You Gotta Laugh

The first special session of the Texas Legislature ended Friday, August 6, and a new special session was called to begin Saturday at noon.

No bills got passed in the first special session—because the House Democrats fled the state to prevent a quorum. There is a Republican majority in both chambers, but the House requires 2/3 to be present. That would be 100 of the 150 members. Some of those 50 or so who fled for the first special session have returned to the state, but 27 are remaining in Washington, and a total of 50 have committed not to attend the session. They can be compelled to attend (called being arrested, but not the same as a criminal arrest). Well, they could have been compelled, except that a Democrat judge said they couldn’t, at least for 14 days, during which time that ruling will be appealed. 

Texas Democrats boarded a bus to their chartered flight to
Washington, DC, on July 11, 2021, where they claim to have
suffered deprivation of their rights somehow by the Governor.
Image from here.

There’s an oddity about that ruling today. Judge Brad Urrutia, who made the ruling, is a criminal court judge. The case is a civil court case. The civil court it was filed in was expected to have a visiting judge today, but it was a judge named Todd Blomerth, not Urrutia. There’s probably nothing to see here, just some perfectly reasonable explanation clear to people in the know in Travis County. But to someone out here just wondering, it deserves a “What the heck?”

The bill the Democrat escapees were most intent on preventing was an omnibus election integrity bill intended to clarify existing law and prevent ad hoc procedures, many of which suspended safeguards against fraud, that were implemented in 2020 using the pandemic as pretext.

But Dems don’t call it election integrity, of course; they claim it’s intent on preventing their constituents from voting. That would only be true if their “constituents” included the dead, those moved to other jurisdictions or otherwise ineligible to vote here, those with fake IDs, and those whose votes are trafficked by vote harvesters.

No eligible votes are harmed in the making of this law.

We can cover those details later. But let’s have a fun time looking at the lawsuit filed by 22 Texas House members on Friday. The lawsuit, naming Governor Greg Abbott, House Speaker Dade Phelan, and House member James White, alleges that these three officials’ collusion “to bring [the Democrats] home for a special legislative session infringed on their constitutional rights to free speech and to petition the government for redress of grievances.” There has been no attempt to stop these Democrats from speaking; in fact, they have been speaking in both public and private settings since they fled to Washington, DC, on July 11^th. Nor has there been any attempt to apprehend them, or even approach them, by any Texas official while they were out of the state—which is why they purposely exited beyond state boundaries, as they well know.

If there had been an attempt to silence them by not allowing them to participate in their elected responsibilities, then you’d have something. But, no, no one has even attempted to shut them up. And as for the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, that’s what this lawsuit is, so clearly they weren’t prevented from filing even this frivolous suit.

It’s unclear what Rep. White might have done to cause them to bring him into the suit. He is a Republican from East Texas. He’s black. He announced in June he will not seek reelection, after a decade in the House. He is planning to run for Texas Agriculture Commissioner. But what power the Dems think he had to infringe on their constitutional rights is unclear. When asked, he seemed mystified as to why he was named in the lawsuit. White was one of many coauthors on the election integrity omnibus bill in the regular session, but not on the first special session bill—although he did put out a mythbusting infographic debunking the most common Democrat accusations:

Infographic by Rep. James White on the election integrity
omnibus bill during the first special session.

While the lawsuit doesn’t mention it, the Dems may be put out that Rep. White filed a request for a ruling from the Texas Attorney General asking, “Does any Texas legislator have a constitutional right to break quorum?” and, at what point can you consider their position vacated if they refuse to fulfill their oath of office by refusing to attend a legislative session? 

The lawsuit itself does not clear things up—the lawsuit which also didn’t happen to use Speaker Phelan’s legal name of Matthew McDade Phelan, nor Rep. White’s full legal name of James Earl White. (Governor Abbott’s name is included in full.) And the suit does not include any specifics regarding the alleged discriminatory acts, nor does it provide evidence that any such acts happened. They seem to be inventing the idea that, if they return to Texas, they will be required to do their elected duty, and that somehow, in their minds, constitutes depriving them of free speech and petition rights. But no dots are connected. Indeed, the lawsuit fails to identify any facts or any causes of actions based on those missing facts. Does it even count as a real lawsuit? Well, technically, it will have to be dealt with—dismissed as frivolous. So, it’s real. But really?

