Legislative Priorities Report May 21, 2021

Yesterday was a great day at Texas House. . . if the most important priority of the session for you was criminal justice reform. If you think it’s important to protect Texas children from sterilization and physical mutilation, then it’s worst day of the session.

One would assume that Republican priorities would take precedence for the session, as voters chose a Republican majority in our state legislature. Also, you would think they would have made a plan early in the session – working with Republicans in the Senate – to work together to get our bills through early in the session. This does not appear to be the case, however.

What happened in the House yesterday morning was extraordinary. Representative Leach, joined by Democrat Joe Moody, expressed frustration with the Senate for failing to pass more than 70 criminal justice reform bills sent by the House, and called for a suspension of the vote on the Senate. House on Senate bills as punishment. By the way, 70 criminal justice reform bills are more single-question bills than all of our tabled bills that meet the legislative priorities of the Texas Republican Party.

President Phelan has announced that there will be a recess until Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. We had several priority bills that needed to be assigned to a House committee for a vote and then assigned to the calendars committee to be put on the House schedule. . . all before the deadline of midnight on Tuesday, May 25. These bills were actually kill because he did not make these assignments before leaving.

Our biggest priority victim was SB 1311, the bill that was our last chance to get protections for children from doctors who would assign puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and perform surgery for them. get closer to the opposite sex. It is unacceptable that our Republican representatives have not seen fit to protect children as more important than criminal justice reform. But they did. They even have a criminal justice caucus made up of Republican representatives, Leach, Phelan, Krause, Cain, White, and Hunter. Caucus Democrats are Reps Moody, Thompson, Coleman, Collier, Gonzalez and Minjarez.

This Caucus has obviously worked very hard this session in a bipartisan fashion to effect criminal justice reform. But, who asked them to put this priority more than other? Not Texas Republican voters. In fact, I guess most of us didn’t know there was even a criminal justice reform caucus. Too bad there is no Protect Texas Children Caucus, as our children are experiencing skyrocketing rates of mental health issues and suicide. Who will address the lies of family planning and comprehensive sex education in our schools that seek to convince them that they are not men or women based on biology, but rather regardless of the genders they are ‘they feel? Who will protect them then from the for-profit medical and pharmaceutical industry salivating at the prospect of millions of dollars up for grabs in all the 16+ pediatric gender clinics popping up in the state?

Speaking of which, it’s interesting that TEC lists a $ 50,000 donation to President Phelan’s campaign from the Friends of UT Southwestern Medical School PAC. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick received $ 120,000, and Governor Abbott received $ 85,000 from the same organization. Would there be friends in this PAC of doctors who offer gender affirming services to children?

Other priority bills that claim victims include electoral integrity, freedom of religion and the protection of monuments. For the latest updates on the state of priority bills comparing Governor, Lieutenant Governor, President and Republican Party of Texas priorities, use this link.

What we still have at stake is HB 1927, our deferred constitutional bill which is still in Conference Committee. In addition, we have SB 7, our omnibus electoral integrity bill which we really hope will be robust and not watered down to please Democrats. Most of our other electoral integrity bills are dead.

Taxpayer-funded lobbying, SB 10, has been changed so much by Rep. Paddie that it may in fact be a lobbyist-friendly bill and therefore should be killed. This priority, which really holds the key to so many of our other priorities, has been fiercely resisted by both sides, despite the really good efforts of Representative Middleton and Senator Bettencourt.

Many are already hailing it as “the most conservative session of all time.” That prospect might depend on who else might pay to see our legislative priorities derailed. As you can see from the spreadsheet, the session was very successful for the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and President. You can determine if this was successful for you, the Republican voter.

Action items:

1. Call the President at 512-464-1000 and tell him that we still want him to lobby HB 1311 to protect the children of Texas, and that we want solid electoral reform, constitutional transfer, protection of children. monuments and a ban on lobbying funded by taxpayers.

2. Please call the governor at 512-463-2000 and tell him the same.

3. Call your representative and your senator and tell them what your priorities are.

For God and Texas,

Jill glover
SREC, SD 12
Chairman, SREC Legislative Priorities Committee

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