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Texas House Approves Amended Bathroom Bill

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The Texas House approved an amended version of a proposed bathroom bill Sunday. Legislators had been threatened with a special session if the measure didn’t pass.

The Texas Privacy Act, or Senate Bill 6, passed the state Senate in March but faced House opposition. The act would have limited restroom use according to biological sex in public schools and government buildings. It also would have prevented city governments from passing opposing ordinances.

But the measure that passed the House 91-50 was narrowed down to address public schools exclusively. Language crafted by Republican Rep. Chris Paddie was tacked on to Senate Bill 2078, a measure dealing with schools’ emergency operations.

The amended language requires students use facilities according to their biological sex. Students who identify as members of the opposite sex may use single-occupancy facilities.

Final approval on the bill is expected Monday. It will then head back to the Senate for approval of the bathroom language changes. Abbott is expected to sign the bill. In April, he finally broke his long silence on the issue.

“I will work with the House and Senate to ensure we find a solution and ultimately get a bill to my desk that I will sign into law,” he said.

Hot Debate

Senate Bill 6 and its subsequent versions have seen heated opposition.

On Sunday, Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson compared the House’s version to Jim Crow laws. “White. Colored. I was living through that era … bathrooms divided us then, and it divides us now,” she said.

Paddie disagreed, claiming the bill did not discriminate. “It’s absolutely about child safety,” he said.

Supporters of a Texas bathroom bill have insisted their intent is not to discriminate. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick previously called SB 6 “a common sense, privacy and public safety policy for everyone.” The bill’s author, Sen. Lois Koklhorst, said it was an effort to “strike a balance to protect all of us when we find ourselves in the intimate spaces, vulnerable spaces.”

The original measure was also intended to provide additional guidance in light of move by President Donald Trump. In February Trump rescinded an Obama-era policy mandating schools allow students who identify as members of the opposite sex to use the bathroom of their choice. Schools that didn’t comply were threatened with loss of federal funding.

“This is an issue best solved at the state and local level,” Education Secretary Betsy Devos said at the time. Kolkhorst said that made guidance for Texas schools “even more important.”

House Speaker Republican Joe Straus previously voiced opposition to any kind of bathroom bill. He said he thought such a bill would hurt Texas business. News media widely reported negative repercussions to North Carolina’s economy after its government passed the controversial bathroom bill known as House Bill 2. But North Carolina Lt. Governor Dan Forest disputed those reports in a press conference supporting SB 6.

Nevertheless, Straus’ fears about the economy were allayed with the passing of SB 2078. According to The Texas Tribune, he didn’t think the measure would drastically change schools’ existing approach to accommodating students who identify as members of the opposite sex. It also “avoid[s] the severely negative impact of Senate Bill 6.” (For more from the author of “Texas House Approves Amended Bathroom Bill” please click HERE)

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The Chilling Reason Why the ACLU Is Warning Against Traveling to Texas

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The ACLU issued a “travel alert” in the state of Texas Wednesday, warning “anyone planning to travel to Texas in the near future to anticipate the possible violation of their constitutional rights when stopped by law enforcement.”

The alert was announced in response to the passage of Senate Bill 4, otherwise known as the “papers please” provision. Texas Governor Greg Abbott unexpectedly broadcast himself signing the bill banning sanctuary cities in a Facebook live stream, during which he specifically targeted Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez for pushing back against the ban, warning, “This will not be tolerated. There will be consequences.”

The “papers please” law encourages police to demand proof of citizenship during routine traffic stops and “requires Texas law enforcement to comply with the federal government’s constitutionally flawed use of detainer requests, which ask local law enforcement to hold people for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), even when they lack the legal authority to do so,” the ACLU notes.

The executive director of Texas’ ACLU made it clear the organization will be challenging the new legislature, saying:

We plan to fight this racist and wrongheaded law in the courts and in the streets. Until we defeat it, everyone traveling in or to Texas needs to be aware of what’s in store for them. The Lone Star State will become a ‘show me your papers’ state, where every interaction with law enforcement can become a citizenship interrogation and potentially an illegal arrest.

According to a press release from the governor’s office, any elected official who does not comply with the draconian measures faces heavy penalties, including jail time, removal from office, and a fine of up to $25,500 for each day of the violation. “Elected officials and law enforcement agencies, they don’t get to pick and choose with laws they obey,” Gov. Abbott claims. Conversely, a competitive grant program will be established by the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division to reward counties and municipalities with financial assistance “to offset the costs” of enforcing immigration laws and honoring or fulfilling immigration detainer requests. In other words, the state of Texas is incentivizing local law enforcement agencies to hunt immigrants.