The suit appears to claim the three officials acted together under color of law—a legal term meaning “the appearance of an act being performed based upon legal right or enforcement of statute, when in reality no such right exists,” according to one online dictionary, or “a mere semblance of legal right; something done with the apparent authority of law but actually in contravention of law” according to  another. A common example would be a police officer handing out phony traffic tickets in order to raise revenue from fines or maybe to extort payoffs to forget the ticket. The suit doesn’t claim the three did anything harmful other than making public statements, however. So it’s unclear how those public statements were either against the law or caused any actual harm—and no actual harm is listed anyway.

The three working together, it is alleged, is a conspiracy of some sort. However, if you followed the Trump witch (er, uh, impeachment) trials, you are aware that even liberal scholars recognize that conspiracy is not in and of itself unlawful; it is only when the conspirators conspire to do an unlawful act that it becomes a problem. Seems that this lawsuit suffers from the same incompetence as those witch trials. Finding the actual Republican crime is more than Dems can bother with; they assume just thinking conservative thoughts ought to be illegal.

Because of the unidentified actions of the three Republicans, the plaintiffs claim they were “deprived of liberty for substantial periods of time, suffered much anxiety and distress over separation from their families, and much discomfort and embarrassment.” It is unclear how their leaving the state voluntarily, and staying away, so as not to fulfill their oaths of office, is an action coerced or caused or even encouraged by those three. I would say the Dems have inflicted themselves with some of those things—particularly embarrassment. I wish they were suffering actual embarrassment, enough to spur them to come back to Austin to do what they were elected to do. But it is my experience that such individuals are immune to embarrassment, or shame. However, if their constituents call them out for their failure to show up, the threat of getting voted out of office might “shame” them into going to Austin.

The Texas House Democratic Caucus, in Washington, DC, July 13, 2021,
suffering "anxiety and distress" as they show how deprived they were of their
free speech rights. Photo by Shuran Huang for the Texas Tribune, found here.

All of them were vaccinated, but six, at last count, nevertheless came down with COVID (they stopped reporting on testing after those six), so the group had to quarantine, which must have caused some anxiety and stress—although, again, not caused by Governor Abbott, Speaker Phelan, nor Representative White.

If you were wondering who would represent plaintiffs in such a lawsuit, read on.

The lawyer for the suit is Craig Anthony Washington. He’s a former Democrat lawmaker, currently practicing law with a probationally suspended license. That is, his license was suspended, but he can practice now, as long as he complies with the conditions of probation. He has had his license suspended multiple times, for both ethics violations and incompetence.

The morning after the filing of the suit, two of the plaintiffs, Reps. Shawn Thierry and Nicole Collier, announced that they were not part of the suit; their names were used without their consent. Hmm. Who is filing the complaint seems like a detail a half-way competent lawyer wouldn’t miss.

While they’ve been gone, “suffering damages,” by traveling to Washington, DC, they have repeatedly asked for care packages to be sent to them—containing items easily purchased at any corner store in the city. Except for those two who traveled on to Portugal for a much-needed vacation; maybe they couldn’t find their preferred toiletries and snacks there.

A group of Texans were in Washington for a Concerned Women for America conference, and happened to be outside the Democrat lawmakers’ hotel as they were boarding a bus to go to dinner. And they called out to them by name—something the Democrats weren’t expecting in the faraway capital. Word is they turned tail and went back inside the hotel. So maybe they “suffered” a dinner delay that day. Again, hard to see how that was the fault of the three accused.

So, was this all about protecting voter rights?

It started in the regular session, which ended on Memorial Day. The Democrats in the House walked out just early enough to avoid a procedural vote on the omnibus election integrity bill, which had already passed both chambers and reconciliation except for that final procedural vote in the House. They could have avoided both of these special sessions—and all that time and suffering in Washington—if they had simply done their duty in May. Failing that, they could have done their duty in July, instead of absconding. And now they could do their duty in August instead of filing a baseless lawsuit. But I guess that is not the Democrat way.

Back in May, during multiple public hearings, the Democrats were able to voice their views. They made some unfounded claims—pretty much the same claims Democrats have been making at the federal level—that the very idea of election integrity is racist. Because that is intended to wound the most, but not because there is evidence of racism. In fact, blacks find it offensive that Dems claim they’re too incompetent to get a photo ID. There’s nothing quite like the racism of low expectations from elites toward those they consider lesser beings.

Republicans, meanwhile, have the election integrity motto “Easy to Vote; Hard to Cheat.” Makes sense.

Here’s another infographic from Rep. White on what makes the election integrity bill "Easy to Vote; Hard to Cheat." (Was there a conspiracy to make informative graphics? And did that trigger the lawsuit?) HB 3, by the way, is the bill number for the first special session. New session, new bill numbers. So far in special session 2 we have SB 1, an omnibus election integrity bill, already passed out of committee, but it doesn’t yet have a companion bill in the House.

