Cagle on potential revocation of Hidalgo's emergency powers: 'It’s time we get back to normal'

One of the two Republican members on the Harris County Commissioners Court asserted that the COVID-19 emergency powers granted to Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo two years ago no longer apply, Houston NBC affiliate KPRC reported. Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner R. Jack Cagle is demanding those powers be revoked, citing Harris County's current COVID threat level of yellow and President Joe Biden's call for a return to normalcy, the station reported.

“We’re at level yellow," Cagle said, KPRC reported. "President Biden has said, 'Let’s get back to normal.' It’s time we get back to normal.”

Houston ABC affiliate KTRK reported that Hidalgo said the county's COVID-19-related ICU figures are at their lowest since the start of the pandemic. 

"We should take a moment and take a breath and celebrate that," the county judge, a Democrat, said, according to the station. "So many of us are going back to normal in many ways and that's warranted, important and we need that as a community. We need that for our economy."

Hidalgo; however, still urged caution.

"While the hospitalizations have come down, new cases now have stopped decreasing and are plateauing," Hidalgo said, KTRK reported. "What we've seen in the past, in all the various waves we've had, they begin plateauing and then they go right back up." 

As of Wednesday (April 6), the threat level remains at yellow. Hidalgo lowered it last month just before the return of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

KPRC reported that the commissioners court voted against stripping the county judge of her emergency powers.

“Now that we’re yellow, the rationale or the need to have the ability to be able to make decisions in the back doors instead of in the front, before the public, that rationale is gone,” Cagle, who introduced the measure, told the station.