Moore County Journal

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an attempt by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to challenge a California ban on state-funded travel to states with discriminatory laws — a list Texas landed on in 2017 after the Legislature approved a religious-refusal law for adoptions in the state.

The move comes as the Texas Legislature grapples with a slate of anti-LGBTQ bills that business leaders warn could be harmful to Texans and a threat to the state’s economy, which is still reeling from the recession that accompanied the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, the court, charged with hearing disputes between states, declined to hear Paxton’s challenge, filed early last year. The ban prevents California agencies, public universities and boards from funding work-related trips to Texas.

There was no reason given for the denial of Paxton’s request, but Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Both were appointed by then President George H.W. Bush, the first Houston Republican elected to Congress. Paxton couldn’t be immediately reached for comment late Monday.

In June 2017, shortly after the Texas Legislature moved to allow foster care agencies to use religious reasons to deny same-sex couples the right to foster children, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra blasted the law that he said “allows foster care agencies to discriminate against children in foster care and potentially disqualify LGBT families from the state’s foster and adoption system.”

The law was authored by state Rep. James Frank, a Wichita Falls Republican who now chairs the House Human Services Committee, and allows faith-based organizations to deny services for certain contraceptives and refuse to contract with organizations that don’t share their religious beliefs. It requires providers to refer parents or children to a different agency if they refuse to provide services themselves.

Paxton, who has made religious liberty a top priority of his office, at the time criticized the California statute as an unconstitutional and misguided attempt to police other states.

“California is attempting to punish Texans for respecting the right of conscience for foster care and adoption providers,” he said.

But if the move by the Golden State was meant to curb Texas’ appetite for anti-LGBTQ legislation, it has not had the intended effect.

Last fall, under recommendations from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a state board that oversees behavioral health workers stripped three categories from the code of conduct establishing when a social worker may refuse service to someone: On the basis of disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Abbott said at the time that those protections went beyond state law, but the move set off such a firestorm of criticism that the board reinstated the protections two weeks later.

Then last week, members of the business group Texas Competes — composed of more than 1,450 Texas employers, business and tourism groups and backed by big tech companies like Houston-based Hewlett Packard — listed 26 proposals winding through the Texas Legislature that they say will infringe on LGBTQ Texans’ rights, “tarnish Texas’s welcoming brand” and scare away tourism and business.

They include restrictions on access to gender confirmation health care for transgender children, which is awaiting a debate in the Texas Senate. A bill already passed by that chamber would prevent public school students from participating in sports teams unless their sex assigned at birth aligns with the team’s designation.

While that bill would only affect students in K-12 schools, two similar bills in the House would include colleges and universities in that mandate. Last week, the chair of the House committee assigned the Senate’s sports bill told the Houston Chronicle that the lower chamber’s companion legislation likely doesn’t have enough support to leave committee.

The Texas Senate passed the bill on transgender athletes shortly after the NCAA announced that they would only hold national championships in states where transgender student-athletes are allowed to participate.

If Texas lands on that list as well, the state could lose out on as much as $1 billion dollars of economic impact if the NCAA canceled its events currently slated to take place in Texas — such as the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship game set for Houston and the 2023 Women’s Final Four in Dallas, said Lisa Hermes, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce in McKinney, north of Dallas.

Among the states California has targeted with its travel ban is North Carolina, after the state enacted a law requiring state agencies to maintain separate-sex bathrooms and changing facilities.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has championed similar legislation in the past, even making the so-called “bathroom bill” a legislative priority in 2017, but it did not pass.

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The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it won’t hear a case filed by Texas and 13 other states that seeks to revive a Trump-era “public charge” immigration rule, stating they need an opinion from a lower court first.

The issue before the courts stems from the Trump administration’s decision to broaden definition of the term “public charge” in 2019 to include noncitizens who rely, or will likely rely on, Medicaid, food assistance such as food stamps, housing assistance, and prescription drug benefits through Medicare Part D.

Under current law, a public charge is any noncitizen who will likely become “primarily” reliant on certain government assistance programs — meaning that the programs provide more than half of their income. Immigrants deemed a public charge cannot receive a green card for citizenship.

