The office of constable may have made sense back when Texas was a sprawling frontier. Constables were charged with puttting down “riots, routs, affrays, and unlawful assemblies.”
Defund the Constables
EXAS REPUBLICANS’ LONGTIME DEMAND THAT CITIES SHRINK THEIR BUDGETS ran into a thin blue line last year. Austin called their bluff. The city passed a plan to cut or reallocate about $150 million from its police budget in August following nationwide protests for criminal justice reform—which included
