We keep hearing "This will be our most conservative session" in a very long time, but unless a miracle happens between now and the end of the 87th Legislative Session happens, it will be nothing but a fail for Texans. You, conservative voters of Texas, know we are speaking the truth. We want to go over some of this, so that when your Senator and State Rep comes home to your district and says "we made great progress this session, you just need to send me back next session, so I can complete the job," or "people just don't understand how things work at the Texas Capitol," you will not be intimidated or silenced into compliance. You will know that something is wrong when Republicans control the Senate, the House, the Governorship, the LT Governorship, every committee at the Capitol including the Calendars Committee, yet democrats seem to get their way and come out ahead. Something is terribly wrong when State Reps. like Burrows, Oliverson, Jetton, and Hull - manage to get a bill to the Calendars Committee and on the House floor, that creates a new Texas Holiday. The cause for celebration? Islam's first victory over non-Muslim forces. smh You know something is wrong when SB1416 (monument protection bill) is filed on 3/10/21, sent to the Natural Resources & Economic Development Committee on 3/18/21, but hasn't had public testimony nor moved since then. Sen. Birdwell sat on this bill at the direction of LT Gov. Dan Patrick, despite the bill being a priority, despite 97.3% of conservative Texans voting for Monument Protection back in 2020. Meanwhile bills like make San Marcus the mermaid capitol of Texas, Dr. Pepper becoming the states official drink, and other inconsequential bills to move & pass without incident. What about HB3013, a bill that stated "keep the focus of the Alamo on the 1836 Battle of the Alamo" was blown out of the water after Democrats added 7 amendments that puts the focus on slavery & honoring slaves, even though the Battle of the Alamo wasn't fought over slavery and slavery didn't play any significant part of the battle. Where were Republicans then? Where were our elected officials when a important bill and the bill author needed them? Now the best we can hope for is that the bill is withdrawn by the author or the Senate kills the bill. THE BIG FAIL It comes down to this, Texas's grass roots have spent our time and treasure to coerce, lean on and corral our Texas Republican leadership to pass the top 8 legislative priorities. Out of the 75 bills currently on their way to Gov Abbott's desk, none of them are the top 8 priority bills. We had a 90% chance to pass "Monument Protection", we had good odds that Constitutional Carry would pass without being watered down, but the future does not look bright at this moment. This Is Texas Freedom Force spent 1,728 hours (collectively as a organization) at the Texas Capitol working on Monument Protection (1,463 hours) and Constitutional Carry (265 hours). TITFF followed the process of monument protection since day 1 (filing of SB1416, HB2713, HB3013 & HB446) and what we learned along the way is shocking, but that's another topic for a different article coming soon. One priority bill did pass the House, the Heartbeat Bill, which will help save Texans lives, but the bill is imperfect when it comes to abolishing abortion in Texas, but it has not been heard in the Senate. Election Integrity was debated on the House floor, but democrats seem to be running the show, so the amendments added are just making it weaker and weaker. Speaker Phelan, has yet to bid that the chair of the House calendars committee Rep Burrows, put HB1399, the bill for banning pediatric sex change, on the calendar to be heard on the House floor. Chairmen Pattie is still holding up SB10, a ban on some forms of taxpayer-funded lobbying, hostage in his State Affairs Committee, along with a few other priority bills. Senator Birdwell is still holding SB1416, our Senate monument protection bill hostage in committee under the direction of Lt Gov Dan Patrick. Republican Party Chairman Allen West has given Republican Senators & House Reps. a "D" grade for their performance. To many Texans, they don't even deserve a "F", more like a "F-". They have ignored the will of grass roots conservative Texans, and we must hold them accountable. Republican Senators & House Representatives need to ask themselves, do you want to govern for a long political career, or do you want to do the will of the people? We have no use for career politicians here in Texas. "The leadership is going to have a lot to answer for to the conservative grassroots base. Why are we electing Republicans and why are we presenting these legislative priorities if we have individuals making the decisions about what they see as a priority?” The Republican Party of Texas Vice Chair Parks put out a statement earlier this week trying to cover for Republican Representatives. Parks suggests focusing on those priorities as the only metric of success for the Legislature would be shortsighted. This is a year unlike any other. Passage of Texas GOP Legislative Priorities should not be the sole indicator of a successful legislative session. If Texas legislators pass fifty bills related to Republican Party of Texas Platform planks, and only pass one bill from the Texas GOP Legislative Priorities, did we fail as a Party? While current Texas GOP messaging says yes, Texas Republican voters indicate otherwise,” Her comments were dissonant to actions from the party since Chairman Allen West was elected to lead the Texas GOP in July of last year. Since then, West has placed a heavy focus on the priorities, as well as the failure of the Republican-dominated Legislature to address them in past years. Earlier this year, the party hosted a rally promoting the priorities ahead of the start of the legislative session. Parks was not in attendance, go figure. Republican Party Chairmen LTC Allen West fired back at Parks's comments saying The legislative priorities of the Republican Party of Texas are generated from the grassroots membership of the Republican Party of Texas through the delegates at our state convention, and our delegates are representative of the voices of Republicans in Texas. So when we look at these eight legislative priorities, the definition of success is related to those delegates and those voters out there believing that their priorities that they see as important are passing,” " It is my responsibility as the chairman of the Republican Party of Texas to be that gladiator that goes into the arena for them … to really fight hard and to advocate for those legislative priorities to be passed." "While there are many issues that should be addressed by the Legislature, “when you look at the principles and values of who we are as Republicans in the state of Texas, these are the things they want to ensure are passed.” This Is Texas Freedom Force is going extremely upset that our priority bill, monument protection, was blocked by Dan Patrick and stalled by several House Representatives. This legislative session has been a complete failure that has not passed a single one of the Republican Parties priority bills (remember Constitutional Carry still hasn't been signed into law). TITFF will be looking at our priority monument protection bills in the House and Senate, we will look at the committees they were in & calendars committee, as well as the votes from these committees, and we will let you know how many of our Republican Representatives and Senators stood in our way. We Then you get to decide what to do next.
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