In March, the Department of Homeland Security under President Joe Biden announced that it would no longer defend the Trump policy in court, dropping appeals originally filed by the Trump administration in several courts.

In 2019, New York led a coalition that filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to block the expanded public charge rule. After a judge ruled for the plaintiffs, the Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which also ruled in favor of the coalition.

The Trump administration appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which agreed to review the case before Biden’s DHS decided to drop the appeals.

A separate challenge to the Trump policy, led by Cook County, Illinois and an advocacy group, led to it being struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in 2020.

“The 2019 public charge rule was not in keeping with our nation’s values. It penalized those who access health benefits and other government services available to them,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said.

Texas and 13 other states filed a lawsuit last month in the Seventh Circuit, seeking to uphold Trump’s expanded public charge rule and arguing that the Biden administration rescinded it without following the Administrative Procedure Act.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also claimed that not having the Trump rule in place would “cost our Medicaid budget and other vital services will explode and be spread too thin, costing taxpayers millions more and reducing the quality of service we can provide.”

After their lawsuit was denied in that court, the 14-state coalition took the case before the nation’s highest court. The Supreme Court’s decision Monday means that it won’t immediately take up the case led by Texas, at least until a lower court weighs in.

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Former President Donald Trump has endorsed fellow Republican Susan Wright in the crowded Saturday special election to replace her late husband, U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington.

The endorsement is a massive development in a race that features 11 Republicans, including two former Trump administration officials. A number of the GOP contenders have been closely aligning themselves with the former president.

“Susan Wright will be a terrific Congresswoman (TX-06) for the Great State of Texas,” Trump said in a statement Monday. “She is the wife of the late Congressman Ron Wright, who has always been supportive of our America First Policies.”

The special election was triggered by Ron Wright’s death in February after he was hospitalized with COVID-19. In addition to the 11 Republicans, Saturday’s ballot includes 10 Democrats, one Libertarian and one independent.

Wright’s Republican rivals include Brian Harrison, the chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Trump, and Sery Kim, who worked at the Small Business Administration under the former president. There is also Dan Rodimer, the former pro wrestler who moved to Texas after an unsuccessful congressional campaign last year in Nevada that had Trump’s support.

The candidates’ efforts to show their loyalty to Trump has gotten so intense that a Trump spokesperson had to issue a statement last week clarifying that had not gotten involved in the race yet.

Early voting for the special election started a week ago and ends Tuesday.

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Texas will continue to see its political clout grow as it gains two additional congressional seats following the 2020 census, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Monday.

Thanks to its fast-growing population — largely due to an increase in residents of color, particularly Hispanics — the state’s share of votes in the U.S. House of Representatives will increase to 38 for the next decade. The new counts reflect a decade of population growth since the last census, which determines how many congressional seats are assigned to each state.

More detailed data, which lawmakers need to redraw legislative and congressional districts to reflect that growth, isn’t expected until early fall. But census estimates have shown it’s been driven by people of color.

Through 2019, Hispanics had accounted for more than half of the state’s population growth since 2010, a gain of more than 2 million residents. And though it makes up a small share of the total population, estimates showed the state’s Asian population has grown the fastest since 2010. Estimates have also shown the state’s growth has been concentrated in diverse urban centers and suburban communities.

With its gain of two seats, the state’s footprint in the Electoral College will grow to 40 votes. But Texas will remain in second place behind California for the largest congressional delegation and share of Electoral College votes.

The state’s political heft has been growing steadily for decades. Texas has gained at least one additional congressional seat after every census since 1950, according to the Census Bureau. It’s gained two or more seats after every census since 1980.

The state’s congressional delegation is currently made up by 22 Republicans and 13 Democrats, with one vacant seat following the recent death of Republican Ron Wright.

Congressional and state House and Senate districts need to be reconfigured before the 2022 elections to account for the new population figures, and spread residents across districts that were drawn to be close to equal in population 10 years ago but are now significantly out of balance.

But the Census Bureau is running far behind schedule in reporting detailed results because of delays forced by the coronavirus pandemic and interference from the Trump administration. The detailed population numbers lawmakers need to redraw districts to reflect the state’s growth will be delivered by Sept. 30 — far past the end of the 2021 legislative session that ends next month.

This will almost certainly require Gov. Greg Abbott to call lawmakers back to the Capitol for a rare special session in the fall to draw new political maps. The litigation that will inevitably follow is likely to upend the election schedule for the 2022 primaries, when voters pick winners from each party to face off in the general election.

Decade after decade, federal courts have found that Texas lawmakers discriminated against voters of colors during their mapmaking by working to intentionally dilute the power of their votes, and their maps have regularly violated the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act. The 2021 round of political mapmaking will be the first in nearly half a century without federal oversight that was meant to shield voters of color living in states with a long history of discrimination like Texas from discriminatory maps.

Texas’ original maps from 2011 were eventually ruled unconstitutional and federal judges found lawmakers purposefully diminished the voting strength of voters of color in the Texas House and in several congressional districts. Court fights over the maps resulted in the 2012 primary elections being pushed back by more than two months even without any census-related delays at the time. Under the state’s current schedule, the filing deadline for candidates hoping to be on the 2022 primary ballot is Dec. 13.

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Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan in a speech to colleagues Monday called for reforms to some of the chamber’s policies relating to sexual harassment training and reporting, days after an allegation came to light that a lobbyist used a date rape drug on a Capitol staffer.

“These allegations shake our Capitol family to its core,” the first-term Republican speaker said soon after the House gaveled in, “and I am disgusted that this sort of predatory behavior is still taking place in and around our Capitol.”

On Saturday, the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed it had opened an investigation into a complaint made recently by a Capitol staffer. Officials though have so far declined to comment on further details, including the names of anyone allegedly involved. The news was first reported by the Austin American-Statesman.

News of the allegation prompted state lawmakers, staffers and other Capitol observers to denounce the alleged incident, with some House members declaring on social media they were banning from their Capitol offices any lobbyist or lobby firm associated with the accusation.

By Sunday, HillCo Partners, a prominent Austin-based lobby firm, told state lawmakers in an email that it had launched an internal investigation into the matter, with one co-founder of the firm later telling The Texas Tribune that HillCo had been “tipped off” that one of its employees “is a person of interest” in the investigation.

Phelan said he was directing the House General Investigating Committee to establish an email hotline for staffers in House offices to submit reports or complaints of harassment in the workplace.

The speaker also said he had directed the House Administration Committee to change the chamber’s required sexual harassment prevention training to be completed in-person rather than virtually.

“I stand here today having to address these disgusting, detestable allegations that are a symptom of a culture that has been festering in this building for far too long,” Phelan said during his speech. “There is an active investigation underway, and we must let that process play out. However, this sort of behavior has no place in this Capitol, and moving forward, we can and will do better.”

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Most Texans don’t think the political divisions in the state are as bad as they look; 81% told surveyors for a new Threads of Texas project that Texans’ common attitudes outnumber their differences.

The project, which launches Monday, edges into activism: More in Common, the outfit doing it, will turn to working with other organizations on civic and policy projects, using its assessments of public opinion. The nonprofit bills itself as a nonpartisan counter to divisive politics, out to “address the underlying drivers of fracturing and polarization.”

In 2017, More in Common started a series of national surveys along the same lines, called Hidden Tribes. That report started with this sentence: “America has never felt so divided.” Their analysis of the 2018 elections, based on that work, was that the outcomes had more to do with voter turnout that year than with changes in voting behavior.

This Texas project, researchers said, revealed a different theme as the state went through the 2020 election and into a once-every-two-years legislative session.

“What we found is that, by looking only at Republican or Democrat, or only at immigrant versus native-born, or rural and urban, those fault lines exist, but they’re not as galvanizing in Texas as they are across the national level,” said Christiana Lang, senior associate at More in Common USA. “Texas is unique, and Texans share really strong identities, even across those demographics.

