by Patrick and the Senate, called for an immediate special session and issued his threat to undertake mass vetoes of bills passed in the 88th session of the Legislature. When Patrick and the Senate did not immediately act as directed, Abbott made good on his threat, wielding his veto pen like a wrecking ball and leaving plenty of collateral damage in his wake.
Abbott’s veto of House Bill 4759 struck me as particularly cruel and insensitive. I wonder how widow Janie Najera, 75, took the news last week that Abbott vetoed what was better known as the Ramon Najera Act in remembrance of her husband, an 81-year-old Air Force veteran who was fatally mauled by two unleashed pit bull mixes on a Westside street in February.
The legislation, authored by Rep. Elizabeth “Liz” Campos (D-San Antonio) and supported in the Senate by Sen. José Menéndez (D-San Antonio), passed with bipartisan support and was written to give cities stronger enforcement powers and allow individuals to report dangerous dogs anonymously and avoid possible retaliation by angry owners of aggressive dogs. Had Animal Care Services staff removed the dogs that killed Najera when they were involved in earlier attacks on neighbors, Najera would still be alive.
No one I’ve spoken with is buying Abbott’s defense of the veto.
“Texas’s existing criminal laws penalize attacks by dangerous dogs — so much so that felony arrests have already been made of the dog owners responsible for the tragic attack that took the life of a distinguished Air Force veteran in San Antonio,” Abbott stated in a release accompanying his veto. “The justice system should be allowed to work without the overcriminalization found in this bill.”
Huh? This is a prime example of why the best governance is local governance. Abbott is far removed from San Antonio’s decades-long problem with aggressive dogs and neglectful owners who allow their “pets” to roam freely through inner city neighborhoods. Too many dangerous dog owners have been let off with a warning, only to revert to neglectful ownership of animals often bred to attack.
Neighbors, including families with children, are left to fend for themselves.
Najera’s violent death and the attack on his wife, witnessed by neighbors and captured on video, and the ensuing publicity, led to a surge in citizen complaints about the city’s Animal Care Services staff and the department’s failure to act more forcefully against owners who repeatedly allow their aggressive dogs to escape their yards and terrorize neighbors. Multiple complainants told reporters that ACS staff never informed them they would have to file affidavits in order for ACS to open investigations and remove dangerous dogs.
While it’s true that the pit bull owners, Christian Alexander Moreno and his wife, Abilene Schnieder, were both jailed on felony charges, the proposed legislation would have strengthened criminal penalties for repeated dog attacks and allowed individuals to confidentially report vicious dogs to animal control authorities without fear of retaliation by the owners.
Given the history of neighborhood complaints about Moreno and Schneider and their aggressive dogs, it’s clear the city’s existing enforcement policies proved woefully inadequate or were weakly enforced.
According to the San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio police recorded 39 calls from January 2022 to February 2023 complaining about the couple’s behavior. ACS responded at least twice to reports of their dogs attacking and biting neighbors, yet the owners were allowed to keep their dogs.
In ACS’ defense, its staff takes in an average of 100 stray dogs and cats each week, and local animal welfare and adoption nonprofits struggle to find caring owners and new homes for the animals before they are put down. While the city has adopted the national standard of placing at least 90% of the animals in new homes, and local nonprofits exceed that number, irresponsible residents continue to allow their dogs to get loose, breed and threaten people. Many of those same owners refuse to participate in free spay-and-neuter programs. Enforcement is the only available tool in such instances.
Any cyclist who rides through neighborhoods south to the World Heritage missions has stories about aggressive dogs racing from their yards, unrestrained, to attack passersby. A San Antonio firefighter who responded to the attack on the Najeras also was bitten.
San Antonio needs to clean up its act. The Ramon Najera Act was a strong first step. For reasons we will probably never officially know, it’s dead.
