(Seguin) — It’s back to the state capitol today for Texas lawmakers. Headed back to Austin to pick up where they left off is State Representative John Kuempel. Kuempel, who represents all of Seguin and Guadalupe County, says even lawmakers were left out in the cold as the Lone Star State battled a historic winter storm.
Kuempel says although they were constitutionally obligated to gavel in last Tuesday, the impact of the winter storm prevented leaders from making a quorum during the continuation of last week’s 87th Annual Texas Legislative Session.
Kuempel says having to halt Texas business was a first for him and other state leaders.
“That’s the first time as long as I’ve served, it’s the first time that we couldn’t make quorum because of weather or natural causes,” said Kuempel.
Although icy conditions plus water and power outages prevented them from continuing the session last week, Keumpel says he expects those issues to resurface upon their return.
“It was obviously something that we weren’t counting on but I will say now that as we address ERCOT and address some of the billing problems with the generators that are passed on to distributors and then are passed on to consumers, it’s time for us to step up and make sure that we can swing those things around financially as much as we can,” said Kuempel.
Kuempel says while many Texans have remained frustrated, he is optimistic leaders will be able to take a “positive out of a lesson and see what (they) can do to make it better.”
“At this time, we are just headed back. There was obviously some loose ends that we have to clean up. We’ve learned over the last week that some of the things that we’ve taken for granted aren’t always going to be available. But, it’s our job to go up there and make sure that things like that don’t happen again. For people to not have power and water, we are not a vulnerable state. We are the state of Texas and we just got to make sure these things don’t happen again,” said Kuempel.
In addition to Kuempel, Texas Senator Judith Zaffarini, who also represents Seguin, has been keeping constituents updated via social media. Zaffirini says she too has already put in some work before today’s return to Austin.
Zaffirini has submitted letters to U.S. President Joe Biden as well as to FEMA urging them to designate even more federal dollars for the state’s recovery. While she acknowledged their partial approval of funds, she is looking for even more support in hopes of providing individual assistance to all counties.
Meanwhile, Texas is working to recover from the devastating winter storm that left more the four-million people without electricity and killed about three-dozen.
More than 33,000 homes and businesses across the state were still without power as of Monday. While most power has been restored locally, several families remain without water here in Guadalupe County.
The storm nearly collapsed the Texas power grid, leaving families shivering in the cold and dark. It also crippled water systems, requiring more than 14-million Texans to boil water before consuming it.
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