However, Texas’ top police chiefs have railed against the bill for months, saying the new legislation will endanger public safety. The police chiefs of Austin, Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and the Texas Police Chiefs Association voiced their opposition in an open letter to the House of Representatives in April, calling SB4 “political pandering that will make our communities more dangerous.”

The letter explains how the law will further damage relations between law enforcement and their communities and leave more violent criminals on the street:Legal immigrants are beginning to avoid contact with the police for fear that they themselves or undocumented family members or friends may become subject to immigration enforcement. Such a divide between the local police and immigrant groups will result in increased crime against immigrants and in the broader community, create a class of silent victims, and eliminate the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving crimes or preventing crime. It should not be forgotten that by not arresting criminals that victimize our immigrant communities, we are also allowing them to remain free to victimize every one of us. When it comes to criminals, we are in this together, regardless of race, sex, religion or nation of origin.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus expressed his displeasure in a press conference Monday, stating “There’s nothing positive that this bill does in the community or in law enforcement. Austin didn’t seem to want to listen to its law enforcement leaders across the state. And that, to me, is troubling.”

McManus, just one of many law enforcement officials ardently opposed to S.B.4, has been very straightforward about exactly what this new law requires him and his officers to do — and who to target:

We’re talking about folks south of the border. We’re not talking about people we think might be here from Russia or from somewhere else. We’re talking about out people south of the border,” he said. “In order for me to identify someone who I don’t think is from here, it’s either skin color, language or accent. And in order to do, that I’m profiling. So that’s another part of the bill that’s distasteful, to say the least.

However, none of the police chiefs were staunchly opposed to the bill enough to give any indication they would refuse to comply with the “papers please” provision, despite the fact that they believe it to be dangerous. Sheriff Hernandez clearly stated she will comply with the sanctuaries ban if it becomes law— and she believes it will. Well, it has become law, and it officially goes into effect on September 1st, 2017, giving Texas law enforcement some time to remember the Oath of Honor they took, review their code of ethics, and decide whether to follow their consciences or their marching orders. (For more from the author of “The Chilling Reason Why the ACLU Is Warning Against Traveling to Texas” please click HERE)

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Texas Takes Strong and Needed Action on Sanctuary Cities

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott acted to protect the citizens of Texas on Sunday when he signed into law SB 4, a bill to punish (and deter) local cities and counties like Austin from implementing sanctuary policies.

Abbott and the legislators who sponsored this bill are trying to stop the Lone Star State from being a sanctuary for criminal aliens. They want to make sure that criminals are removed from the state and deported from the country, rather than remaining in Texas so they can victimize even more citizens of the state.

SB 4 requires local governments in the state to comply with federal immigration law. That includes 8 U.S.C. § 1373, which forbids state and local governments from preventing their officials from exchanging information with the federal government on the citizenship status of any individual.

Under the new Texas law, local governments can’t prevent their law enforcement officials from sending information to the feds on criminals they have arrested or detained.

City and county officials also can’t prevent federal immigration officers from enforcing immigration laws in local jails, and are charged with “assisting or cooperating with a federal immigration officer as reasonable or necessary” to provide “enforcement assistance.”

Further, Texas law enforcement agencies are directed to “comply with, honor, and fulfill any request made in the detainer request provided by the federal government.”

This means that local jurisdictions that fail to honor federal detainer warrants—which are requests issued by federal immigration authorities to hold illegal aliens for pickup—will also be in violation of state law.

SB 4 imposes a civil penalty on sanctuary cities of up to $25,500 for each day of intentionally violating this law. In a fitting sense of justice, the civil penalties collected will be deposited in a special victim’s crime fund set up by the state.

This means that those who have been victimized by criminal illegal aliens will be able to seek compensation from this fund. Local law enforcement officials, such as sheriffs and chiefs of police, can also be charged with a Class A misdemeanor for failing to comply with federal detainer warrants.

Finally, local officials who refuse to comply with SB 4 and who implement sanctuary policies or ordinances can be removed from office. Petitions for their removal are filed by the attorney general of Texas, and such petitions will get the same precedence as election contests under Texas law.

