Legislative Priority Report for March 5, 2021

With the warmer temperatures we have been blessed with the last few days comes some movement in our bills that match our Legislative Priorities. We have eight bills that have been assigned to a committee, so that means it is time to begin contacting the chairman of each committee along with the committee members and asking for a hearing and a vote to move that bill out of committee. We have three Election Integrity bills that have been assigned to the Elections Committee. Those bill numbers are HB 329 (Cain), HB 335, (Cain), and HB 574 (G. Bonnen.

There are three Religious Freedom bills assigned, HB 525 (Shaheen) to State Affairs, HJR 33 (Swanson) to Licensing and Administrative Procedures. HB 573 (Oliverson) has been assigned to Insurance. Our Children and Gender Modification priority, HB 68 (Toth), has been assigned to Public Health. And, lastly, under Monument Protection, HB 446 (Allison) has been referred to Criminal Justice. A list of committee chairs and members can be found online here.

When it comes to contacting committee members, it doesn't matter if the representative is from your district or not. When legislators are sitting on committees, they are making decisions that affect all Texans, so your voice should be heard.

When you call or email, simply say something like this:

"Representative, I understand you chair (or sit on) the Elections committee. I would like HB 329 to have a hearing and be passed to the floor for a vote. Would you please take this bill up in your committee? We are watching to see what happens. Thank you very much."

Getting through the committee process is a challenge for some of our bills, because if there is reluctance to vote on a bill, then it is easy to let it sit in committee without a hearing and then it can be said that there wasn't time to give it a hearing. If we make our voices heard that we want a hearing for our bills, it will be harder to ignore them.

The Legislative Priority committee has approved some additional bills in support of Religious Freedom. They are HB 1424, HB 1487, HB 1569, HB 1579, HB 1691, SB 797, SB 654, SB 797. We anticipate we will have more after we meet today on Tax-Payer Funded Lobbying and Children and Gender Modification.

Speaking of the priority on banning gender reassignment surgeries, hormone therapies, and puberty blockers in children and adolescents, the Alabama Senate just passed a bill making it a felony. Their House has already approved a companion bill. We need to do the same in Texas. Currently, one of the bills we are supporting, HB 68, has already been referred to the Public Health Committee. We are also looking for HB 1399 to be assigned to a committee soon.

We now have an additional tool to help you. Here is a link to our new digital Legislative Priorities guide, which describes each priority and includes several talking points. We also include the contact information for each Representative and Senator. Please put your elected officials' contact information in your phone, to make it easy to contact them on a weekly basis.

We are also holding several rallies across the state. The next one is tomorrow in El Paso. Your voice is being heard in Austin. Please continue to make your phone calls and send emails. Time is ticking and we don't have many days left in the session. We ask the Speaker and Lt. Governor to please stop recessing the House and Senate. There is work to do and it is curious they want to take a six-day weekend at this point in the session.

The great news is that the Capitol, the people's house, is open and you are encouraged to go visit your representatives in person if you can. Visits from constituents are always welcomed.

For God and Texas,

Jill Glover
SREC, SD 12
Chair, SREC Legislative Priorities Committee

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