[ Hundreds of new state laws come into effect on 1 September,
including attacking trans rights, further limiting abortion and
pushing back climate efforts]
[[link removed]]

THE NEW RIGHTWING LAWS TAKING EFFECT IN TEXAS  
[[link removed]]


 

Ed Pilkington
September 1, 2023
The Guardian
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Hundreds of new state laws come into effect on 1 September,
including attacking trans rights, further limiting abortion and
pushing back climate efforts _

Demonstrators hold signs outside the Texas state capitol during a
Women’s March, Bloomberg/Getty Images

 

On Friday, the Republican-controlled legislature in Texas
[[link removed]] will dump an avalanche of
virulent new laws on the state’s 30 million residents, cementing its
reputation as a hotbed of the far-right turmoil that is sweeping
America.

Hundreds of laws will come into effect as the product of the
legislative session that Texas holds every two years. Among them are a
number of highly controversial targeted bills that will have a seismic
impact on some of the most vulnerable Texan communities.

They include measures attacking the rights and healthcare of
transgender Texans, undermining the autonomy of progressive cities
such as Houston, extending the state’s prohibition of abortion,
pushing back on efforts to combat rising heat amid the climate crisis,
and more.

The Republican group that controls both houses of the Texas
legislature has been emboldened by favourable election results in 2022
that showed little or no backlash to their radical rightwing agenda of
a year before. The introduction of an almost total abortion ban after
Roe v Wade was overturned
[[link removed]]
also appears to have inflicted minimal damage on the party’s
standing.

“The Republican party is unbridled in Texas,” said Mark Jones, a
political science professor at Rice University.

Here are some of the most striking new laws that take effect on
Friday, which Jones likened to a “smorgasbord of red meat for the
Republican base”:

Anti-LGBTQ+ measures

Several of the most significant bills that come into effect on Friday
involve attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. The most contentious is SB
14.

When the new law goes into effect on Friday, after the state supreme
court gave the go-ahead, Texas will become the most populous state to
ban gender-affirming care for transgender children. The legislation
bars under-18 trans Texans from gaining access to medical treatments
including hormone therapies, as well as surgeries that are rarely
performed on children.

Under the measure, trans kids will be “weaned off” any medical
care they receive.

Johnathan Gooch of Equality Texas, the largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group
in the state, said the new law had had a dramatic chilling effect.
“We’ve seen a lot of healthcare providers either close or move out
of state, which has left not only trans youth but many trans adults
without the medication they need.”

Twisting the knife in the anti-trans wound, SB 15 prohibits
[[link removed]]
trans men from competing in men’s college sports teams, and trans
women from taking part in women’s college athletics teams. The move
is an extension of a similar ban that was introduced for grade school
children in the 2021 legislative session.
Then there is SB 12, the latest in a rash of state laws
[[link removed]]
cracking down on drag shows performed in front of children. Though
lawmakers removed “drag” from the language of the bill, their
target is crystal clear – they specifically demonise show props that
“exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics”. The law was
temporarily halted by a federal judge on Thursday, pending a legal
challenge.

“This is tragic,” Gooch said. “Texas has a long history of drag
performances stretching back to 1930s San Antonio and Houston. It
astounds me that almost 100 years later, lawmakers have made drag
performances illegal in many cases.”

Texas is also echoing book bans that have been introduced in Florida
[[link removed]]
and other Republican-controlled states. The measure, HB 900
[[link removed],],
orders school libraries to remove or segregate any books carrying
“sexually explicit” material, raising fears that it will lead to
blanket censorship of titles addressing LGBTQ+ themes.

Taking all this together, Gooch said that the LGBTQ+ community in
Texas was feeling “exhausted and defeated. Those who can afford to
leave have been leaving, especially families with trans kids but also
trans adults who feel that their healthcare will be next on the
chopping block.”

Houston, the largest city in Texas, has been singled out. Two new
laws, SB 1750
[[link removed]]
and SB 1933
[[link removed]],
respectively unseat the elected Democratic election administrator in
Houston who has successfully expanded the city’s electorate, and
allow for the Republican legislature to take over future election
counts if there are complaints of “irregularities”.

“This is an act of revenge against our efforts to expand access to
voting in Houston,” Kamin said. “More than that, it’s
interference in the integrity of our elections.”

As a further blow to local democracy, HB 17
[[link removed]]
allows the removal of progressive locally elected prosecutors who
choose not to pursue regressive laws such as the criminalisation of
marijuana possession or abortions.

Abortions

Texas already has one of the toughest abortion bans in the country,
allowing for only rare exceptions
[[link removed]]
and threatening doctors accused of violating the prohibition with
possible life in prison. SB 24 uses state funds to create a statewide
network of anti-abortion clinics misleadingly known as “crisis
pregnancy centers”.

Under the provision, state funds are also barred from being used to
support family planning services including birth control.

Diversity, equity and inclusion

SB 17 eradicates DEI offices and training programs from all public
university campuses.

Heat and the climate crisis

Texas has more worker deaths from heat than any other state, according
to federal data, the Texas Tribune
[[link removed].]
reports. Yet Austin and Dallas will no longer be allowed to require
mandatory 10-minute water breaks for outdoor construction workers in
extreme heat.

The state is currently in the grip of a record-breaking heatwave
[[link removed]],
with temperatures reaching 119F (48C).

The searing heat is being felt especially keenly in Texas prisons
which have seen a spike in deaths
[[link removed]]
this summer. Yet the state legislature chose to spend not a penny
[[link removed]]
of its $33bn surplus on introducing air conditioning to its crumbling
penal institutions.

Despite Texas already suffering from the impact of the climate crisis,
including strengthening hurricanes and brutal heat, environmentalists
were dismayed that from Friday new levies
[[link removed].]
on electric vehicles will be imposed. Anyone buying an electric car
will have to pay $400, on top of a $200 annual fee
[[link removed]].

Other red meat laws

Republicans have thrown in some other eye-catching new laws that are
certain to play well with the base. As Covid cases begin to rise
again, with some states encouraging renewed use of masks, Texas is
permanently banning
[[link removed]]
mandates for mask wearing and vaccinations.

Hitting another hot-button issue, HB 6 defines overdoses from fentanyl
as “poisonings”. That will allow prosecutors to charge anyone who
supplies a fatal dose of the opioid with murder
[[link removed]].

Assault on local democracy

While Republicans enjoy lock-tight control
[[link removed]] over
statewide elected offices in Texas, they still have to contend with a
number of left-leaning major cities who see – and do – things very
differently. The Republican solution is to strip cities of their local
democratic power.

New laws out on Friday amount to the most aggressive attempt yet by
the Republican-controlled legislature to erode the power of Texas’s
progressive and Democratic-led big cities. That includes Houston,
Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso and other urban areas.

The most far-reaching provision is HB 2127
[[link removed]]
– dubbed by opponents in the Lone Star state the “Death Star
law”. It wrenches away from cities and counties whole areas of
policymaking, from labour relations to agriculture and the
environment, in effect transferring control
[[link removed].]from
progressive urban areas to the hard-right caucus in the state
legislature.

“The Death Star law covers entire swaths of code. It’s so murky we
have no idea what it means,” said Abbie Kamin, a Democratic city
council member in Houston. “They are literally denying the right of
local control for progressive major cities and harming our ability to
represent and provide services to our millions of residents.”

A Texas judge has ruled the Death Star law unconstitutional, but the
state is appealing and the future of the measure still hangs in the
balance.

* texas
[[link removed]]
* Civil Rights
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]