Dear Friends, April 10 starts week 14 of the Texas Legislature, and things are starting to move very fast. The Senate is getting it done, making significant progress on priority legislation. The House, as always, moving a bit slow, and less focused on our priority issues. Here are a few highlights from this past week.
- SB12 (Hughes) Passed Senate (prohibits sexual performances in presence of children under age 18)
- SB1601 (Hughes) Passed Senate (prohibits drag queen story events in municipal libraries if they receive state or federal funding)
- SB959 (Campbell) Passed Senate (adds "Charter School" to definition of government entity prohibited from entering into transactions with abortion providers)
- SB602 (Birdwell) Passed Senate (increases powers of arrest, search and seizure for Border Patrol Agents)
- SB20 (Huffman) Passed Senate (prosecuting attorneys may not refuse to prosecute a class of offenses)
- SB175 (Middleton) Passed Senate (ban taxpayer funded lobbying)
- SB1562 (Hancock) on Senate intent calendar for 4/11 (Anti child grooming with criminal penalty)
- HB900 (Patterson) Passed favorably out of Education Committee (dirty books out of libraries)
- In the House, a $303 billion budget bill was passed, (HB1) including an amendment that prohibits use of State funds for any school choice or ESA programs. And only $17.3 billion of it goes to property tax relief. Read about it in the Texas Scorecard article. If you want to know who voted for or against the school choice amendment, The Texan article breaks it down.
NEXT WEEK Monday 4/10
Tuesday 4/11
Wednesday, 4/12
ACTION ITEMS Week of 4/10/23: Attend hearings and testify: If you can attend any of the Committee hearings linked above, and testify, that is the very best way to express your opinion on the bills. Testify/Register/On-Line Comment SUPPORT for HB3570 (ID required for porn websites) Testify/Register/On-Line Comment OPPOSE for HB5 (brings back corporate welfare programs) Testify/Register SUPPORT for SB1810 (prevents local governments from going around voter on bonds) Contact your Senator and ask him/her to support SB1562 (anti grooming bill) when it comes to the floor on Tuesday. Contact your Representative and ask him/her to support HB900 (dirty books bill) when it come to the floor. Remember that for House bills, you can submit on-line comments (but not for Senate bills). The comment links are on the Committee Schedule where that bill is listed. Open the Committee Schedule (linked above) and go to the bottom of the page for the comment link. On line comments are open from the time the schedule is posted until the hearing is closed. We are now over half way into the 88th Session, and things will move very fast from now on. Only about 2 weeks are left for House bills to move through Committees, in order to make it the rest of the way through the process. Please be diligent in paying attention to issues that need attention. I've tried to make it easy for you by linking the bills and the committee schedules in the Friday messages. But I can't send emails every day as things change, so you need to be doing your own research. We have a Citizen Advocates Facebook page where I try to post important action items as they happen. Please keep an eye on that for updates. Thanks as always, for all that you do. We are seeing an amazing uptick in citizen involvement this session, and I want you to know how much it is appreciated. You are all a blessing to me and to the mission of True Texas Project. For Texas! Fran Rhodes, President PS: Are you a "Certified" True Texan? Next opportunity for our Certified True Texan Workshops is April 22 in Farmers Branch (Dallas area). Four of the five required classes will be offered. It's free, but registration is required. So sign up today!
|
.png)
