Status Report on Texas Resistance to the Great Reset

March 15, 2023

The bills are all filed in the 88^th Texas Legislature, and we have already started testifying on bills related to the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset.  This is a report on the lay of the legislative land in Texas on resistance to ESG, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), and the Great Reset.

Texas Resistance to Implementation or Use of Central Bank Digital Currency

Our flagship legislation is our attempt to get ahead of the introduction of CBDC in the U.S. by adding a recognition of our natural right to store our wealth and use the medium of exchange of mutual choice.  Those bills are SJR 67 by Senator Tan Parker and companion HJR 146 by Representative Gio Capriglione, famous for his creation of the Texas Bullion Depository.  Click here for background info and a downloadable one pager in PDF form.  SJR 67 is assigned to the Senate Business & Commerce Committee.  HJR 146 is assigned to House Pensions, Investments & Financial Services chaired by Capriglione.

Note also that Senator Parker has also filed a wonderful resolution to put Texas on record as opposed to the implementation by the Federal Reserve of a CBDC.  That is SCR 25, assigned to Senate Business & Commerce.  Rep Gio Capriglione has the companion HCR 88, assigned to House State Affairs.

Bad CBDC Bills

Stablecoin Elevation and Regulation

Then there are the bad CBDC bills we need to kill.  The first to surface is a bill pushed by a national consortium of state bank regulators, the Conference for State Bank Supervisors.  You could call the conference a bureaucracy of bureaucrats.  They are pushing two companion bills which they call the Model Money Transmission Modernization Act, SB 895 by Democrat Senator Nathan Johnson and its House companion HB 3573 by Republican Rep Stan Lambert.

The bill replaces the existing money transmission statute in Texas which regulates money transmitters like Paypal and Venmo with the eye-glazing, complex “model” regulator language.  There are a number of differences between the two.  The most significant of which is that it elevates the terms “money” or “money value” to include stablecoin.  The bill does not define stablecoin, but definitions found on the Internet say stablecoin is digital currency whose goal is to maintain parity with a sovereign currency.  The best known private stablecoin that I know of is US Dollar Coin (USDC) created by a company called Circle.

A Central Bank Digital Currency is a stablecoin issued by a central bank.  The Federal Reserve started a pilot CBDC program last fall.

The bill also explicitly gives the Conference for State Bank Supervisors and another national group, the Money Transmitter Regulators Association the ability to supervise and coordinate regulatory efforts in Texas.  You read that right.  This bill gives New York and California bureaucrats a way to get involved in going after companies doing business in Texas.

I mentioned the non-Texan running the lives of Texans problem to a staffer at the legislature, and he said, well this is comity between states.  I informed him that Texans are becoming less and less inclined to allow other states the ability to run our lives.

I was the sole person testifying about SB 895 when it was heard yesterday in the Senate Business & Commerce hearing yesterday.  Click this picture to see that testimony:

UCC Slap at Private Cryptocurrencies and Implicit Aid to CBDC

A few weeks ago, Glenn Beck surfaced the issue that the national organization that recommends modifications to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) in state law around the country has recommendations to update each state’s UCC to bash private crypto and implicitly pave the way for CBDC.  At the time, the provisions had already passed both chambers South Dakota.

The resultant firestorm caused South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to veto the bill using a VETO brand on the bill.  Governor Noem tweeted:

This bill adopts a definition of ‘money’ to specifically exclude crypto like Bitcoin. And it opens the door to the risk that the federal government could adopt a Central Bank Digital Currency. South Dakota will always stand for Economic Freedom.

When the news broke, I searched to see if we had a filed bill in Texas to that effect, and at the time we did not.  But, on the next to last day of filing, Senator Angela Paxton filed a large UCC update bill including the offending language (SB 2075).  Senator Tan Parker has since signed on as a joint author.  The next day, the last day of bill filing, Representative Gio Capriglione filed the companion (HB 5011).

Because, as you saw above, Tan Parker and Gio Capriglione are our champions on resisting CBDC this session, I have sent them and Senator Paxton an email notifying them about the South Dakota experience and recommending stripping out the private digital currency bashing and CBDC enabling language out of those comprehensive UCC update bills, and pointing out the inconsistency of the existing language with the other efforts Parker and Capriglione are leading.

Texas Resistance to ESG

When those who want to control you have deep pockets, are relentless, and are very creative in figuring out ways to do so, you have to be as relentless and creative in your resistance.

Other than to define the ESG acronym (Environment, Social, and Governance) created and being pushed by an ever growing ecosystem of groups and companies on companies via pressures via investment entities, financing entities, and insurance firms, as well as local and federal governments, I am not going to go into the great danger that ESG presents to the livelihoods, wealth, and liberty of Texans.