This ensures that such petitions will not languish in court behind other cases. And Texas courts are directed to remove that official if he or she is found guilty—judges have no discretion to keep the official in office.

Abbott said he signed this bill because public safety is his top priority: “This bill furthers that objective by keeping dangerous criminals off our streets.”

Abbott added that it is “inexcusable to release individuals from jail that have been charged with heinous crimes like sexual assault against minors, domestic violence, and robbery.”

He said that such behavior by local officials would no longer be “tolerated,” and that SB 4 was “doing away with those that seek to promote lawlessness in Texas.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who also supports the new law, pointed out that “in the past six years, criminal aliens have been charged with more than 566,000 crimes in Texas including kidnapping, homicide, burglary and much more.”

As he said, “there is no excuse for endangering our communities by allowing criminal aliens who have committed a crime to go free.”

Given the large number of crimes committed by recidivist criminal aliens, the claim by some in Texas that this bill will make “our communities more dangerous” defies common sense.

This is particularly true because the new law exempts an illegal alien who “is a victim of or witness to a criminal offense,” or “is reporting a criminal offense.” Thus, it will not deter the reporting of crimes.

As I have pointed out before, sanctuary policies endanger the residents of the very cities they are claimed to “help.” Criminal aliens who would otherwise be detained and removed from sanctuary cities are instead released back into the community, where they can commit more crimes.

One Government Accountability Office study of the criminal histories of 55,322 illegal aliens showed that they had been arrested 459,614 times and committed almost 700,000 offenses.

The vast majority of these crimes would never have been committed if we had a secure border that prevented these criminal aliens from entering the country in the first place, or if we had an effective policy of removing them once they did make it here, or after being detained or arrested for committing a crime.

The Texas governor and legislators are trying to protect their state’s residents from the reckless and irresponsible decisions being made by local jurisdictions to release criminal aliens and to obstruct enforcement of federal immigration law.

This is a good start and the right thing for them to do. (For more from the author of “Texas Takes Strong and Needed Action on Sanctuary Cities” please click HERE)

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Texas House Passes Sanctuary City Ban With Stiff Penalty for Public Officials

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The Texas House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that places a statewide ban on sanctuary cities and allows state officials to jail police chiefs and sheriffs who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The measure also lets police officers inquire about the immigration status of anyone they detain or arrest, including the subjects of traffic stops.

The Republican-controlled House approved the bill in a 3 a.m. vote, 81-64, after almost 15 hours of debate. Democrats and some Republicans had objected to the provision allowing police to ask about legal status, but the bill eventually passed with the support of the House tea party faction.

Other Republican-led states have considered similar laws, but Texas would be the first in which local police officials could face criminal charges and be removed from office for not assisting federal immigration enforcement efforts, the Associated Press reported.

The bill’s supporters argue the provisions are necessary to combat immigrant crime such as drug and human trafficking. GOP Rep. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth, who sponsored the bill, said the measure will “keep the public safe and remove bad people from the street” if enacted. (Read more from “Texas House Passes Sanctuary City Ban With Stiff Penalty for Public Officials” HERE)

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Texas Tea Party Groups Send a Clear Message to President Trump: ‘The Freedom Caucus Is Not the Problem’

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The Texas Tea Party will not be silent.

Last week, Republicans scrambled to form a circular firing squad in the wake of the American Health Care Acts’ failure to launch. Conservatives’ opposition to the legislation drew the ire of President Trump and members of the Republican Establishment, who (unfairly) attacked the Freedom Caucus for killing the bill.

But in a letter made available to Conservative Review, Lone Star state Tea Party organizations make clear that the Republican Party base in the highly consequential state of Texas stands with the Freedom Caucus in opposition to RINOcare. The letter was signed by over 90 conservative grassroots leaders and state GOP officials, and will be sent to President Trump Monday.

“To our dismay, the ‘repeal and replace’ plan put forward by U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) did nothing to address the core regulatory infrastructure of Obamacare, which means that American families would still see health care costs continue to rise until at least 2026,” the letter reads. “This is unacceptable.”

Public support for the American Health Care Act placed around 17 percent, per Quinnipiac polls. The Freedom Caucus members argue their push for more conservative amendments saved the Republican Party from political disaster. According to the leader of the organization that put the letter together, those members are exactly right.

“The Freedom Caucus is doing exactly what their supporters and their constituents sent them to Washington to do,” JoAnn Fleming told Conservative Review. “The Ryancare bill did not do what the Republicans promised they would do.”

