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John C Moritz Austin Bureau USA TODAY NETWORK, Corpus Christi Caller Times Published 7:00 a.m. CT June 26, 2020

Of the confirmed two million coronavirus cases, more than 113,000 Americans have died since the virus emerged here a few months ago. USA TODAY

AUSTIN In the 12 months before the Texas Legislature opened its 2001 session, 1,841people were killed in motor vehicle crashes where alcohol was considered a contributing factor.

That session, lawmakers enacted a law banning the open containers of alcohol in cars and trucks. The message was clear in both committee testimony and floor debates: Texaswould no longer tolerate the sometimes deadly behavior of drinking and driving.

Gov. Greg Abbott at Dallas City Hall, June 2, 2020.(Photo: The Texas Governor's Office)

The vote was unanimous in the Senate and only two of the 150 House members voted no.

In the 88-day period that ended June 22, an estimated 2,200 people in the state had died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the fast-spreading coronavirus that is once again spiking to frightening levels in Texas.

But in his news conference called after 88 straight days of COVID-19 deaths, Gov. Greg Abbott said ordering all Texans to cover their faces while in public would be aone-size-fits-all approach that would be inappropriate for a state as large and diverse as Texas.

What may be true in Austin, Texas, is different in Austin County, the governor told reporters. And we need to have latitude for that differentiation.

More: Gov. Abbott: COVID-19 spike 'unacceptable,' but he says reclosing economy is 'last option'

During the pandemic that has has claimed more than 120,000 lives nationwide and has deflated a once-roaring economy, the mask has become something of a political bumper sticker for the face. Republican President Donald Trump, badly sagging in the polls heading in the final five months of his re-election campaign, has said people wear them not to halt the virus, but to signal their disapproval of him.

Why only some of Pres. Trump's COVID-19 advisors wear masks(Photo: ap)

Abbott, a second-term Republican, has becomea cheerleader for the voluntary wearing of masks even as hard-right conservatives in his own party accuse him of using a wink and a nudge to sell out the personal freedoms of Texans.

Personal freedom has long been cherished in Texas. When lawmakers finally passed the one-size-fits-all open-container law, it was hardly on a whim. For a decade, or perhaps longer, open-container bills would be filed and forgotten in the Legislature.

More: Hospitals sound the alarm as COVID-19 cases continue to spike up in Texas

The opponents had tradition on their side. What was the harm, they argued, of sipping on a cold one during their half-hour commute home? Some traditionalists even measuredlonger motor trips not in miles or hours, but in beer cans.

Austin was just a six-pack's drive from Fort Worth. A trip from Dallas to Amarillo would definitely require a pit stop somewhere nearWichita Falls, both to restock the cooler and to relieve a bulging bladder.

But such attitudes shifted as the century turned. Texas was increasingly suburban, and the suburbs became the epicenter for the Republican takeover of Austin. They weren't so much tea party Republicans back then, but soccer mom Republicans whose top concern as often as not was the safety of their families.

State Sen. Jane Nelson, a Republican and mother of five who came to the Legislature from the suburbs north of Dallas in 1993, took some blowback from conservative talk radio when she told a reporter back then that the days of "Bubba" riding around with an open beer in his pickup were coming to an end.

More: How do we know Texas' coronavirus spike was predictable? Gov. Abbott told us it was coming

But that blowback didn't stop her. When the open-container bill she had coauthored had cleared both chambers, Nelson took a victory lap.

State Sen. Jane Nelson(Photo: Texas Senate)

"We have the worst traffic safety record in the nation, and this bill will prevent tragedies on our roadways," said Nelson, now one of the upper chamber's most senior members and chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee.

She was right. Alcohol-related fatalities began dropping in Texas the same year the law went on the books, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Within five years, the annual number of deaths dropped by nearly 2,000.

And there was no blowback at the polls in 2002. In fact, Republicans that year finally completed their takeover of state government and ended the Democrats' dominance ofTexas' congressional delegation.

It remains to be seen what blowback might come fromTexas voters this November with the fallout of COVID-19 and the sufferingand death it has wrought still fresh in their minds. Will they be more concerned with their personal freedoms, or with the safety of their families?

John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.comand follow him on Twitter@JohnnieMo.

John Moritz(Photo: File)

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