Texas House hearings considering bills start this coming week, and the deadline for filing bills is end of day Friday. I am overdue in providing a status update on the Texas Legislature.

I have often said that the Texas Legislature is like a fifty-ring circus. There is so much happening at one time, that it is virtually impossible for one person to keep up with it all. I certainly can’t. And I do not even have the space and time to tell you everything that I have seen.

I will focus in this report on the areas that I personally prioritize. That includes the Texas Constitutional Enforcement legislative agenda and a few of the Legislative Priorities of the RPT including End Federal Overreach, Secure the Electric Grid, End Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying, Border Enforcement, and Texas is Not for Sale.

At the end, I will also discuss what I have seen in the Texas House about the likelihood of passage of bills.

Texas Constitutional Enforcement Legislative Agenda

1. End Federal Overreach

Texas Sovereignty Act – Joint legislative committee recommends unconstitutional federal acts for declaration by legislature and governor. (RPT End Federal Overreach Priority). (RPT Platform Plank 20) (HB 796 Cecil Bell, HB 898 David Spiller, SB 80 Bob Hall) RPT Endorsed

Resist FBI Weaponization Against Texans -- Require feds to get sheriff and AG permission for arrests and searches in county. (RPT Platform Plank 5) (HB 1982 & HB 3932 Andy Hopper.) HB 1962 RPT Endorsed, HB 3932 Pending.

Don’t Mess With Texas Elections – limits on funding from outside Texas for Texas races. (RPT Platform Plank 202) (SB 405 Mayes Middleton) RPT Endorsed

Run Texas Elections Separately from Federal Elections – (RPT Platform Plank 221 g) (HB 209 Mike Schofield, SB 106 Bob Hall) RPT Endorsed

Protect the Texas National Guard (RPT Platform Plank 247) (HB 930 Briscoe Cain) RPT Endorsed

Protect County and District Attorneys From the Feds – Allows Attorney General to defend county and district attorneys in actions taken against them by the feds for enforcing state law, if the county/district attorneys request. (RPT Platform Planks 5 and 20) (SB 888 Lois Kolkhorst). RPT Endorsed. TCE testified. Passed out of Senate State Affairs.

Protection of Intrastate Firearms Manufacture/Sale – Exempts most firearms and accessories manufactured and staying in Texas from federal law or regulation. (SB 130 Bob Hall / HB 1617 Valoree Swanson). RPT Endorsed

Resisting Global Interference – Denying jurisdiction to World Health Organization, UN, and World Economic Forum in Texas – (RPT Platform Plank 244) (SB 129 Bob Hall / Charles Schwertner SB 386 / HB 706 Terri Leo Wilson, HB 1377 Wes Virdell). RPT Endorsed

Refusal to Assist Officers of the Union – Legislature declares unconstitutional federal acts and state agencies and subdivisions prohibited from assisting feds. (RPT Platform Planks 20 and 70) (SB 707 Phil King). (Needs modification to require majority instead of 2/3.) TCE testified. Passed out of Senate State Affairs.

Rule-of-Law Enforcement – Give a statewide official independent prosecutorial authority in addition to DAs for election law, public integrity, official oppression, abortion, maybe other like riot and sedition. (RPT Platform Plank 165) (SB 846 & SB 1026 Bryan Hughes).

2. Fighting Inflation, CBDC, Globalism, and ESG

Currency Choice Amendment to protect the natural right to hold and trade with any medium of exchange including cash, coin, digital currency, and scrip. (RPT Platform Plank 30 d and 80). (SJR 55 Tan Parker / HJR 177 Andy Hopper).

Transactional Gold – expand Texas Bullion Depository function to provide ability for Texans to use a credit card or digital app to spend stored gold or silver in ordinary transactions (RPT Platform Plank 80). (HB 1062 & 1049 Mark Dorazio / SB 2002 & 665 Bryan Hughes) See comments below regarding committee assignments for these bills

Prohibit Discrimination in Lending by Financial Firms based on ideology/ESG/nature of business  - (RPT Platform Plank 31). (HB 1516 Mike Schofield / SB 512 Lois Kolkhorst) Repeat of last session, stopping Paypal and other money services businesses from imposing fines due to speech.

Anti-ESG Bill – Prohibit companies doing business in Texas from implementing ESG standards or forcing suppliers to implement ESG standards required by foreign statutes that require companies to do so for access to those markets. (SB 495 Kevin Sparks – stops Texas Department of Insurance from implementing rules that implement ESG. Expands upon what Tom Oliverson and Ken King accomplished last session.) TCE testified. Out of committee and on intent calendar.

3.  End Texas Executive Overreach and Protect Texas Medical Freedom

Stop Mandatory Vaccinations - Constitutional amendment to add provision to Texas Bill of Rights to protect natural, unalienable right to decline vaccination. (RPT End Federal Overreach Priority) (RPT Platform Plank 114). (HJR 91 Andy Hopper, SJR 10 Bob Hall). RPT Endorsed.

Stop Executive Overreach -- Amend Texas Disaster Act to insure that we never get lockdowns or mask mandates again and to stop open-ended criminal penalties for which executives define offense. Put conditions on delegation of power that legislature must approve emergencies after short time. (RPT Platform Planks 8 and 114). Working.