Fleming is the Executive Director of Grassroots America – We the People, a political action committee that is “the largest constitutional conservative citizen organization in East Texas and one of the largest in Texas.” A volunteer conservative activist in Texas for over 25 years, Fleming also serves as the three-term chairman of the Texas Legislature’s TEA Party Caucus Advisory Committee, Chairman of Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s Grassroots Advisory Board, and an adviser to the newly formed Freedom Caucus of the Texas state legislature.

“Frankly, the people that I work with in Texas, all these grassroots leaders on this letter – they worked their tails off to send Republicans to Washington and to offices at every level of government — to stand strong behind conservative, limited government, constitutional conservative principles,” Fleming said.

In the eyes of these activists, Fleming explained, the GOP plan was a betrayal.

If you go back and look at the 60 times there was a bill that fully repealed Obamacare, why now is that not the right kind of bill? What this does is it just peels back the façade. What this says to grassroots conservatives in Texas is, “You really didn’t mean it to begin with. You knew President Obama would veto any repeal that you sent to him, and so it was all political theater.”

Opposition to RINOcare was exactly what voters wanted from their elected representatives. The letter takes pains to drive that point home to the president.

With a bad “take it or leave it” bill on the table, the Freedom Caucus rightly believed they had a responsibility to protect both the GOP and the Trump Administration from the political fallout that would surely come in 2018 and 2020 when angry voters realized their healthcare costs did not go down and health care access did not improve. The Freedom Caucus had the promises they made back home and the long-term good of the American people on their minds and in their hearts when they opposed the AHCA.

President Trump’s pledge to “fight” the Freedom Caucus is baffling for these Tea Party activists.

Trump had long positioned himself as an ally of the Tea Party. And so, according to JoAnn Fleming, this letter intends to make clear exactly where one of the Republican Party’s most organized and enthusiastic voter base stands.

The point of this is we’re trying to say, “We don’t agree with you, Mr. President, on the approach you’re taking toward the Freedom Caucus and toward the promises we intend to hold the GOP to. They made a promise that they were going to repeal Obamacare, and that means take out all of the big government structure that was there, the mandates, and to get us back to a patient-centered, free-market based approach to health care. This bill did not do any of that and what we believe is that it would have driven up costs, premiums.”

The Tea Party groups of Texas urge Trump to work with the HFC to actually “drain the swamp.”

“We believe that he’s not going to be able to drain any Washington, D.C., swamp without the support and help of conservatives,” Fleming told CR. “That’s just a given.”

All signs point toward another attempt at Obamacare repeal happening sooner rather than later. Over the weekend, President Trump tweeted an attack on the “Fake News media” for suggesting that attempts at repeal were “dead.”

Some liberal Republicans have signaled they’d rather work with Democrats than join with the Freedom Caucus to come up with a conservative plan. The Texan Tea Party is not willing to follow President Trump down that path.

“Unfortunately, the president will be on the opposite side of many conservative grassroots leaders on the ground, in the trenches every single day,” should he continue to oppose the Freedom Caucus, Fleming said.

“This is what we do. We try to advance liberty through conservative principles. It’s not about the person. It’s not about a political icon. It is about principle for us.”

The dedicated hard work of the Tea Party base here in Texas, as well as all across the nation, has bestowed Republicans with historic majorities in Congress and placed the presidency in their hands. If the GOP believes Tea Party activists will go away or blindly trust the Republicans in control, they are mistaken.

“I have given up the best part of my life to do this, and I’m not about to change. I don’t do this because I don’t have anything else that I could do. I gave up a career in business to do this, and I do it because it’s the right thing to do,” said Fleming.

“Anything that makes it harder for my grassroots colleagues to do what they do in their own communities just kind of sets my teeth on edge,” Fleming said. “That’s where this letter came from.” (For more from the author of “Texas Tea Party Groups Send a Clear Message to President Trump: ‘The Freedom Caucus Is Not the Problem'” please click HERE)

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Texas Redistricting Case Makes It Official: Courts Are Rigging the Game … And It’s Entirely Legal

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A gerrymandering case out of Texas serves to further prove the point that the judiciary is rigging the game against Republican candidates — and it’s all completely legal.

Late Friday, a panel of federal judges threw out three of Texas’ congressional districts — because racism. This further highlights how the federal judiciary is using provisions of the Voting Rights Act to rig elections in favor of Democrat candidates.

