This letter is being sent to the 2024 RPT Legislative Priorities Committee members:
Thanks for serving on the 2024 RPT Legislative Priority Committee.
Wearing my hat as the head of Texas Constitutional Enforcement, this is to urge you to vote to include three items on the RPT priority list.
1. Let Texans Run Texas
Proposed Priority Language:
Texas government should resist unconstitutional federal acts, violation of federal border laws, and the use of financial pressure by globalist institutions that seek to destroy everything Texans hold dear and usurp the political power inherent in the people of Texas. Such resistance should include stopping unconstitutional federal acts in Texas, defense of the border by Texas without interference by or subservience to the federal government, and the prohibition of the use of globalist financial pressure to destroy Texas businesses
Background:
1) “Stopping unconstitutional federal acts in Texas.”
Texas Constitutional Enforcement has been supporting passage of the Texas Sovereignty Act for a number of sessions. The act creates a standing committee similar to the Sunset Committee that can meet outside the press of the legislative session to identify and prioritize unconstitutional federal acts that should be resisted in Texas by using the Texas Official Oppression Act which makes it a crime for a public servant to violate the rights of Texans.
This overall category can include bills that:
- Mandate that Texas elected officials refuse to assist federal agents in the prosecution of unconstitutional federal acts;
- Define areas of intrastate commerce that are immune from federal regulation;
- Criminalize and restrict weaponization of federal law enforcement against conservative Texans;
- Stop Texas agencies and subdivisions from receiving federal funds that have strings attached; and
- Bifurcate elections and voter rolls for presidential electors, state office, and Texas subdivision office from U.S. House and Senate to insure that Texas elections have no interference or corruption from DC.
- Resist woke federal transportation mandates that restrict Texans’ freedom to travel.
2) “Defense of the border by Texas without interference by the federal government”
This section can include more legislation creating a Border Protection Unit or strengthens the ability of Texas to repel and remove illegals. But its primary purpose is to insure that Texas not agree that in the situation of concurrent jurisdiction over the defense of Texans from invasion and protection from imminent danger that will not admit of delay, Texas will not agree that the federal judiciary has any say over how or when Texas decides to defend itself, and therefore will not delay defending Texans because of injunctions or stays of self defense by the federal judiciary.
This sentiment should also be included in any border security priority, and might not be needed here if it is duplicated in the border priority.
3) “Prohibition of the use of globalist financial pressure to destroy Texas businesses”
Following 2022 RPT Platform Plank 46, Texas Resistance to the Great Reset, Texas Constitutional Enforcement worked on a wide array of bills designed to resist the Great Reset and ESG pushed by global elites and coordinated by the World Economic Forum that meets at Davos annually. A report on what we accomplished and what almost made it last session can be found on the website blog of Texas Constitutional Enforcement.
This category can include bills that will:
- Prohibit ESG discrimination by companies doing business in Texas;
- Divest Texas funds like pensions and school funds from companies that push ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) policies and DEI;
- Prohibit companies that boycott or discriminate against Texas businesses based on ESG, DEI, or ideology from doing business with Texas or its subdivisions; and
- Resist social media censorship of Texans.
Rationale:
When I ran for state rep and asked GOP voters their top issue, border security was number one, but another statement was just as high: “There are so many things going wrong, I don’t know where to begin.” As I probed more, the sentiment almost always stemmed from the understanding that everything Texans hold dear is being attacked in an all-fronts war by the feds who illegitimately occupy DC and the globalists using their wealth and corporate control to subjugate Texans.
At this moment in time, we cannot know whether we will take DC back from the Marxists and elitists in November. If we don’t, then this priority will be more important than ever. Even if we do, the globalists will not give up on their quest to rule Texans, Trump will not be able to stop the Deep State all at once, and we should use the time to get ready for the next assault on Texas.
By staying strong and free, Texas can save and restore America. If Texas falls, America falls and as Reagan warned, the world will then plunge into a thousand years of darkness.
2. Fighting Inflation and Central Bank Digital Currency
Proposed Priority Language:
To empower Texans to combat inflation and the ultimate police state tool of Central Bank Digital Currency, Texas should recognize the natural right to use currency of choice in the Texas Bill of Rights and provide choices for ordinary Texans to use gold and silver as legal tender in everyday transactions.
Background:
This priority combines two bill concepts fighting inflation and resisting CBDC in one priority.
1) Currency of choice Texas Bill of Rights
This piece passed the Texas House as HJR 146 (by State Rep. Gio Capriglione) 139 – 2 last session. It died without a hearing in the Senate. State Senator Tan Parker introduced the companion bill, SJR 67, in the Senate. This is the language that would have been added to the Texas Bill of Rights had it passed:
The right of the people to own, hold, and use a mutually agreed upon medium of exchange, including cash, coin, bullion, digital currency, or scrip, when trading and contracting for goods and services shall not be infringed. No government shall prohibit or encumber ownership or holding of any form or any amount of money or other currency. Nothing in this section shall be construed as restricting this state or a political subdivision of this state from only accepting payments made or entering into transactions using certain mediums of exchange.
The choice to hold the wealth one has earned over a lifetime in the form of one’s choice is a natural right which no government should violate. As such, the right to hold and use cash and cash substitutes falls under one of those rights that should be protected under the Ninth Amendment. This natural right needs explicit codification and protection in the Texas Bill of Rights to help stop the assault on the financial and privacy rights of Texans. Explicit recognition in the Texas Bill of Rights strengthens the Ninth Amendment case.
Click here to see the hearing on HJR 146 in the spring of 2023. See more about the concept at the Texas Constitutional Enforcement website.
