State Senator and Tea Party favorite Donna Campbell of New Braunfels is up in arms about municipalities protecting trees.  It’s the latest attempt to wrest control of local issues away from the citizens of Texas cities and have policy dictated by the right-thinking stalwarts of the Texas Legislature.

Campbell has introduced Senate Bill 782  which provides that a landowner owns the trees on his or her property, and limits the mitigation fee that a local government can impose on a landowner for removing trees greater than 10 inches in diameter.  According to Campbell, her bill:

“limits the power of government by ensuring Texans have solid ground to stand on when it comes to managing and developing their own land. City tree ordinances are some of the most egregious examples of property rights violations in our state, affecting millions of property owners in Texas. It’s time to shift the balance of local control back in favor of local liberty.”

What a crock.  If the voters in these godforsaken liberal bastions don’t want tree ordinances they are perfectly capable of voting out their council members and mayors who have enacted them and replacing them with Tea Partisans like Campbell.  Red guesses that aint happening and Campbell just can’t stand the thought that others may not believe the Tea Party nonsense she spouts.

Bottom line – Teabaggers like Campbell believe in local government right up to the point where they don’t agree with the policies enacted.  So Campbell and her Tea Party sycophants do not believe that Texas cities have the right to enact ordinances to protect their local environments and preserve their natural resources as they see fit for their communities.

Red won’t call Campbell a “ten dollar whore” of the development lobby because she probably has raked in a lot more than that in campaign contributions from the big developers who view trees as impediment to more profits.  Red is sure she can justify being bought and paid for because she probably believes her own BS.