According to a report at NPR:

Judges Xavier Rodriguez and Orlando Garcia wrote the court’s decision, which comes after a protracted and complex legal battle that began when the new districts were drawn in 2011, following the last census.

“The political motive does not excuse or negate that use of race; rather, the use of race is ultimately problematic for precisely that reason — because of their political motive, they intentionally drew a district based on race in a location where such use of race was not justified by a compelling state interest,” says the ruling.

Politically motivated redistricting is legal, but redistricting with an intent to reduce the influence of minority voters — either by “packing” those voters into a district, or “cracking” them among multiple districts — is not.

More troubling is that the ruling goes after both practices of political redistricting (packing and cracking) and throw both out, alleging to discern racial animus amongst the political — even though the political was most clear. (What gifted mind-readers in black robes we have at our disposal!)

So there is literally no way to draw districts in a political fashion without a federal judge being able to cry racist and kick the maps out.

What’s truly laughable is that the state maps of Maryland and Illinois – which are infamously rigged in favor of Democrat politicians – remain wholly unchallenged despite some of the absurd-looking districts on their maps. But, details …

Even if as many GOP politicians were legitimately racist as liberals claim, the Left tends to forget what politicians really love: winning elections. Any sensible politician will draw a map that maximizes their chances of winning, regardless of race. You may not like it, but it’s legal, constitutional, and how things have been done since ratification.

As Daniel Horowitz and I explained in a previous, more comprehensive piece on the subject:

Then there is the reality that contrary to breaking up demographic constituencies, many of the maps pull them together. One could statistically argue that such districts would actually give minorities a statistical punch above their weight in Congress than if the lines were drawn otherwise.

When a minority votes near-monolithically for one party and lives in geographically distinct enough areas to be lumped together via gerrymandering, of course that is the result of intentional action. That’s not racially motivated; it’s party motivated. How much smaller would the Congressional Black Caucus be if those districts weren’t drawn as such?

First, in order for the courts to rule that maps drawn with political intent are racially discriminatory, they assumed that minorities are going to monolithically vote for Democrats every single time. This is a false assumption and just bad law when one realizes that the whole of American political history displays the continual birth, death, and realignment of political coalitions.

If you grant one voter bloc a new constitutional right to maximize their potential, then why not grant another bloc (of another demographic) the same constitutional right? What about white rural voters? What about white rural voters in blue states (listed above) who have also had their representation sliced up? Why is nobody crying “foul” and “racism” over them?

So, because Republicans often have enjoy atrocious election results among some racial demographics, any effort to draw a constitutional map that isn’t suicidal will look racially motivated. However, as much as Democrats do everything they can to shame black people out of even entertaining the idea of voting Republican, the amount of melanin in your skin does not dictate your political party.

Simply put, there’s no way to draw a district map without someone being able to claim disappointment or “disenfranchisement.” This is why these are political questions — not ones for unelected judges, unaccountable election commissions, or (per a recent suggestion) the robots.

There’s only one question remaining about the current redistricting scenario: Where is Congress?

Since several states are losing a constitutionally enumerated power at the hands of the judiciary — based off the interpretation of a law that usurped that power — it would only make sense that the branch that started the problem clean up its own mess by either clarifying what the courts’ power over the states are, or repealing the outdated provisions of the act (or the whole thing) altogether.

Until then, Democrats have a handy way to pick the lock and rig the system on future elections, and it’s only going to get worse. (For more from the author of “Texas Redistricting Case Makes It Official: Courts Are Rigging the Game … And It’s Entirely Legal” please click HERE)

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Texas Bathroom Bill Intended to Be ‘Model for Other States’

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The Texas Legislature will be voting next week on a bill that will prevent men from entering women’s restrooms and the lieutenant governor of Texas says his state’s legislation is a model for the nation.

“I think that our legislation can be a model for other states to follow and end this discussion once and for all about men being able to walk into ladies’ rooms in public buildings and to stop school districts from allowing boys and girls to shower together,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Wednesday.

If passed into law, the Texas Privacy Act will ensure that men and women use separate bathrooms.

Texas state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, the author of the bill, said there is currently no law on the books in Texas that prevents a man from entering a woman’s restroom dressed looking like a man.

The Texas Legislature held a hearing for the bill on Tuesday.

After nearly 20 hours of public testimony by over 400 witnesses, Patrick said the Texas state Senate Committee on State Affairs voted 8-1 to send the bill to the full Texas Senate for a vote.