“When we got into the focus groups and really heard from Texans, what came across most memorably were their stories about community, interactions they had with each other, or their neighbors, or teachers or as a parent,” she said.

The group’s aim is to turn to organizations working on problems in various areas like education or civic engagement, Lang said, trying to find ways to connect people in different groups after finding their common interests and attitudes.

In the Texas project, they created seven groups “defined by their orientation and emotion towards change and their understanding of what it means to be Texan.”

Their groups, as they label and describe them:

• Lone Star Progressives — liberal, highly engaged, alienated, critical, empathetic.
• Civic Pragmatists — engaged, civic-minded, pragmatic, rational, measured.
• Rising Mavericks — younger, diverse, proud, critical, multifaceted, politically informed.
• Apolitical Providers — lower income, equality-focused, detached, apprehensive, apolitical.
• Die-hard Texans — proud, Texan-centered, optimistic, traditional, culturally connected, politically disengaged.
• Texas Faithful — patriotic, traditional, faith-oriented, skeptical, conspiratorial.
• Heritage Defenders — white, conservative, partisan, libertarian, embattled.

You can take a test on their website — in English and in Spanish — answering a few questions, to see which pigeonhole they’d put you in.

They started with extensive polling of 4,000 Texas adults in July and August of last year, followed by another round of polling and a series of focus groups this year, after the winter storm that led to devastating electrical outages across Texas.

Some of the results were unsurprising. As the Texas Legislature enters the last month of its 140-day biennial regular session, only 30% agreed that “people like me have a say in politics.” The answers varied among the groups, from a low of 15% among Lone Star Progressives to a high of 43% among Texas Faithful.

Some were unexpected: Corporate activism is a hot topic at the moment, with big companies saying they oppose the proposed restrictions on voting being considered by the Texas Legislature and in other states. In the Threads of Texas project, 59% of adults agree with the statement “big corporations are conspiring against ordinary Americans.” Majorities of five of the seven groups agreed.

The results are interesting, but the next step is the acid test for the project. Can they really get people to work together on problems that have divided us for years?

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After the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed Saturday it’s investigating an allegation that a lobbyist used a date rape drug on at least one Capitol staffer, a prominent Austin-based lobby shop said Sunday it had launched an internal investigation into the matter, telling state lawmakers in an email that the firm and its employees “do not and will not tolerate a culture where anyone is not valued with respect and dignity.”

The DPS investigation, first reported by the Austin American-Statesman, stems from a complaint recently made by a Capitol staffer, though officials have so far declined to comment on further details — including the names of anyone allegedly involved.

“This is an ongoing investigation,” DPS spokesperson Travis Considine told The Texas Tribune on Saturday, “and further details cannot be released at this time.”

Spokespeople for Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, confirmed to the Tribune that their offices had been notified of the DPS investigation late last week.

On Saturday, state lawmakers, staffers and other Capitol observers denounced the alleged incident, with several House members declaring on social media that they were banning from their offices any lobbyist or lobby firm associated with the accusation.

“While the investigation is pending, the accused lobbyist(s) and their firm(s) are banned from my office; and, if true, will be permanently banned,” tweeted state Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican who chairs the powerful House Calendars Committee, which decides what legislation makes it to the House floor for debate and for when.

A number of female House members, including both Republicans and Democrats, suggested that such an action is not enough.

“Change the culture,” state Rep. Ina Minjarez, D-San Antonio, tweeted Sunday. “Ensure [the alleged victim] receives full support & the services she needs. Invest in the safety of our staffers & believe them if they ever outcry. CHANGE THE CULTURE.”

Another House member, freshman state Rep. Shelby Slawson, R-Stephenville, said Sunday that her office would be “off limits to all lobbyists” while the DPS investigation is underway and the lobbyist remains unidentified. Slawson also urged colleagues to join her in wearing pink on the House floor Tuesday “to stand in support and solidarity with” the alleged victim.

Meanwhile, one of the heads of the prominent Austin lobbying firm HillCo Partners wrote in a Sunday email to state lawmakers that the group had hired outside legal counsel and “a respected former law enforcement official” to launch an internal investigation into the matter.

