The Texas Report 10/13

The Texas Report 10/13

What’s happening in Texas:

• Texas Senate Advances Special Session Legislation

• Texas political organization with ties to known neo-Nazi

Texas Senate Advances Special Session Legislation

Yesterday, after a marathon day, the Texas Senate advanced various legislation in line with the Governor’s agenda for the Special Session call.

Senate Republicans passed:

• SB 1, by Senator Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe), would establish an “education savings account” or public school voucher system.

• SB 2, by Creighton, is the one bill not on the special session call (at this time) that would provide pay raises to teachers, a $75 increase in the basic allotment, additional flexibility for school security officers, and more. (Passed the Senate 30-1)

• SB 4, by Senator Pete Flores (R-Pleasanton), establishes a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence for certain criminal conduct involving smuggling of a person, operation of a stash house, or evading an arrest or detention. First-degree felony punishment increased to fifteen years.

• SB 7 by Senator Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) would prevent private employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations. This creates punishments should employers unlawfully fire someone over a vaccine mandate.

• SB 11 by Senator Brian Birdwell (R-Waco) increases the punishment for unlawful entry to the United States to a Class A misdemeanor. If it is proven that the person has previously been convicted of illegal entry, that punishment increases to a state jail felony.

At this point, the Senate has addressed four of Governor Abbott’s six priorities for the third special session. Remaining is “legislation” concerning the Colony Ridge development in Liberty County and legislation providing more funding for the border wall.

The Texas Senate passing SB 2 is interesting because, at this stage, the Governor hasn’t added teacher pay raises or public school funding to the Special Session Agenda, meaning that to become law, the Governor will need to add the item.

During an event yesterday at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, Abbott spoke on the voucher fight and said:

“I want to make sure we provide a carrot to make sure this legislation gets passed,” Abbott said of vouchers. “Once [education savings accounts] are passed, I will put full funding for public education on the legislative agenda, including teacher pay raises for teachers across the state.”

He added that the House is at the “one-yard line” from passing education savings accounts. Democrats and rural Republicans have historically blocked voucher legislation. Around the Capitol, there are rumors that many rural members have begun to be convinced or are, at minimum, coming around to a pared-down version of vouchers.

The Texas Tribune reports that since before the special session, the Governor’s office has been working with a group of House Republicans to draft a voucher bill that currently stands at 181 pages, Abbott said.

“I will not stop until we get [education savings accounts] passed in Texas,” he added.

Abbott is holding up teacher pay raises and further school funding until some voucher deal is through the House. During the regular session, there were at least 24 Rural Republicans as part of a voting block against vouchers. Since the start of this special session, staff and political insiders have felt that block slowly start to decrease as political pressure ramps up.

Should vouchers be created under SB 1, eligible students would have access to a $8,000/year account that can be used on tuition and fees at a private school or other expenses like textbooks, tutoring, and transportation. Eligibility includes:

• Any current public school student.

• Current private school student.

• Entering kindergarten/Pre-K for the first time.

Texas House leadership has been in constant meetings with the Governor’s staff to determine strategy for a variety of his priority bills. At this stage, the only one that’s officially been filed is the House version of SB 4 (dealing with smuggling penalties), which is very similar to the Senate bill. Representative Jeff Leach (R-Plano) is carrying the House Vaccine mandate bill, and presumably, Representative Brad Buckley will carry the voucher legislation.

• House committee hearings on priority bills are expected to start next week.

Texas political organization with ties to known neo-Nazi.

As has been widely reported, Defend Texas Liberty, a far-right conservative political action committee, held a six-hour meeting last Friday with known neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.

Defend Texas Liberty has given millions to different Republicans across Texas, including $3 million in donations and loans to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. House Speaker Dade Phelan has been a significant target of the group and has called on fellow Republicans to disavow the organization and return/donate any money received from Defend.

Patrick has denounced Fuentes, but Wednesday said he saw "no reason" to return the group's money.

The Texas Tribune has analyzed recipients of Defend Texas Liberty Pac money:

$9.4 million has been spent on candidates since 2020, and the major recipients include Attorney General Ken Paxton, Dan Patrick, Representative (and Phelan enemy) Tony Tinderholt, Representative Nate Schatlzine, and more.

Defend Texas Liberty and its advisors employ several staffers with significant controversies. In 2020, two Empower Texans (an earlier version of Defend Texas Liberty) staffers, Cary Cheshire and Tony McDonald, were caught on an audio recording disparaging Governor Greg Abbott and joking about his wheelchair use.

Abbott and other GOP leaders denounced the comments, and both staffers were "suspended from all public activities." Cheshire still works inside an affiliated political organization-funded network, and McDonald is a lawyer who continues to represent the organization's interests.

One of the PAC's biggest recipients was former State Representative Bryan Slaton. Slaton was the first legislator expelled from the Texas House since 1927 after he was investigated for having sex with a 19-year-old intern after getting her drunk.

Defend Texas Liberty and its network of affiliate organizations are rumored to have worked secretly to protect Slaton before the news broke the mainstream. (More here)

The organization and its closely associated politicians have sought to defend themselves against widespread claims of antisemitism. In a statement Wednesday after talking to a lead funder of the group, Lt. Governor Patrick said the organization's meeting with a known neo-Nazi was a "serious blunder."

This type of statement sounds like the organization may have been unfamiliar with Nick Fuentes's background. In reality, one of the Sticklands staffers said that Nick Fuentes is one of our generation's greatest civil rights leaders and expressed further antisemitic views like "we will destroy the GOP before we allow another Zionist bootlicker in office to 'represent us."

House members like Steve Toth have continued to defend the organization and claim Phelan is using this to distract from other issues without ever really acknowledging why Defend Texas Liberty. It's leadership would meet with someone well-known as a white supremacist.

Some legislators like Stan Kitzman, who previously received funds from Defend Texas Liberty, have committed to putting those funds to various charitable causes on behalf of Israel.

Here’s the statements from Defend Texas Liberty regarding meeting with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes:

This organization will be spending millions to try and beat Republican incumbents House members across Texas, including Speaker Phelan.

A little bit on Fuentes from Texas Monthly:

Fuentes started his career after Trump’s 2016 election and got a boost after he attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the one where alt-right protesters marched with torches and chanted “Jews will not replace us.” He dropped out of college to work full-time on his live streamed show, which has attracted and maintained a young audience by turning his life into a sort of neo-Nazi performance piece.

As a Catholic “integralist,” he has praised the Taliban (religious, conservative) as a model for the United States. As an “incel” (that’s “involuntarily celibate”), he has argued that “having sex with women is gay.” Fuentes praises Adolf Hitler to his followers, who call themselves Groypers—it’s a long story—and his life’s work is raising the alarm among young right-wingers about the coming “white genocide.” (More here)

The next question in many minds is what will be the long-term impact on the Texas GOP? Will candidates start shying away from Defend Texas Liberty, and will voters want their politicians associated with a group meeting with neo-Nazis?

Some interesting articles for the weekend: