Republicans have responded to an electoral shellacking by trying to weaken the offices that incoming Democratic governors are about to inherit. Pressure campaigns in Texas and Georgia have sought to slash gubernatorial authority before Gina Hinojosa and Keisha Lance Bottoms take office.

The tactic is an ugly substitute for accepting election results. Powers that were apparently tolerable under Republican control suddenly became intolerable once voters chose Democrats to wield them.

In Texas, state Rep. Brian Harrison urged Republican lawmakers to strip emergency powers from the governor before Hinojosa takes over from Greg Abbott. Harrison aired his alarm on X, where his reaction became a public meltdown over the approaching transfer of power.

“Without action, Governor Hinojosa will inherit the powers of a DICTATOR,” Harrison wrote. The warning carries an obvious contradiction because Abbott currently possesses those same powers, which did not trigger the same Republican panic.

Outgoing Texas Rep. Chip Roy endorsed the plan, according to the source article. A collection of other MAGA propagandists also supported the effort to reduce the authority Hinojosa is set to receive.

Whether Texas Republicans can accomplish that goal remains unclear. What is clear is that the campaign seeks to deprive Hinojosa of powers that millions of voters supported her having when they elected her governor.

The maneuver is not merely a debate about the proper limits of executive authority. It is a push to change those limits after an election produced an outcome Republicans did not want.

A similar campaign unfolded in Georgia, though that effort appeared to collapse on Wednesday. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp formally rejected demands that he summon lawmakers for a special session before Bottoms takes office.

The proposed Georgia session would have targeted Bottoms’ gubernatorial powers and gerrymandered the state’s congressional districts. Kemp declined to call lawmakers back for either purpose.

In a statement explaining that decision, Kemp said he would not convene the session because “the voters of our state have spoken.” In this instance, at least, a Republican governor recognized that voters should determine who exercises the lawful powers of an elected office.

That acknowledgment was notable given Kemp’s endorsement of voter suppression tactics. Still, his refusal blocked an immediate attempt to rewrite the rules simply because Georgia voters selected a Democrat.

That is how democracy is supposed to function. Elections determine who holds power, and the losing party does not get to dismantle that power moments before the winner arrives.

Yet Republicans have repeatedly turned to this tactic when voters reject their candidates. The current pressure campaigns in Texas and Georgia fit a pattern already seen in several other states.

North Carolina Republicans used the same basic playbook in 2016 and again in 2024. In both instances, Republican lawmakers moved to limit gubernatorial authority rather than accept that political power had shifted through an election.

Wisconsin Republicans followed that route in 2018 after their gubernatorial candidate lost. That same year, Michigan Republicans took steps to restrict gubernatorial powers after their candidate was defeated by Gretchen Whitmer.

The pattern exposes the hollowness of Republican rhetoric about freedom and liberty. Those slogans do not square with a party that routinely and selectively tries to seize authority from leaders who won it through democratic elections.

Republicans are free to argue that governors possess too much power, but their timing tells the story presented here. The alarms keep sounding when Democrats win, while the same authority attracts far less concern when Republicans control it.

The fight is therefore about more than the powers held by Hinojosa or Bottoms. It is about whether election winners are allowed to govern with the authority voters understood the office to possess when they cast their ballots.