March 26, 2023

Upcoming Bill Hearings Week of March 27

NOTE:  All hearing notices are linked from name of committee.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:  House committees allow comments to be submitted online remotely and are stored online and accessible to the public with the documents stored for each hearing.  To comment on the record, use the hearing notice link, go to the bottom of the notice to click on the comments link, then leave comments for your bill of choice.  The comment period lasts from the time the notice is posted until public testimony is concluded at the hearing.

Use the comments process this week to oppose three bills – HB 71 – digital driver’s license; HB 3573 – stablecoin/CBDC elevation; and HB 3418 – driving mileage tax pilot.  See details for each bill below.

Monday, March 27:

Senate State Affairs ESG Resistance Bills:

• SB 1060 – Hughes – Stops ESG shareholder proposals for insurance holding companies.
• SB 1446 – Hughes – Requires Texas pension managers to only invest in companies that focus on fiduciary duty and not on social, political, or ideological interests.

House Energy Resources – Refusal to Assist Officers of the Union on fed oil & gas regs:

• HB 33 – Landgraf – Prohibits Texas officials from assisting feds in implementing oil & gas regs not in Texas law.

Local Government:  Attack on Office of Sheriff

• SB 1124 – King – Raises very high bar on credentials needed to be sheriff – probably ousts lots of existing sheriffs.

Tuesday, March 28:

House Homeland Security & Public Safety:

• HB 71 – Canales – Creation of Digital Driver’s License (OPPOSE) – part of creation of digital police state.

Senate Business & Commerce:

• SB 330 – Hall – All Hazards Grid Protection Bill

Wednesday, March 29:

House Pensions, Investments & Financial Services:

• HB 3573 – Lambert – (OPPOSE) Allows non-Texas banking regulators to regulate Texas money transmitter business and elevates stablecoin (which includes CBDC) to being recognized as money.

House Transportation:

• HB 3418 – Canales – (OPPOSE) Pilot program to add mileage tax for drivers. Part of larger globalist effort in war on private transportation.

While you are supporting or approving bills in House Transportation this week, Teri Hall suggests SUPPORTING SB 446 (Final red light camera removal), SCR 2 (taxes dedicated to roads) and OPPOSING SB 1663, which allows cities more leeway to lower speed limits within their boundaries.

Note that there are hearings on a number of good bills pushing the RPT Legislative Priorities that protect kids and on Election Integrity this week.  I just don’t have time to take that dive.

A Retrospective on Last Week

Border Security

Probably the biggest deal this last week was the hearing on Lois Kolkhorst’s SCR 23 that declares a cartel invasion.  We had a wonderful discussion on Thursday, March 23, and it looks like the bill will get a unanimous vote coming out of the Border Security Committee, which includes border Democrats Hinojosa and Blanco.

That same committee heard Senator Tan Parker’s interstate border security compact bill, SB 1403.  Note that such a bill is the third part of the RPT Border Security Legislative Priority.  The most interesting part of the discussion on that was resource witness testimony by a senior staffer at the Attorney General’s office.  He told us that despite the Article I, Sec. 10 requirement to get Congressional approval for interstate compacts in normal times, that Supreme Court precedent has allowed them in most cases without Congressional approval.  It was his opinion that this type of interstate compact will not require Congressional approval.  SB 1403 does not mandate Congressional approval for the compacts formed by it.

Medical Freedom

We had three hear hearings on medical freedom and executive overreach this week.

In House Public Health on Monday, March 20, we testified for Valorie Swanson’s HB 44 to stop Medicaid and CHIP discrimination against unvaxed; Brian Harrison’s HB 81 to require informed consent for COVID-19 vax; and Dustin Burrow’s HB 1313 to create Texas study of COVID-19 vax adverse events.

In Senate State Affairs on Monday, March 20, we testified for three bills by Senator Brian Birdwell:

• SB 29 which prohibits for COVID-19 government vax mandates, mask mandates, and lockdowns of businesses and schools.
• SJR 35 which creates constitutional amendment to require the governor to call legislature into session to renew large scale renewals of declared disasters or emergencies.
• SB 1104 which enables SJR 35, including prohibiting lockdowns by emergency decree and limiting local governments from going beyond any gubernatorial directives.

The big medical freedom day was Wednesday, March 22 in Senate Health & Human Services.  The hearing started at 8:30 am and we did not go home until 9:30 pm.  The day was a magical, cathartic day, where LOTS of information was shared with the Senate and public by activists and luminaries.   Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Richard Fleming, Dr. Gloria Gamboa, Dr. Bryan Ardis, and Jennifer Bridges, the RN fired for refusing Memorial Herman’s vax mandate provided gravitas to the hearings.  Activists Jackie Schlegel, Michelle Evans, Rebecca Hardy, and I tag-teamed with each other.  And then, we had a number of people testify about the harm done to them by COVID tyranny.  It was a great day for medical freedom in Texas!

Here are the main bills that were heard:

• SB 1024 by Kolkhorst – probably the most important omnibus bill for medical freedom this session, authored by the Chair of Senate HHS, herself.
• SB 1583 by Hall – limiting Texas universities from conducting the Orwellian named “gain-of-function” research and requiring all who do to register with Texas.
• SB 426 by Paxton and SB 301 by Hall – a pair of complementary bills that stop discrimination against off-label use of drugs – especially hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
• SB 177 by Middleton – the COVID-19 informed consent bill that is the companion to Harrison’s HB 81.
• SB 299 by Hall – allowing patients to be treated by visiting doctors of their choice in the hospital, even if not credentialed or approved by the hospital.
• SB 265 by Perry – requiring Texas vaccine adverse event database for pandemic vaccines.
• SB 403 by Springer – the Texas COVID-19 vaccine adverse event study companion bill to Burrow’s HB 1313.

Chair Kolkhorst said at the end of the hearing that due to overlap of a number of these bills, that not every one will come out of committee.  She implied that some will be merged into others before being voted out.

Rule of Law

I also testified on Thursday, March 23 in Senate State Affairs for Chair Bryan Hughes’ SB 1927 which expands the State Prosecutor Office in the judiciary to be able to independently prosecute election integrity, public integrity, human trafficking, and abortion statutes.  The bill is designed to respond to a Court of Criminal Appeals opinion that stopped the AG from independently prosecuting election integrity crimes.