Another infographic from Rep. James White, found here.

Anyway, for the next 30 days, we’ll see if a quorum ever shows up in the House to do business. And then for 30 days after that. There’s plenty of other business that could be done, including dealing with that little detail of the Governor vetoing their pay in the budget, which the Republicans would likely join the Dems to alter—as the last item of business in a special session. 

A state rep reads news about walkout, April 12-13, 2003.
Image by Bob Daemmrich/CapitalPressPhoto, found here.

At some point, they have to do yet another special session to deal with redistricting. And, if you’ll recall, in 2003 the Democrats ran off to Ardmore, OK, to keep from completing that constitutionally required duty. So, more fun to come.

Texas Special Session

Here in Texas, the legislature meets mid-January to early June every other year, so we finished up last month. But the Governor can call the legislature back any time for a limited time. Usually this happens shortly after the end of the regular session, when the governor wanted something to happen that didn’t happen during the session. That’s the case now.

Governor Abbott has scheduled the special session to begin July 18^th, and he has listed twenty items for the legislature to deal with. That’s a lot of items. Among them are some bigger priorities. (The full list can be found here.) 

There’s a main reason that these things didn’t get handled in the special session: Speaker of the House Joe Strauss is not on the same side as Governor Abbott. He’s the same party. But the way the speaker is chosen now is slanted toward the liberal side, at least when the Republicans are in power.

The speaker comes from the majority party, but the Democrats in the House will support whichever candidate is most aligned with them. So the speaker gets 100% of the Democrat vote. Then the speaker just needs a relatively small percentage of Republicans.

He can totally ignore the strong conservative masses that have elected Republicans to every statewide office, and a robust majority in the House; he can curry favor with the more “moderate,” i.e., less conservative, House members, offer them their choice of committees and chairmanships, and he locks up the vote. And he’ll get some of the conservative votes too, because anyone who opposes him gets relegated to committees where they can do the least good for their constituents.

So, until we figure out a way to have Republicans do the electing of the House Speaker (as in the US House, where a caucus of each party chooses a speaker, and the one chosen by the majority party wins—so the minority party doesn’t do the choosing), we’re stuck with this roadblock to important legislation.

This past Saturday at the local Tea Party meeting, we heard from State Senator Paul Bettencourt and State Representative Mike Schofield, to talk about the upcoming special session.

Senator Paul Bettencourt

Sen. Bettencourt says there are three possibilities for how the session will go:

1)      The legislature will pass the sunset legislation and go home.

2)      The legislature will pass sunset plus a few items, but leave the big ones undone.

3)      The legislature will handle pretty much the whole list.

The sunset bill is to keep some state agencies from shutting down; it’s assumed to be necessary.

Option 1 would start a House meltdown. There are risks to failing to do what they’re supposed to do. If they do the bare minimum and vote to go home, that will lead to a roll call vote. That puts everyone on record as going against the Governor or not. It won’t go well for them at re-election time if they claim to be conservative but flout the governor’s agenda. Option 2 would be minimal, but still might lead to yet another special session.

There are three main issues among those twenty items:

·         Property tax relief.

·         School choice.

·         Privacy protection.

Property Tax Relief

The bills are not always written the same as for the regular session; sometimes we’ll get something that considers what failed in the regular session, but sometimes we’ll get something better.

Senator Bettencourt has been working for property tax reform. During the session he was asking for a cap of 3% plus inflation; during the special session the cap is lowered to 1% plus inflation. And in the special session he’ll only need 16 or 30 senators to pass it, (50% plus 1) instead of 20 (2/3 of the Senate).

There’s a swath of the state from Dallas-Ft. Worth to San Antonio (not including Austin, this time) with ridiculous property tax hikes. The current cap has been a percentage of home value plus inflation plus economic growth. Since the term “economic growth” is unmeasurable and totally meaningless, caps have been meaningless.

Chip and Joanna Gaines, of HGTV's Fixer Upper
image from here

Senator Bettencourt gave an example of why a real cap is needed. You know the HGTV show Fixer-Upper, with Chip and Joanna Gaines, of Waco, Texas? They take the worst house in the best neighborhood, and they turn it into the buyers’ dream home, right? Well, bureaucrats who assess property values have been following the show and purposely reassessing the value of the fixed-up homes. Homes have had as high as 1000% increases in their property taxes.

