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We're 11 months from the 2024 GOP primary, but the most conservative member of the Texas Supreme Court has already drawn a challenger.

Here is the Texas Minute for Thursday, April 13, 2023.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Senators Promote E-Verify to Work in Texas

• Legislation in the Texas Senate would require state contractors, local governments, and private employers to participate in E-Verify, a federal program that checks the immigration status of new employees. Sydnie Henry has the details.
       
• Texas currently requires that the state government and institutions of higher education use E-Verify to ensure legal employment.
     
• Authored by State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R–Brenham), Senate Bill 1621 is awaiting action in the Senate Committee on Business & Commerce.

Four Americans Arrested in One Day for Smuggling Aliens

• Four U.S. citizens face felony charges for human smuggling after sheriff’s deputies caught them driving illegal aliens north from the Texas-Mexico border. Katy Marshall has the story.

       

• The Kinney County Sheriff’s Department arrested Monica Semien, Clay Knox, Joanna Bermea, and Cynthia Stewart on Monday after discovering they were transporting illegal aliens in their vehicles.

       

• Semien is from Katy, Texas, and a veteran of the U.S. Navy. She was stopped after failing to stop at a stop sign. Law enforcement officers discovered four illegal aliens from Honduras in the back of her Range Rover. Semien faces four felony charges for human smuggling.
      

• Knox, a resident of Houston, was driving north with eight illegal aliens in his vehicle – six of them from Mexico and two from El Salvador.
      

• Bermea and Stewart led law enforcement on a high-speed chase where they allegedly stopped multiple times and allowed illegal aliens to “bail out” of the vehicle. According to police, that is a common strategy human smugglers use when fleeing arrest.
      

• Last month, Kinney County deputies arrested more than 20 American citizens caught attempting to transport illegal aliens farther into the United States.

Eviscerating Local Communities

• As lawmakers consider expanding the footprint of gambling in Texas, Robert Montoya explores the data behind what has happened when crony-casinos opened in communities around the country.
      
• The data shows that casino gambling breeds crime and addiction, destroys families, ruins lives, closes local businesses, and lowers property values.
      
• Under proposals being considered in the Texas Legislature, a state agency would be created to select a maximum of eight locations for casinos. The same agency would then use an opaque process to select the casino operators – all of which would be subsidies of multinational corporations using unionized workforces.
      
• Wanna bet where their political money will go? Tip: Don't place a wager on it being conservatives or Republicans...
     
• While sold as a way to generate quick cash for government coffers, the reality is that the revenues are eclipsed by government spending to counteract the social and fiscal pitfalls.
      
• Economist Earl Grinols has studied the economic and social costs of gambling for many years. He has found that approximately 9 percent of total crime was because of gambling in counties that had casino-style gambling.
     
• Another study found that in counties with casino-style gambling, pawn shops, check-cashing stores, and “high-interest lending establishments such as payday lenders” were the only local businesses that do not suffer economic disruption.

SCOTX Conservative Draws Primary Challenge

• Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine is already drawing a 2024 primary challenger. Devine is considered by observers to be the court's most consistently conservative member.
   
• Challenging Devine will be Brian Walker, who currently sits on the Fort Worth-based 2nd Court of Appeals. Walker's father is Scott Walker, a member of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals who has twice voted to unravel enforcement of election security laws.
   
• According to sources at a fundraising event Wednesday, Walker said Devine is planning to retire. Devine says that isn't true.
      
• “Let me make this real clear. Rumors that I am retiring are FALSE. I think I’d be the first know if I was retiring. Beginning a campaign on such a false and misleading premise is unbecoming of a justice of the State of Texas,” wrote Devine in social media post.

LGBTQ Activists Slur Lawmakers Trying To Protect Children

• Legislation intended to protect Texas public school children from sexualization drew the ire of LGBTQ activists during a Senate Education Committee hearing Wednesday. Darrell Frost reports what happened.

      
• Legislation filed by State Sen. Bryan Hughes (R–Mineola) would require school districts and charter schools to adopt policies regarding “when an employee may discuss human sexuality with a student” and “when extracurricular events related to human sexuality may be held.”
      

• One witness accused lawmakers of trying to “erase the existence of the LGBTQIA+ community from public schools entirely” and destroy “safe places for students to find each other and safely come out to their peers and trusted educators in their own time.”
       

• Another said the bill “would empower overzealous school board members to act on their personal biases and prejudices” and that it is symptomatic of the “hate and vitriol that has been directed towards the LGBTQ+ community.”
       

• Why these people feel entitled to talk about their bizarre sex lives with other people's young children has yet to be answered...
      

• “Parents have the fundamental God-given right to direct the upbringing of their children—not just their education, but their moral and religious training,” said Christin Bentley, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee. “The state should not interfere with those fundamental rights unless to further a compelling state interest. And one of those compelling interests happens to be protecting children from sexualization. Sexualizing a child is abuse.”

Fort Worth Venue Backs Down From 'All-ages' Drag Show

• After reviewing footage of an “all-ages” drag show that took place at Tulips Fort Worth, the venue’s landlord announced they will no longer allow “all-ages” drag shows to be hosted there. Soli Rice has the report.
     
• The footage, captured by independent journalist Tayler Hansen, revealed the performance of a man in skimpy women’s clothing at the venue's “all-ages” drag show with his legs spread open and exposing his crotch to children.

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