Texas Eagle Forum
State Legislative Alert (May 2, 1999)
by Cathie Adams, president, cathieadams@texaseagle.org
IN THIS ISSUE:

Contact your State Legislator

Capitol switchboard: 512-463-4630

Legislator’s e-mail:

    House member: firstname.lastname@house.state.tx.us
    Senate member: firstname.lastname@senate.state.tx.us

You can obtain the full text of the bills at http://www.capitol.state.tx.us

As we enter this last month of the Texas legislative session, two important issues are still not settled: parental notification for abortions performed on minor girls and hate crimes.

ABORTION
In a meeting last week with Gov. Bush’s Legislative Director Terral Smith, pro-family leaders made it adamantly clear that we will NOT accept a weak bill. We are set to oppose any bill that:
We expect State Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Wolens to allow a bill out of his committee today, May 3rd. Stay tuned!

HATE CRIMES
The House author Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, delayed a vote on her hate crimes legislation, HB 938, until last Tuesday, April 27th. In the end, liberals carried the day with a final vote of 83 for and 61 against. Several Democrat House members had expressed deep dislike for the bill to our volunteer lobbyist, Carolyn Galloway, but only one courageous Democrat voted against the bill: Bob Turner from Voss, TX. The bill is now in the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

I witnessed the debate on the House floor and here are some details. Republicans who voted for the debacle were: Kip Averitt from Waco, Warren Chisum from Pampa who also amended the bill to change “sexual orientation” to “sexual preference” which doesn’t alter the bill’s protection of homosexuals and bisexuals, Tony Goolsby from Dallas, Pat Haggerty from El Paso, Delwin Jones from Lubbock, Tommy Merritt from Longview and Jim Pitts from Waxahachie who amended the bill to increase the financial penalty. Those with excused absences were Ronny Crownover, R-Denton; Dianne Delisi, R-Temple; Paul Hilbert, R-Spring and Mark Homer, D-Paris. Absent without excuse was Domingo Garcia, D-Dallas, but he later said he supported the bill.

Speaking in favor of the “hate crimes” bill besides the author Thompson were Steve Wolens, D-Dallas who talked about historical injustices that has been remedied by civil rights laws such as restaurants and theatres separating blacks and whites; Paul Moreno, D-El Paso who said that “white folk “deny, deny and deny” the need for this legislation because they’ve never experienced the need for it; Scott Hochberg, D-Houston who also amended the bill to include “hate” graffiti and Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso.

Those speaking against the bill and offering weakening amendments include Charlie Howard, R-Sugar Land who rightly stated that he would be derelict in his duty as a State Representative to NOT try to make the bill better even though he opposed it altogether; Rick Green, R-Dripping Springs; John Smithee, R-Amarillo; Wayne Christian, R-Center who spoke eloquently stating that only God can change the hearts and minds of men and therefore deal with “hate;” Joe Nixon, R-Houston who said the bill violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution; David Swinford, R-Dumas who said the bill opposes Biblical principles, the state and U.S. Constitutions and treats his constituents unequally; and Suzanna Hupp, R-Lampasas whose parents were killed by a criminal in Luby’s Cafeteria a few years ago. She explained that the bill advocated a higher penalty for her mother’s death than her father’s, but that her mother was not more valuable than her father.

The amended HB 938 has now been sent to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. You can express your opinion to your Senator and committee members by writing:
P.O. Box 12068, Austin, TX 78711-2068.
Committee members include:
Ken.Armbrister@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0118
Bob.Duncan@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0128
Mike.Jackson@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0111
robert.duncan@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0128
Jane.Nelson@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0109
Florence.Shapiro@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0108


Delay/Decline Mandated Vaccine- HB1347
Material on HB1347 is supplied from:
Dawn Richardson, President
PROVE(Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education)
P.O. Box 1071
Cedar Park, TX 78630-1071
(512) 918-8760
prove@swbell.net (email)

A L E R T - U R G E N T - MORE SUPPORT NEEDED FOR HB 1347 to guarantee the right of a parent to delay or decline a state mandated vaccine for their child in Texas.

WE NEED EVERYONE TO CONTACT CALENDARS COMMITTEE MEMBERS AGAIN THIS WEEK BY CALLS, FAXES, AND EMAIL. Please have anybody you know who cares about their children and their parental rights to do the same. Even if you did it last week, please, we really need you to do it again and to commit to finding others to do the same!

Our conscientious exemption for vaccination bill (HB 1347) is still stuck in Calendars Committee, and if we don't get it out of there very soon, we won't have time to pass it out of the House and get it to the Senate. We have come too far to have this happen now. We have a lot of support if we get it out, so that is why our opponents are trying whatever it takes behind the scenes to prevent the bill from getting out of this committee, but we have the truth and the fact that we are the registered voters behind us.

We are definitely making an impact, but it has not been enough to get them to schedule the bill. We really need EVERYONE to put the BIG TIME heat on this week. We are getting so much closer, but we need everyone's commitment, time and energy to get around this obstacle. Make sure that you also don't forget to get all this information to your personal Representative and Senator too. Remember, we are in this together for OUR children.

DON'T DELAY - We don't have any time to spare. PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY!

Thanks to your faxes, calls and testimony, the House Public Health Committee, on April 7th, voted 6:1 in favor of parental rights regarding immunization by amending the Texas immunization exemption laws to broaden the religious exemption and to add reasons of conscience.

HOWEVER, there are those in opposition to this bill who proclaim that they don't trust parents to make health decisions for their children and that the lives and health of some of our children at greater risk for injury and death from a vaccine are expendable in the name of the "greater good."

For the sake of our children, we need everyone to commit to thwarting this attack on our efforts to reclaim our parental rights in Texas to protect our children by arming our legislators with the education to counter some of the misleading information being presented to them. Stand up and get involved NOW!

Health Start/Health Families
On March 17th, I sent you the following e-mail ALERT: Texas Eagle Pat Carlson has been monitoring the House Appropriations Committee in Austin. The nearly $40 billion Texas budget is overwhelming, but she has focused on funding for a privacy invasive program called Healthy Start/Healthy Families.

Sold as a child abuse prevention program, Healthy Start/Healthy Families allows social workers from the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (DPRS), better known as Child Protective Services, to monitor families with newborns via in-home visits until the child is five years old. Legislation to create the bureaucracy was defeated in 1995, regardless, $3.1 million was dedicated to the program in 1997. Now, the DPRS is asking for another $1.8 million in order to add ten new programs to the existing 16.

WHERE WE STAND NOW: The Conference Committee dealing with the Texas budget has been named.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Please ask the following members to OPPOSE all funding for the Healthy Families/Healthy Start program. THANK YOU for responding today because the committee will meet this weekend, May 2nd:
george.west@house.state.tx.us512-463-0546
talmadge.heflin@house.state.tx.us512-463-0568
bill.ratliff@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0101
robert.duncan@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0128
troy.fraser@senate.state.tx.us512-463-0124




Legislative Advertising, Texas Eagle Forum, Cathie Adams, P.O. Box 795354, Dallas, TX 75379.

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