The Texas Senate made last week a great one for children. SB 14,
Senator Campbell's bill to stop gender mutilation of children,
was successfully debated and passed by the Senate. We are
grateful for the excellent work of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Sen.
Bryan Hughes, and Sen. Campbell for skillfully navigating this
bill to passage.

The Senate also passed a Legislative Priorities Committee
approved bill to Stop Sexualization of Children, SB 12 by Sen.
Hughes, which prohibits sexual performances in the presence of
children under age 18. This includes "drag queen" performances
and passed with bipartisan support. The Senate also passed SB
1601, which stops so-called "Drag Queen Story Hours," which have
taken place in libraries across Texas. The bills have moved to
the Texas House, where they await consideration.

We also appreciate Sen. Brandon Creighton for working with the
Republican Party of Texas during the drafting of SB 8, his
parental rights/school choice bill, which the Senate passed last
week. The first line of the bill had previously referred to
"rights granted under the laws of this state." This language was
amended to accurately refer to "[t]he fundamental rights granted
to parents by their Creator and upheld by . . . the laws of this
state." God gives parents rights, and they are protected by the
Constitution and the state of Texas. We will continue to work
with legislators to promote amendments that ensure no government
strings are attached to education savings accounts and they meet
our legislative priority language for Parental Rights and
Educational Freedom.

In the House, we are very pleased that Rep. Jared Patterson's HB
900 on removing explicit library books has been sent to
Calendars. This is our first approved Legislative Priority bill
to move in the House, and we anticipate a floor vote soon.

We are hoping for movement on strong bills to Protect our
Elections, Secure the Border and Protect Texans. Sen. Paul
Bettencourt has two election bills that have passed the Senate
and another, SB 1039, which addresses election irregularities, on
the Intent Calendar for this week. There is also one approved
bill in the House Elections Committee that will be heard this
week.

We have several border bills in the House State Affairs Committee
this week. Rep. Matt Schaefer will lay out HB 20, a
comprehensive border bill that formally declares an invasion and
creates a Border Protection Unit that will report directly to the
Governor. This bill also includes language to "repel" persons
entering Texas and strengthens border trespass offenses, among
other things. These bills and others are scheduled as below:

Wednesday 4/12
House State Affairs 10:30 am JHR
140
HB 7 Guillen (Criminal activity
in border region)
HB 20 Schaefer (Comprehensive
border bill including repel and declaration of invasion)
HB 82 Spiller (Interstate
Compact)

Thursday 4/13
Elections 10:30 am E2.016
HB 1243 Hefner (Increasing a
criminal penalty for illegal voting)

We have two important events coming up soon. Please plan to
attend our RPT coalition event in support of Banning Gender
Modification of Children on Thursday, April 20, in the morning as
we visit House members' offices to advocate for this priority.
Then, in the afternoon, join us as we hear from a wide coalition
including legislators, grassroots groups like Partners for
Ethical Care, American Principles Project, Texas Values, Texas
Eagle Forum, Mass Resistance, and several detransitioners. We
will meet from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the Legislative
Conference Center in the new Reagan Building on the Capitol
Complex.

Also, mark your calendar for April 25 to support the Stop
Sexualization of Children priority. The Republican Party of
Texas is collaborating with grassroots leaders, organizations,
religious groups, and churches across the state to come together
on April 25 for the Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids Day of Action and
Prayer at the Texas State Capitol. As the momentum is building
around bills that protect children from explicit materials,
pornography, and sexually oriented performances, we are imagining
a Millstone Package of bills that will protect Texas children
from all those who wish to exploit them.

Action Steps:

1. Please register support online in the House for our bills
having hearings this week. You can find the link to do so at the
bottom of the page on each Committee Schedule (linked above).
You may make online comments from the time the schedule is posted
until the hearing is closed.

2. Come to the Capitol and testify in person on any of these
bills this week.

3. House Elections Chairman Reggie Smith has not passed ANY
election integrity priority bills out of his committee. Please
call Rep. Smith at (512) 463-0297 and ask him to pass the
following bills:

HB862 - Schofield - removes persons from the voter rolls who have
sworn they are not legal citizens when called to serve on jury
duty.
HB 871 - Hefner - prohibits the use of software installation in
voting system hardware manufactured outside the United States.
HB 919 - Slaton - closes the gap between early voting and
election day
HB 1134 - Jetton - confirms a voter's residence if the elections
office believes a voter's current address is different from what
is indicated on voter registration records.
HB 2728 - Paul - electronic devices for voting must be capable of
updating in real time every ten minutes. The SOS may not certify
this machine if it does not have this capability.
HB 2809 - Jetton - prohibits the use and collection of some
private information when using the interstate crosscheck program
under the contract with ERIC.
HB 4329 - Schofield - requires a voter to declare their
residential address be the location where the person habitually
sleeps in cases of homelessness.
HB 4399 - Hayes - requires posting notices on the county website
with details and procedures related to Central Count, including
peace officers, logic and accuracy tests, poll watchers and
livestream information notices.
HB 4544 - Toth - requires the public inspection of election
records within sixty days of an election day including images of
voted ballots and original ballots.
HB 4548 - Toth - the registrar must offer the range of serial
numbers of ballots received and provided to voters, including
serial numbers of spoiled ballots.
HB 4719 - Toth - requires the SOS to appoint a dedicated
cybersecurity expert to implement cyber security measures in
order to protect election data and provides consequences for any
election data breach performed by an employee. Prohibits the use
of electronic systems capable of being connected to the Internet.
HB 4733 - Toth - prohibits ballot scanners from being connected
to storage devices that have capabilities to modify scanned
ballots
HB 4753 - Tinderholt - prevents the distribution of an
unsolicited application for ballot by mail .
HB 5231 - Tinderholt - eliminates countywide voting and returns
voting back to precinct-based voting.

For God and Texas,

Jill Glover
SREC, SD 12
Chair, SREC Legislative Priorities Committee

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