The bill is nondiscriminatory, Patrick said, because it encourages schools and government buildings and businesses to provide special facilities for those who want an exception.

“It does not discriminate but it is focused on public safety and common decency and privacy,” Patrick said.

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), released a statement in February in opposition of the bill.

It was published with a letter that included over 140 signatures of entertainers and musicians decrying the Texas Privacy Act and other “anti-LGBTQ bills.”

“The public outcry by musicians and influencers against upcoming anti-LGBTQ bills in Texas should have lawmakers taking note,” Ellis said. “By adding their voices to the chorus of fair-minded people calling for equality, these artists are using their platforms to speak out and send the resounding message that discrimination is not an American value.”

The American Civil Liberties Union released an ad protesting the legislation which tells viewers they can “stop the bill.”

“You’ve gotta roll up your sleeves, pull down your pants, and pee with LGBT … this isn’t a privacy issue,” the ad states.

Dana Hodges, state director for Concerned Women for America of Texas, a conservative women’s advocacy organization, said the bill is about safeguarding privacy and dignity.

“This bill protects the privacy, safety, and dignity of women and girls in public facilities,” Hodges said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “It also allows private industries to make their own restroom policy. This is an issue I’m passionate about having been personally violated in a women’s restroom.”

Patrick said he expects a full vote in the Texas state Senate next Tuesday or Wednesday. (For more from the author of “Texas Bathroom Bill Intended to Be ‘Model for Other States” please click HERE)

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Texas Legislature to Consider Bill to Ensure ‘Public Safety’ in Bathrooms

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Texas is taking measures to protect its citizens from laws that hinder “common sense and public safety” when it comes to transgender persons being allowed to use both men’s and women’s restrooms.

“This is a public safety issue,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, said during a conference call with reporters Friday.

Legislation filed by Texas state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, seeks to ensure that men and women use separate bathrooms.

Kolkhorst said the bill, titled the Texas Privacy Act, will clarify who will be allowed to enter both men’s and women’s restrooms.

“I don’t view this bill as a transgender bill,” Kolkhorst said in the conference call. “It truly is about public safety … It is not against the law for a man to enter a woman’s restroom dressed looking like a man. There is nothing on the books here in Texas.”

The gender on a person’s birth certificate would determine which bathroom Texans could use.

“In Texas, there is a way to change your birth certificate and it is going before a district judge and presenting the date of either hormone therapy or the surgery and then the judge makes the decision that [the gender on] the birth certificate shall be changed,” Kolkhorst said.

Patrick said the bill is necessary because it is “common practice” that men and women use separate bathrooms.

“The people of Texas elected us to stand up for common decency, common sense, and public safety,” Patrick said in a statement. “This legislation codifies what has been common practice in Texas and everywhere else forever—that men and women should use separate, designated bathrooms.”

Patrick says the legislation has received bipartisan support and is viewed favorably by men and women, African-Americans, and Hispanics.

While ensuring that bathrooms remain separate for men and women, the bill also specifies that “no public school can institute a bathroom policy that allows boys to go in girls restrooms, showers, and locker rooms and girls to go in boys restrooms, showers, and locker rooms,” according to Patrick’s statement.

According to Patrick’s office, the hearing for the Texas Privacy Act is the first legislative hearing for privacy protection legislation following President Donald Trump’s revocation of President Barack Obama’s bathroom directive issued by the Justice and Education departments in May.

Obama’s directive allowed students identifying as transgender to be able to use the restroom that corresponded with their gender identity and mandated schools conform to the rule.

Trump rescinded the directive in late February, and a statement from the White House on bathroom usage specified that policy for those who identify as transgender should be decided by the states.

Opponents of the Texas bill say they are concerned that Kolkhorst’s legislation is too similar to the bathroom bill passed by North Carolina last March.

During a conference call with reporters, Patrick said that he does not believe the Texas Privacy Act will have adverse economic effects.

Critics of North Carolina’s bill claim the state lost out on economic opportunities because of the bill, CNN reports.

According to CNN, businesses chose not to expand because of the bill and the NBA moved its All-Star Game from Charlotte, North Carolina, to a location outside the state.

However, former North Carolina Commerce Secretary John Skvarla said North Carolina’s economy was not adversely affected, according to The Charlotte Observer.

“It hasn’t moved the needle one iota,” Skvarla said in October.

Patrick argued the Texas bill was different than the North Carolina bill.