2) Choice for Texans to use gold and silver as legal tender in everyday transactions
This is also known as transactional gold, liquid gold, or digital gold. The companion bills in the 88th Legislature were HB 4903 by State Rep Mark Dorazio and SB 2334 by Senator Bryan Hughes. In the House, the bill passed out of State Affairs and Calendars, but was placed on the General Calendar too late to get a vote. In the Senate, the bill had a hearing late in session, but was not given a vote in committee.
The bill enables and orders the Texas Comptroller to expand the services of the Texas Bullion Depository to create electronic warehouse receipts for gold and silver stored there that can be traded electronically to do everyday business. The idea is that anyone can put dollars that will be converted into gold or silver stored at the Texas Bullion Depositor. The owner will have the receipts on a credit card or app that can be used at any retailer that accepts credit cards. If the retailer wants dollars instead of gold or silver when the customer uses the card, the Texas Bullion Depository gives the equivalent in dollars on that day to the retailer. Or the retailer can transfer the receipt for the gold or silver into their Depository account.
Offering a payment via this service would be considered legal tender under Texas law. The transactionalgold.com website has more detail on the bill and idea. The House hearing around 54:50 and Senate hearing around 38:20 are available on the Texas Legislature Online website.
This new service offering would enable people living paycheck to paycheck to gain the protection of the stability in value of precious metals. Today, most of that protection is only available to those who have savings.
Note that this transactional gold idea was placed on the 2024 GOP primary ballot as Proposition 7 and it received 76.5% of the GOP primary vote.
Finally, this priority formulation was passed in several places around Texas with the title of “Monetary Freedom.” I have seen some polling of delegates mentioning the transactional gold piece as “Economic Freedom.” See the statements in the rationale statement below, but am currently thinking that the title, “Fighting Inflation and Central Bank Digital Currency” sells to the public better.
Rationale:
Money is the lifeblood of our economy. Unstable money destroys our economy and hurts us all, but especially the poor. Inflation is THE economic issue that is hurting the vast majority of Texans, today. It is the issue that is likely to switch many historically Democrat and independent voters to vote Republican in 2024.
Of all the threats to the liberty of Texans, Central Bank Digital Currency, with its programmability, making it the ultimate police state tool, makes it the equivalent in consequence to destroying the liberty of our posterity to open borders and election integrity.
I became politically aware during the Carter-era inflation and saw how the issue of inflation was a major factor in the Republican/Reagan victory of 1980.
This priority is a way that the RPT can help protect Texans from the dire dual threat of inflation and CDBC and show Texas voters that we get what is hurting the ordinary voter and have solutions to solve it right here in Texas.
3. Including state-level prosecution of election law in Election Integrity
Proposed Priority Language:
We have not proposed specific wording, but have passed a resolution at lower levels that says the following: Resolved that protecting our elections should be a legislative priority of the RPT, and that legislation to allow independent, state-level prosecution of the election code and other statutes that Soros-controlled district attorneys are unlikely to prosecute shall be part of that priority.
Background:
Texas Constitutional Enforcement does not normally get involved in the details of election integrity. But we do care about rule of law and we care about the danger to Texas of globalist elites like Soros deploying large resources from outside Texas into Texas to compromise the prosecutors in large Texas counties.
The 2022 Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ State v. Stephens opinion prohibiting the Texas Attorney General from independent, state-level prosecution of the violation of election (and other) law makes prosecution of election law violations in the high population counties of Texas in 2024 unlikely.
Many proposed solutions surfaced in the Texas Legislature, but the approach most likely to insure that we have a second chance at prosecution of election (and other) law in the large counties of Texas was introduced in the 88th Legislature by State Senator Bryan Hughes with SB 1927 and a similar bill by State Rep Mike Schofield, HB 4026.
See the linked testimony on the bill and comparison to other approached by me and by the late Alan Vera on SB 1927.
The most widely discussed approach to restoring state-level prosecution of election law is to simply legislate the delegation of authority to the Attorney General in contradiction to the Court of Criminal Appeals, hoping that the defeat of three of the eight members of the court in the 2024 GOP primary over the issue will persuade one of the five remaining to vote differently in the next appeal. I think that the Hughes/Schofield approach of complying with the logic of State v Stephens and placing the prosecution under the Texas Supreme Court has a better chance of passage and survival in the courts. Thinking that we will get Democrat help in passing a constitutional amendment to give election integrity to the Attorney General is, in my opinion, a pipe dream.
Note that Proposition 10 in the 2024 GOP primary called for a constitutional amendment to give prosecutorial authority to the AG. It passed by 89.4%. I think that the support for that proposition should not be viewed as exclusive support for the constitutional enforcement path, or even the idea of delegating the power to the AG, but rather as support for the urgent need for independent, state-level prosecution.
Regardless, I think the language of our priority should simply call for independent, state-level prosecution of election (and other) law to give the legislature the flexibility of choosing the approach most likely to achieve success.
Finally, this committee should know that I am crafting a resolution for your fellow Platform & Resolutions Committee that I hope will call for the governor to add this topic to a call for a special session in June, 2024 before the November, 2024 election. I cannot imagine why Greg Abbott or Dan Patrick would want to look Ted Cruz or Donald Trump in the face to tell them they had a chance, but failed to enforce Texas election law in the big counties of Texas in November.
Rationale:
Any law without enforcement is useless.
I will personally have comments about priorities hardening our electrical grid and elimination of property tax, but plan to communicate about that wearing different hats.
Looking forward to working with you . . .
Toward liberty,
Tom Glass
Texas Constitutional Enforcement
www.txce.org
X: @tomgglass
Facebook: Tom G Glass
Texas Constitutional Enforcement FB group
Texas Legislative Priorities FB group
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