This will be a survey of the filed bills that we are tracking/pushing this session.  Before I dive in, I will point out that there are a number of tools available to push back on ESG in Texas statutes.

The approaches I can think of are:

• Denying companies who push ESG from doing business with Texas or its subdivisions
• Mandating that Texas employees (teachers, firefighters, municipal and county workers, law enforcement, state workers, etc.) be protected by preventing those pension systems from investing in companies pushing ESG.
• Prohibiting ESG based discrimination in Texas (with different methods of enforcement – from private cause of action to attorney general civil suits to criminal penalties.
• Add recognitions of natural rights to the Texas Bill of Rights
• Pre-empting local governments from foisting ESG notions on local businesses

I will present the bills, organized by the statutory tool deployed.  Because each tool can be deployed narrowly or more broadly, see also the matrix below that classifies the bills by topic and by tool of resistance.

Denying Doing Business with Texas or its Subdivisions

Last session, Senator Charles Schwertner and Representative Gio Capriglione, both of whom are now chairs in their respective chambers) passed SB 19 that protected firearms or ammunition sellers from financial discrimination by discriminators from doing business with Texas or its subdivisions.  The law created by that bill is already having a positive impact.

State Representative Steve Toth has filed HB 982 this session to apply this tool to companies that “use prohibited ESG criteria to evaluate a business decision or investment strategy.”  It has been assigned to House State Affairs.

Texas Public Employee Pension Disinvestment

Last session, Senator Birdwell and then Representative (now Senator) Phil King passed SB 13 which mandates Texas pension systems to disinvest in investment firms that discriminate against oil & gas companies.  This, too, is already bearing fruit.

This session, Senator Brian Hughes has filed SB 1446 to stop Texas public employee pensions from investing in companies “furthering social, political, or ideological interests.”  Presumably, this bill will be assigned to Senate State Affairs, which Senator Hughes chairs.

Prohibiting ESG Discrimination

Senator Hughes has also filed SB 1683 which discriminates ESG and DEI discrimination by finance companies.  This bill for which I wrote an initial draft came from the idea that Glenn Beck put forth in his Great Reset book and which is listed in RPT Plank 46 Texas Resistance to the Great Reset, needs a bit more work to insure that it applies to the complete range of finance companies, including money transmitters like Paypal, who has engaged in ESG discrimination recently.  But that work is in progress.  This also will likely be referred to Chair Hughes’ State Affairs.

State Rep Tom Oliverson, who chairs the House Insurance Committee, has introduced the wonderful HB 1239, which with the current (unposted) committee substitute prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage, discriminating on rates using ESG or DEI factors, or targeting disfavored industries.  Senator Phil King, another anti-ESG stalwart, has filed the Senate companion (SB 833).  It has been assigned to Senate Business & Commerce, on which King sits.  House Insurance Chair Oliverson had a hearing on HB 1239 yesterday March 14.  A representative of Texas Public Policy Foundation and I presented testimony in favor.

State Rep Matt Schaefer, the head of the Texas Freedom Caucus, has filed HB 2837 to prohibit credit card companies from “surveilling, reporting, or tracking” purchases of firearms or ammunition.  It enforces via Attorney General civil suits.

State Rep Steve Toth has filed HB 645 which prohibits general ESG discrimination, but includes an exception (loophole) that allows it if the company doing the discrimination gives notice that it does so.  I will only get excited about this bill if it gets rid of the loophole.  If I get the chance, I intend to ask Rep Toth to amend the bill before being heard the assigned House State Affairs Committee.

State Rep Cody Harris has filed the very narrowly applied HB 709 to prohibit ESG discrimination.  The bill has two major deficiencies.  First it has the loophole that allows discrimination upon notice.  Second, it very narrowly applies only to state chartered financial institutions who only make loans to Texas residents or businesses organized under law of the state.  This bill has been assigned to the House Pensions, Investments and Financial Services Committee chaired by Gio Capriglione.

Pre-emption of Municipality ESG Implementation

Senator Brian Birdwell has introduced SB 1017 stopping municipalities from banning use of gasoline engines.  This bill was heard in Senate Business & Commerce yesterday, March 14.

Here is a matrix classifying the Texas Resistance to the Great Reset bills discussed here:

We will be watching for the hearings on these bills, and I expect there will be a large turnout for them.  Will try to keep this email list posted.

Toward liberty,

Tom Glass
Texas Constitutional Enforcement
www.txce.org
info at tomglass.org