Email: Texas Scorecard by Michael Quinn Sullivan 4/4/2023
Senate Removes ‘Grandfather Clause’ to Child Gender Mutilation Ban
• Grassroots activists seeking to protect children scored a big win in the Senate yesterday.
• A week after adding a controversial amendment watering down popular legislation, members of the Texas Senate voted to remove the offending language yesterday.
• As Sydnie Henry reports, a last-minute “grandfather clause” was added to a proposed ban on child gender mutilation procedures in Texas. That clause would have exempted any child who had been started on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones before June 3 of this year.
• Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi said the clause amounted to “abandoning every child currently being abused.”
• Grassroots activists immediately began calling their lawmakers, putting pressure on the Senate the correct the wrong. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was clearly listening, in his role as the Senate leader.
• Yesterday, senators voted 19-11 along party lines to approve reconsideration of the amendment and then its removal from the legislation.
• Senate Bill 14 prohibits medical providers from performing “gender transition” surgeries or prescribing cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers to children under the age of 18 who are suffering from gender dysphoria. It would also require the Texas Medical Board to strip the license of any physician who provides these treatments, and would prohibit the use of public funds for these procedures or drugs. The Senate will finalize their vote today and then send the measure to the House for consideration.
School Districts Urged To Leave TASB
• Just one week after Carroll Independent School District became the first district in the state to leave the embattled Texas Association of School Boards, the district's trustees are calling on others to do likewise. Brandon Waltens has the details.
• Currently, local taxpayer dollars are used to fund TASB membership fees and services that include training, legal advice, and insurance. It has also been criticized for lobbying against parents.
• At a Capitol press conference, State Rep. Nate Schatzline (R–Fort Worth) praised Carroll ISD and encouraged others to follow suit. He compared TASB’s training programs to “leftist indoctrination camps.”
• “Sending our communities' taxpayer dollars to an organization that pushes the very ideologies that our community overwhelmingly rejected in the last three elections would be disingenuous to those that have entrusted us to represent them,” said Cameron Bryan, the president of the Carroll ISD Board of Trustees.
TASB Threatens To Sue School Districts That Leave
• In the wake of Carroll ISD’s school board terminating its membership with the Texas Association of School Boards, the organization is now threatening to sue schools that leave the association. Emily Wilkerson has the details.
• Until now, TASB has claimed all Texas public school districts as members, but the association recently came under fire for controversial actions like promoting critical race theory and allowing gender-confused students to use the restroom of the opposite sex.
• Last week, the Carroll ISD school board passed a resolution that would terminate their membership with TASB by the end of the calendar year. The board also directed the superintendent to find alternative means of obtaining services provided by TASB.
• TASB sent a letter to the Texas Council of School Attorneys, claiming it retains all rights to legal policies and unadopted local model policies or templates implemented from TASB Policy Service. That would include "letter codes and coding structure" used by school districts.
• Their position was mocked by State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian). The lawmaker posted to social media: "In other words: 'if you don’t send us tons of $$ to hire liberal lobbyists, then you can’t use our fancy numbering system (that we developed at taxpayer expense) in your policy manuals.'"
• TASB has gone from leftist lobby organization to money-grubbing thugs in a blindingly short amount of time – which is probably a reminder that there really isn’t any difference between those two things.
Texans Want To Protect Children From Porn
• With increasing numbers of children addicted to online pornography, citizens are lining up to support proposed legislation that would crack down on underage access to pornographic material. Sydnie Henry has the details from a Senate committee hearing that took place yesterday.
• “We have an entire generation of young kids who are accessing porn—to the point they don’t even think it’s an issue, much less a problem,” said Deborah Berry, a Texas mom who testified in favor of new restrictions.
• Under legislation proposed by State Sen. Angela Paxton (R-McKinney), device manufacturers would be required to turn on an explicit material filter upon purchase. Utah was the first state to do this, and eight other states have similar pieces of legislation pending.
• Paxton highlighted research that shows pornography is addictive and that “exposure to explicit content in childhood is linked to an increase in the demand for child pornography, child exploitation, human trafficking, and prostitution.”
• Paxton has also authored legislation (SB 2021) that "requires a publisher or distributor of sexually explicit website content to create an 18+ age verification in order to view the website content."
• Both measures were left pending in the Senate Committee on State Affairs.
After Being Banned From A&M Campus, Drag Show Targets Kids In Amarillo Park
• After West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler canceled a drag show on the university's property, students held an “all-ages” drag show off campus at an Amarillo city park in protest. Katy Marshall has the story.
• “A Fool’s Drag Race” had been set to be held at the university’s campus event hall until it was kicked off campus. Wendler condemned drag shows as stereotyping "women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others."
• The drag show was advertised as a fundraiser for The Trevor Project, a controversial nonprofit that hosts online chats between LGBTQ minors as young as 13 and adults up to 24.
• Pictures from the event show several young children in the audience. According to Sarah Fields, president of the Texas Freedom Coalition, the park was within view of a playground and across the street from a middle school.
Today in History
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
Quote-Unquote
"A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law."
– Martin Luther King Jr.
