Dear Friends,

There are some special events planned for you in Week 16 of the Legislature!  Please join us if you can - here are the details:

Tuesday April 25

Start the day with our TTP activists doing a short training session on how to testify at Committee Hearings.  We'll meet at 10 am in Ag Commissioner Sid Miller's conference room.  The office is in the Stephen F Austin building at 1700 Congress Ave, 11th Floor.  We'll do training from 10 to noon.

At noon, we'll break for lunch. (lunch is on your own)

At 1:00 pm, join the Republican Party of Texas & TTP for a day dedicated to stopping the sexualization of children.  This is one of the leg priorities for both the RPT and TTP, and it needs our full attention.  Here's the tentative schedule for the day: (we'll post updates as we have them on the TTP Citizen Advocate Facebook Chat group)

• 1:00 - 3:00 pm - Office Visits
• 3:00 - 4:30 pm - Legislative Briefing
• 5:30 - 6:30 - Dinner
• 6:30 - 8:30 - Worship and Prayer

We will also need to finish delivering the anti-gambling petitions that we've collected during the 1 to 3 pm time period.  We did about half of them on the 18th, and we'll ask volunteers to finish delivering on the 25th.

That's a VERY full day, but it will be well worth it!  If you need a ride, please reach out - we'll do our very best to find someone for you to ride with.  There are also free busses available from north Texas areas going to the afternoon and evening events, sponsored by North Texas Conservatives.

Here is the link to sing up bus #1.

Here is the link to sign up for bus #2

Saturday April 29th

Several groups are coming together to host a rally at the Capitol for border security, called How Many More?.  They have scheduled some awesome speakers, including Ted Nugent, Congressman Chip Roy, Jaeson Jones, Todd Bensman, Lara Logan, Mark Meckler and others.  If you live in DFW area, I will be going and can take others.  It's 1 to 4, so not a long day.  Just reach out if you need a ride.  They are asking for rsvp's.  Click the link to register.

That's what's happening next week - here's a look at what happened in week 15.  Some significant things are happening:

• TTP has collected over 100 signatures so far, on our Stop Gambling in Texas petition. Some were delivered on the 18th, and the remainder will be delivered on the 25th.
• HB1686 (Oliverson) and SB12 (Campbell) to ban gender mutilation of children have passed out of committee and have been sent to Calendars to schedule a floor vote.
• HB900 (Patterson) to get the dirty books out of schools passed the House.  It now goes to the Senate for consideration.  *Several Democrats voted FOR this bill, much to the consternation of their Democrat colleagues. Here is the record vote on HB900.
• HB81 (Harrison) informed consent for C-19 vaccinations passed favorably out of Committee.  Now goes to Calendars Committee to schedule floor vote.
• SB330 (Hall) to protect the electric grid is on intent calendar in the Senate for 4/20.
• SB990 (Hall) to eliminate county wide voting, passed the Senate.
• Unfortunately, the House Elections Committee is sitting on a bunch of election bills!  (although they did hold a hearing on Thursday and heard 19 bills, some of which are RPT priority bills)  They have been assigned 258 bills, and only 18 have moved out of committee as of 4/20).  That's 240 stuck in committee! Including Toth's HB5234  (requiring paper ballots & other transparency safeguards).  See the full list of bills in this committee by clicking here.  Two priority bills, HB 5180 (Wilson) – Requires accessibility by the general public (within 61 days) to view anonymous voted ballots, cast vote records and ballot images and HB 3611 (Cain) – Bans ranked choice voting in Texas have had hearings but are still pending in Committee.
• SB220 (Bettencourt) which creates an "Election Marshall" unit to track and prosecute election fraud and irregularities, passed out of the Senate, and now goes to the House.
• SJR70 (Hughes) Protects parents' right to raise their children, passed in the Senate.
• Abortion challenges:  The gains obtained last session on abolishing abortion are under attack by Democrats.  However, several bills to protect and expand those gains languish in Committee. The House State Affairs Committee has four of those bills before it.
  1. HB 2813 (Tinderholt) – Restricting employers from facilitating employees’ travel to obtain an abortion
  2. HB 3738 (Cain) – Allowing a right of private action for the enforcement and validity of laws restricting abortion and includes a waiver of sovereign immunity.
  3. HB 3850 (Slaton) – Assuring the restrictions on abortions apply to pregnant biological females who identify as males
  4. HB 5249 (Klick) – Prohibiting public entities from providing financial assistance for obtaining abortions and providing for a private right of action.  This Bill is the companion bill to SB 2378 Campbell, which is still pending in the Senate State Affairs Committee  

ACTION ITEMS FOR THIS WEEK-April 24-29:

1)  Join TTP & RPT at the Capitol on April 25th - training, followed by office visits, leg briefing, dinner, and prayer meeting.

2) Join TTP and other grassroots groups on April 29th - rally for border security.

3)  Contact members of the House Calendars Committee to move: HB1686 & HB81 (bills linked above)

House Calendars Committee

4) Contact Members of the House Elections Committee and ask them to move the 240 bills that are stuck in Committee. Some of these are good bills, and some are bad, but 18 out of 258 is a dismal record for this committee! Specifically ask for a vote on HB5180 and HB3611.

House Elections Committee

Committee Clerk:  Lauren McCarthy,  [email protected], 512-463-0772

5)  Contact Members of the House State Affairs Committee.  Ask them to vote out HB2813, HB2738, HB3850 and HB3249.

House State Affairs Committee:

6)  Contact your own Representative and Senator and ask them to support the RPT  and TTP legislative priorities.  For a list of RPT approved bills on each priority issue, click here.

I realize that's a lot of action requests!  Please don't be overwhelmed.  Do what you can.  Every action helps.  If you can't do all 6, then pick the topic(s) that speak to you and focus on those.

I hear from many of you asking why I didn't include this or that bill, or this or that issue in my message.  We can only squeeze so much into one Friday message, and I never want to overwhelm people, so we do the best we can to highlight items on our priority lists.  I realize that there are lots of other things out there than what I post in these messages, so please be patient, and know that we are working more than what you see here every Friday.

REMINDER:

For Senate bills in Committee, the only way to comment is to be at the Capitol on the day of the hearing and register for/against/on the bill and/or testify.

For House bills in Committee, you can be at the Capitol to register and/or testify - BUT.... you can also make on line comments from home.  To find the comment link, go to the Committee meeting schedule for the hearing. At the bottom of the document, you will see an on-line comment link for the bills on that schedule.  Commenting is open from the time the schedule is posted, until the Committee finishes taking testimony for the bill.

I borrow a lot of my information from Jill Glover's weekly RPT Leg Priority Report.  (thank you Jill!)  You can always read the weekly report at the RPT website.   There's much more there, so check it out!

Thanks everyone!  Until next week.......

For God & 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!  Even today - IT'S NOT TOO LATE!  The venue is large and there are still spots available.