“Gain-of-Function” Accountability – ban gain-of-function research in Texas (RPT Platform Plank 159) (SB 1488 Bob Hall).

 4.  Texas Freedom to Travel

Stop Federal Vehicular Kill Switches (RPT End Federal Overreach Priority) (RPT Platform Plank 49) (SB 381 Mayes Middleton, HB 1074 Nate Schatzline).

Stop Mileage Tax

Stop Digital Licenses/ID – (RPT Platform Planks 208 and 49) (Oppose HB 1796 Terry Canales)

5.  Border Enforcement

Stop the Magnet – cut off taxpayer services to illegal aliens (RPT Platform Plank 232) (RPT Priority). Working.

Note that the End Federal Overreach Legislative Priority endorsed bills are pretty much embedded in the list above.

Secure the Electric Grid Legislative Priority

Protection of Critical Grid Components from Solar Flares and EMP (RPT Platform Plank 41 c & d) (SB 1740 Tan Parker).

All Hazards Grid Resilience (RPT Platform Plank 41) (SB 75 Bob Hall / HB 941 Cain).

Prohibit Grid Components from Hostile Nations (RPT Platform Plank 41) (SB 934 Bob Hall).

Texas Tax on New, Large Solar & Wind Projects to Offset Fed Subsidies (RPT Platform Plank 47) (HB 3017 Brent Money).

Note that the Secure Electric Grid Legislative Priority Committee has endorsed other bills, but the ones above have caught my eye.

End Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying Legislative Priority

End Taypayer-Funded Lobbying (RPT Platform Plank 212) (SB 19 Mayes Middleton / HB 309 Terri Leo Wilson, HB 1189 Troxclair, HB 1294 Jared Patterson, also HB 571 Briscoe Cain, HB 671 Matt Shaheen, HB 755 David Spiller, HB 3257 Mike Olcott). I testified for SB 19. Out of committee. On intent calendar.

Texas is Not for Sale Legislative Priority

Banning Texas Land Ownership by Hostile Entities (RPT Platform Plank 201) (SB 17 Kolkhorst). I signed in support of SB 17 in committee. No committee vote yet. I have not heard whether Texas is Not for Sale Legislative Priority Committee has officially supported any bills, yet. I was in Texas House Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans’ Affairs Chair Cole Hefner’s office last week and they told me they have their own bill that differs in several respects from the Senate bill. I don’t know the particulars.

Reading the Tea Leaves on Whether Conservative Legislation Will Pass

Given the Uniparty speaker in the Texas House, the new House Rules giving power to Democrats, a Calendars Committee chair that has told members in the past that his job was to help non-transparantly kill bills, and the slow start in the House, the burning question for the grassroots is whether conservative legislation, especially RPT legislative priorities will pass this session. I have several observations.

Transferring Conservative Bills from Grassroots to Team Burros

First, I am hearing that a number of bills are being involuntarily being transferred from the grassroots legislators to be carried by Team Burros Republicans. While this is quite irritating to the grassroots legislators, the silver lining in this is that the apparent motive for this action is to create talking points for embattled Uniparty Republicans in their upcoming primary challenges. It means that some of those bills are probably going to pass. The worry is that they may be watered down, but the likelihood of them passing under this situation is better than if the grassroots members got to carry the bills.

Milton Friedman said, “The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.” Ronald Reagan said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” Lets hope those maxims pay dividends in this sad situation.

Committee Assignments

Second, so far, the House Parliamentarian is assigning end federal overreach bills to the crowded State Affairs which only has vague high level jurisdiction for bills of that nature in this set of Rules. The far superior committee from clear jurisdictional language in the rules and a under-crowding perspective is the new Intergovernmental Affairs Committee or its State-Federal Relations Committee.

The most outrageous assignment of those bills is the assignment of Cecil Bell’s Texas Sovereignty Act away from the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee he chairs to State Affairs where that bill has died the last three sessions. I have sent an email to the Parliamentarian’s office, the Speaker’s staffs, the respective committee clerks, and the authors of the misassigned bills.

We will see whether the situation is rectified. It will be a big deal if not because if for no other reason the end federal overreach bills are likely to be crowded out in the large press of work in House State Affairs.

Transactional Gold Committee Assignments

Finally, I have not gotten the inside story on this yet, but I note that the Transactional Gold bill has been introduced twice by Mark Dorazio in the House and twice by Bryan Hughes in the Senate. In the House, the first version has been assigned to the busy State Affairs Committee where it was last time, receiving a hearing late enough to cause the bill to not make it to the House floor for a timely vote. But the second bill has been assigned to Pensions, Investments & Financial Services.

In the Senate, Hughes’ first Transactional Gold bill was assigned as it was last session to Finance, which makes no sense at all if the bill is favored. Last session, Finance Chair Joan Huffman waited until the budget was done and gave the bill a hearing on the last hearing of the Committee, then did not hold a vote to move it out of committee. Hughes’ second bill has not been assigned. Hopefully, it too will be assigned differently than the first, hopefully to Hughes’ own State Affairs.

Committee assignments matter.