“I think there has been significant misrepresentation in what happened in North Carolina,” Patrick said. “Our bill is not the North Carolina bill … Our bill is very narrow and it deals with public safety, keeping sexual predators pretending to be transgender people [from entering] adult bathrooms.”

Ryan T. Anderson, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that this bill is appropriate because it seeks to protect the dignity of all people.

“While we must be sensitive to the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of people who identify as transgender, that is not a reason to ignore the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of everyone else,” Anderson said in an email to The Daily Signal.

The Texas Privacy Act hearing is scheduled for March 7 in the Texas Senate. (For more from the author of “Texas Legislature to Consider Bill to Ensure ‘Public Safety’ in Bathrooms” please click HERE)

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Latest Court Decision Blocking Texas’ Attempt to Defund Planned Parenthood Shows Need for Congressional Action

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A U.S. district judge has blocked the state of Texas from cutting off Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding. This is the sixth instance in which a court has prevented a state from denying Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood: Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana have also attempted to make Planned Parenthood ineligible for funds.

On Dec. 20, 2016, the Office of Inspector General at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission sent a final notice informing Planned Parenthood that its participation in the state’s Medicaid program would be discontinued.

Referencing Center for Medical Progress videos released by pro-life activists in 2015, the notice informed Planned Parenthood that the inspector general “finds you are not qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner under … state and federal law pertaining to Medicaid providers.”

According to Judge Sam Sparks’ ruling, the notice outlined specific alleged violations of accepted standards of medical practice by Planned Parenthood:

1. “A history of deviating from accepted standards to procure samples that meet researcher’s needs.”

2. “A history of permitting staff physicians to alter procedures to obtain targeted tissue samples needed for their specific outside research.”

3. “A willingness to convert normal pregnancies to the breech position to ensure researchers receive intact specimens.”

4. “An admission that ‘we get what we need to do to alter the standard of care where we are still maintaining patient safety, still maintaining efficiency in clinic operations, but we integrate research into it.’”

5. “An admission that Planned Parenthood gets requests for ‘information from our study sponsor on what data they need that is not our standard of care,’ and that [Planned Parenthood] provides what is needed by creating a separate research protocol or template that can include medically unnecessary testing.”

6. “A willingness to charge more than the costs incurred for procuring fetal tissue.”
Planned Parenthood sought a preliminary injunction claiming that Texas violated a federal statute commonly referred to as the Medicaid “free choice of provider” provision, which says that beneficiaries may obtain medical services “from any institution, agency, community pharmacy, or person qualified to perform the service or services required … who undertakes to provide him such services … ”

On Tuesday, Sparks sided with Planned Parenthood and issued the requested injunction.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately announced plans to appeal the decision, sharply criticizing the judge’s decision to rule that “willingness to violate state and federal law on manipulating abortion procedures and profiting from the sale of fetal tissue, making false statements to law enforcement, and misleading multiple courts were insufficient grounds for Texas to exclude Planned Parenthood” from the state’s program. Planned Parenthood has denied any illegal activity.

In a press release, Texas Right to Life expressed disappointment in the decision, but added that it “hopes Texas will soon prevail in the decision to award Medicaid contracts to ethical providers that offer health services to Texas women and families”

Congress should follow Texas’ lead and end federal funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates and other abortion providers.

Disqualifying Planned Parenthood affiliates and other abortion providers from receiving Title X family planning grants, Medicaid reimbursements, and other grants and contracts does not reduce the overall funding for women’s health care.

The funds currently flowing to abortion providers can instead be distributed to health centers that offer comprehensive health care without entanglement with abortion on demand.

Congress should take this step in the context of the upcoming budget reconciliation bill to repeal Obamacare, ensuring that package includes a provision (just as the 2015 version of the bill did) that would make Planned Parenthood affiliates ineligible from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for one year after the enactment of the bill.

Ultimately, Congress should send the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which passed in the House of Representatives in January, to the president’s desk for signature. (For more from the author of “Latest Court Decision Blocking Texas’ Attempt to Defund Planned Parenthood Shows Need for Congressional Action” please click HERE)

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SCOTUS Declines to Protect Texas from Tyrannical Lower Court Injunction on Voter ID Law

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Americans must show a form of photo ID to purchase a pack of Sudafed or to engage in any major transaction. Yet according to almost every lower court — including the “conservative” Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — states can’t use their plenary power over election procedures to require a photo ID in order to protect the integrity of our democracy. Today, the Supreme Court declined to take up the appeal from the state of Texas in a bid to overturn the Fifth Circuit’s unconstitutional opinion.

