89TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE - WEEK 2 Note: Not everyone is a total policy wonk like I am, and I'm told my Lege Updates are sometimes too long and too many details. So - this is the abridged version of the Friday Message. If you want to see all the nitty gritty dirty details, please click here, and read the entire message (warts and all) on our Website under News THIS WEEK: Another Betrayal! Week 2 on Thursday afternoon, saw grassroots Republicans once again totally betrayed by Republicans in the Texas House. Right on the heels of the betrayal that elected Dustin Burrows Speaker of the House, they passed HR4, the Rules Resolution for the 89th Session, without allowing any amendments or debate. The Resolution was sent to them at 4:30 am on Thursday morning and at 2:00 pm on Thursday afternoon they were expected to vote on it. No debate, no amendments, just here – take it and shut up and sit down. The Rules Resolution gave us what we've been demanding – no Democrat Chairs. But they gave us what we wanted on one hand, then took it away with the other hand by requiring all Vice Chairs MUST be Democrats. That means that all Committees will now have a Republican Chair and a Democrat Vice Chair, according to the rules. They also have created new “Permanent Standing Sub-Committees”, which may, and probably will, have Democrat Chairs. As I said – TOTALLY SCREWED AGAIN! In addition to the Committee Vice Chair thing, and Permanent Sub Committee thing, the new Rules abolish 7 standing committees. Then they created 4 new standing committees, consolidating the jurisdiction and duties of the abolished committees into one of the new ones.
Rep Jared Patterson moved to call the question before any debate or amendments had been offered. That type of motion requires 25 seconds to the motion. He said he had 45 Republican seconds and 32 Democrat seconds. So of course, his motion passed, with 107 yays and 35 nays. Then Rep Hunter moved adoption and the Resolution passed 116 to 23. All Democrats voted yay, except Rep Dutton (he doesn’t like that Democrats will not be able to chair committees). That means that 66 Republicans voted to silence debate, and let Burrows/Patterson win. Thanks to the 22 who stood strong against this nonsense. They are: Nays - Bumgarner; Cain; Dorazio; Dutton; Harris Davila; Harrison; Hayes; Hopper; Isaac; Little; Louderback; Lowe; Lozano; Luther; Money; Olcott; Pierson; Richardson; Schatzline; Schoolcraft; Shofner; Tinderholt; Virdell I don’t have words to express how angry this makes me! Rep. Schofield spoke against the motion to call the question, saying that this is considered the “nuclear” option, shutting down all possibility for amendments and debate. He reminded the members that he and his colleagues could get 25 signatures too, and his closing remark was “If you do this to us now, remember we can do it to you too”. Folks, this is basically a coup of the Texas Republican Majority House by Democrats and Fake Republicans who want to get elected as Republicans, and then behave like Democrats. We have to stop it! I’m pretty sure the act of voting to shut down debate and amendments on a Resolution that goes against RPT platform and priorities is a censurable offense. Be prepared to see texts coming into the districts of the 22 Republicans who voted no, saying they voted against banning Democrat Chairs. Don’t fall for it! Know the truth! They stood up for free speech, open debate, and transparency. And they stood up for RPT principles! Be sure to tell them thank you. The Housekeeping Resolution, HR3, which was supposed to be voted on Thursday did not come up for discussion at all. This is the one that has a section about giving the Speaker unilateral authority to hire attorneys for the House. (bad!) Read Tony McDonald's explanation here. We talked about this one in last week's message. NEXT WEEK TTP will not be at the Capitol on Tuesday Jan 28th. I will be attending a Legislative Kickoff by The Texan.News. I hope to learn lots and get a feel for how the session is going to go. (although it’s not looking great at the moment.) Of course, you are welcome to go on your own, but I will not be there. The following week, Feb 4, we’ll be back at it. There will be a TXGR/TTP bus departing from Dallas & Waco that day. So be sure to sign up if you want a seat on the bus. Terri Hall, with TURF (the transportation experts) has asked us to deliver TURF’s legislative priorities to the offices, and we will also be delivering TXGR and TTP legislative priorities to everyone so there’s plenty of work to be done. I’ll have details for you in the Jan 31 Friday Message. We’ve added some bus trips for TXGR’s special Lobby Day. Check out the TTP website events calendar for details and registration links. ACTION ITEMS THIS WEEK: 1) Since HR3 has been postponed, that leaves us more time to talk to legislators about it. Please contact your Representative (use the tool in this link if you don’t know who your representative is) to oppose Section 4.02, subsection a-3 of HR3. For more details, see this X Post by Attorney, Tony McDonald. 2) Contact the 22 Republican House members who voted against HR4, and thank them for standing strong. Then contact the 66 who voted for it and tell them you do not appreciate them silencing debate and prohibiting amendments. 3) If you live in the district of the one of the R Representatives who have betrayed us, start talking to your County GOP Chair and County Executive Committee (Precinct Chairs) about possibly Censuring those Representatives. Censure starts at the county level. Need a list of who they are? Click Here. Stay engaged! Fran Rhodes, President. GET REGISTERED! Special True Texan Days: Be sure to register for the True Texan Day at the Capitol and True Texas Kids at the Capitol. There’s no fee, but we need to know how many are coming so we can be prepared for you. Here are the registration links.
SAVE THE DATES! Tuesday, Jan 28 - NO TTP Tuesdays (Fran is attending an all-day seminar) Tuesday Feb 4 - TTP Tuesdays at the Capitol PLUS Bus from Dallas/Waco Tuesday Feb 11 - TTP Tuesdays at the Capitol – including mini-training on Lege process Tuesday Feb 18 - TTP Tuesdays at the Capitol – WITH TFVC rally & 10th anniversary celebration Monday Mar 3 - TRUE TEXAN DAY AT THE CAPITOL (rsvp required) Tuesday Mar 4 - NO TTP Tuesdays (since we just did our day on Monday) Tuesday Mar 11 - BIG TXGR engagement day, PLUS Bus from Frisco/Waxahachie **TXGR is adding additional bus departures from several other locations for March 11. Details coming Tuesday Mar 18 - TTP Tuesdays at the Capitol – including mini-training on using the TLO Tuesday Mar 25 - TRUE TEXAS KIDS AT THE CAPITOL (rsvp required) Tuesday April 1 – TTP Tuesdays at the Capitol PLUS Bus from Grapevine/Burleson Tuesday Apr 8 - TTP Tuesdays at the Capitol |
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