People are being punished for using their resources to make their homes nicer to live in; they’re being taxed for creativity and hard work. Those obscene property tax increases can put the cost of living in a house beyond the budget of those buyers—who were making a positive contribution to their neighborhood. That’s not the Texas way.

School Choice

Neither Senator Bettencourt and Representative Schofield were optimistic about school choice—even though they both favor the Educational Savings Account idea. Rep. Schofield says, “There’s too much fear of competition.” That’s fear among teachers unions—which have much more interest in wages for their union members that in education for children. 

We don’t know yet how the bills will read exactly, but the likelihood is that the ESA bill will be aimed at special needs students. While I’d prefer more market forces in every aspect of education, it’s tough to argue against meeting the needs of special needs students at lower cost per student. [Among several PragerU videos on school choice, is "Why Special Needs Students Want School Choice."]

The way it is working in Arizona, the family of the student is given a sum that is something like 90% of the cost of educating that student. It can be used only for education purposes (sort of like how a health savings account is used only for healthcare purposes), but the parents get to decide what is best for their child.

This is different from a voucher, which is a ticket, essentially, that can be spent as a whole at one alternative education place, such as a private school. The ESA can be used in part for a chosen form of therapy, in part for a tutor, in part for a block of a school week at a public or private school, or in part for homeschool curriculum—or any combination.

As they start looking for options, the market responds. And the market always eventually responds with better quality and lower prices.

If the family gets their student’s needs met without spending all the money in a given year, that money stays in the account for use in a later year, when maybe a more expensive program might be needed. If the money doesn’t get spent by high school graduation, the student can use it toward higher education. 

The program is optional, so no students would be forced into it. Any family can choose to stay in public school.

So ESAs are a win-win for special ed students and their families, and for school districts, which have trouble meeting the needs of these students anyway. And that 10% that the family doesn’t get stays in the school budget.

But the public school monolith sees it as the camel’s nose under the tent. If that camel is competition, then it is just barely the nose, but wouldn’t it be great if we had that whole camel in the education tent?

They absolutely don’t want competition. They want a public school monopoly, subsidized by people so frustrated that they pay out of pocket to meet their children’s needs elsewhere.

Opponents are misnaming the ESA option, lumping it in with vouchers, a term that causes a knee-jerk reaction in educators who get their information mainly from their unions.

Anyone who really knows about ESAs would likely vote for this bill, but fear of the overbearing unions will probably block it this time, leaving the special ed students with their critical needs unmet.

Privacy

The third big issue, privacy, is what we sometimes refer to as the bathroom bill, and which the media mischaracterizes as transphobic.

As Rep. Schofield said, “We didn’t make an issue of it; Anise Parker did.” Transgendered people have been quietly using whatever restroom made them comfortable, from the invention of public restrooms up until 2015, when Houston’s mayor decided to make it an issue by forcing it on the city—including not just public city buildings, but private business properties. She tried to thwart the will of the people by throwing out their petitions, and she really stepped over the line when she tried to subpoena every speech or communication given by churches, so she could search through them for things she might find objectionable.

image found here

Once the courts slapped her down—several times—the people got their say, and this very urban, majority-liberal city, which had twice elected a lesbian mayor, soundly voted against her proposal.

Then Obama got on the bandwagon and decided, by fiat, to force a private space rule on the whole country. To be clear, he said high schools (and of course other facilities with locker rooms, bathrooms, or dressing rooms) must, because of his insistence only, allow any anatomical male who wants to say he is a female (for any purpose—can’t be questioned for actual intent; and note that a male claiming to be transgendered to female is still likely to be sexually attracted to females) to shower naked in front of and with female high school students. No regard for the discomfort this would cause high school girls or their parents would be considered. End of subject. Anyone who objects would be labeled a bigoted, transphobic troglodyte who should be publicly shamed, fired, and never allowed to work or function in society again.

Compromises, such as private showers or bathrooms for transgendered students, were dismissed as insensitive to the transgendered—meanwhile, overruled as not worth considering are the sensitivities of the 99.7% majority.

Obama’s overreaching executive order has been repealed, but many school districts and businesses around the country have kept the rule change to appear “tolerant.” That is why Texas is taking the step of protecting citizens by returning to separate gender private spaces as a rule of law.

I think the bill will pass, because this is Texas, and we don’t like fools telling us we have no right to privacy in our private places. If Strauss fails to bring it for a vote again, it will mean coming back for another special session.

During this special session, expect the media to do its thing against anything good for freedom, prosperity, and civilization. But, if the people send their support to their representatives in Austin, we might get the work done that should have already gotten done.