My point is not to criticize the passive decision of the Supreme Court today, but rather to demonstrate how the entire conception of the modern federal judiciary as it relates to constitutional construction and its role in law-making is irremediably broken. And while it’s important to select the best nominee to SCOTUS as possible, merely “appointing good judges” alone will not save us from the tyranny of lower courts, absent wholesale judicial reform.

In Abbott v. Veasey, the Fifth Circuit upheld most of a district court’s ruling in describing Texas’s voter ID law as discriminatory against blacks, in violation of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. The 9-6 en banc decision, which included some GOP-appointed judges, essentially said that blacks are too dumb and poor to provide a photo ID for the foundation of our democracy, even though they would be provided with one by the state free of charge. Today, the Supreme Court declined to take up the appeal. Chief Justice Roberts noted that because the case is not fully decided (it was remanded to the district court for further adjudication), he reserves the right to grant cert to a future appeal when the issue is finalized, but took a pass for the time being.

The decision from Roberts seems reasonable enough given the workload of the Supreme Court and that none of the conservatives, including Thomas, dissented from this denial (as he has done in previous denials of cert on important issues). However, this further proves my point about the broken nature of the judiciary. The capacity of good judges to do good is not nearly equal to the capacity of post-constitutional judges to do harm.

No state should have to wait even a single day to implement such a common sense regulation that is well within its constitutional powers. Yet, liberal groups have the ability to get an injunction against basic voter integrity laws within weeks and then encumber the law in the system for years. Even if we ultimately fill Scalia’s seat with an originalist, it will take years to grant relief to the states embattled by the legal profession and the lower courts. Unlike liberal Supreme Court justices who would take any opportunity to use their majority on the high court to overturn anything they disagree with from a lower court, conservative judges are never as aggressive the other way. The notion that a lower court, which is an institution created by Congress, can steal state powers away from the state — and that decision is not swatted down by the Supreme Court immediately — is one of the many reasons why we need wholesale reform.

Even if Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires and we successfully fill both her seat and Scalia’s seat with orginalists (relatively speaking), the 5-4 majority (yes, Kennedy is on the left) would not be a full safety valve for the Constitution. So much of the anti-constitutional jurisprudence surrounding the Fourteenth Amendment has been legitimized or at least tolerated by the legal Right that cases such as the Texas voter ID law will inhibit states from doing what they need to do to protect their elections in a timely fashion.

This is why, in addition to nominating the best judges to the Supreme Court, Congress should:

1. Immediately fill lower court vacancies and not wait the traditional six months to begin the process. [I’ll have more on this in a few days].

2. Finally harness their Article III Sec. 2 plenary power to “regulate and except” the jurisdiction of at least the lower courts, as I advocate in my book. All lower courts should be barred from adjudicating cases overturning state election laws. Those cases should be left to state courts, which are usually elected by the people of the state.

3. Pass resolutions explicitly defining the scope of the Voting Rights Act and prevent courts from using past erroneous precedent to apply anti-discrimination laws against universal voter integrity measures that are manifestly not discriminatory. The federal judiciary, especially lower courts created by Congress, don’t have a monopoly on constitutional interpretation, much less statutory interpretation. The House recently passed a similar bill with regard to regulatory litigation, barring the courts from using “the Chevron Doctrine” to allow executive agencies to bastardize environmental statutes in a way that was never intended by the legislative branch.

Supreme law Hierarchy

Most importantly, as we commence a national debate over the next SCOTUS nominee, conservatives inside and outside of Congress must utilize this focus to educate the public on the true role of the court system. As I’ve written before, even those founders who believed federal courts have the power of judicial review, understood that they are not the sole and final arbiter of every political issue. Judicial review does not equal judicial supremacy. The judiciary’s power is certainly not greater than the power of Congress, which in itself fully created the institution of the federal judiciary and has the power to regulate the court’s jurisdiction.

Many Republicans are giddy about assuming full control over the federal government and 33 state legislatures. But if nothing is done to reverse the false deference to judicial supremacy, the election will be rendered moot and the Constitution will continue to be tarnished. (For more from the author of “SCOTUS Declines to Protect Texas from Tyrannical Lower Court Injunction on Voter ID Law” please click HERE)

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