“If facts come to light that anyone associated with HillCo partners had any involvement with such conduct, that person will be immediately terminated,” HillCo co-founder Buddy Jones wrote, adding that the firm would also cooperate with the DPS investigation.

“The reported incident is abhorrent and, once investigated and found to be accurate, should be dealt with in the strongest legal manner possible,” Jones wrote.

Later Sunday, Bill Miller, the other HillCo co-founder, told the Tribune that the firm had been “tipped off” that one of its employees “is a person of interest” in the DPS investigation. Miller said the email was the firm’s attempt to “put on the table what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”

Disclosure: HIllCo Partners has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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State Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, was arrested in Montgomery County after crashing his Corvette into a minivan and failing a sobriety test Friday night, according to the Montgomery County Police Reporter, which posted a video of the arrest to YouTube. The video shows police detaining Huberty and towing the Corvette away.

That local news outlet reported that Montgomery County Precinct 4 constables responded to an accident in Porter and arrived to find a Corvette “parked under a minivan.” The three people in the minivan suffered minor injuries, according to the report, and the driver of the Corvette, identified as Huberty, was unharmed. The Corvette was impounded and Huberty was arrested for DWI, according to the report.

Huberty, who has been a member of the Texas House since 2011, could not be reached for comment Saturday morning.

His bail was set at $1,500 and he was bonded out within hours of his arrest, according to the report.

This is a developing story and will continue to be updated.

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Vaccinating Texans in rural areas against COVID-19 has been a challenge for health care workers like Dr. Carolyn Salter. She runs Sycamore Medical Clinic in the East Texas town of Palestine with her husband, Dr. Michael Gorby.

Knowing how difficult it can be for those without internet or transportation in the region to access a shot, the pair has made it their mission to make it easy.

Carolyn says she often uses her blunt, straight-talking East Texas bedside manner to persuade people who are hesitant to get the shot.

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With political pressure mounting, the Texas Senate is searching for a way to advance a measure allowing the permitless carry of handguns, even as support for it across the upper chamber remains in doubt.

The Senate has been feeling the heat since the House approved what supporters have dubbed a “constitutional carry” proposal last week, a breakthrough for gun rights activists who have come up much shorter in previous sessions. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick quickly slowed momentum for the proposal Monday, however, saying there were not enough votes in the Senate for House Bill 1927 — but that he would see if there is a way to get there.

Patrick has expressed doubt about permitless carry in past legislative sessions and has not explicitly said where he stands on the issue this year. But he got to work late this week, creating a new Senate committee made up of a majority of permitless carry supporters that seemed to clear a path for the bill to advance through the next step in the legislative process. HB 1927 was quickly referred to the panel, the Senate Special Committee on Constitutional Issues, and its chairman, Sen. Charles Schwertner of Georgetown, said the committee would hold a hearing on the bill next week.

At the same time, Patrick’s office sought to keep expectations in check.

“There are still not enough votes in the Senate to pass a permitless carry bill,” Patrick senior adviser Sherry Sylvester said in a statement after HB 1927’s referral to the new committee. “Today, Lt. Governor Patrick established some additional options to move a bill forward. He will continue meeting with law enforcement, gun rights stakeholders and Senators on this issue to find consensus and the votes needed to pass.”

With a little over a month left in session, time is running out to satisfy the bill’s supporters. Beside the new committee, other potential Senate avenues include Senate Bill 540 by Sen. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, which was referred to the State Affairs Committee on March 11 but has not gotten a hearing yet. Schwertner on Thursday introduced his own permitless carry bill, Senate Bill 2224, and it was promptly referred to the Administration Committee, which he chairs.

The issue is catching Republicans between some of the most vocal activists on their right and law enforcement groups that have long resisted allowing people to carry handguns without permits. Those groups, as well as other opponents, have been successful in previous sessions in keeping the measure from reaching the House floor, saying permitless carry would make their jobs harder.

“We take it very seriously every time, but yeah, I think there’s even more momentum behind it on this particular occasion, and it has become a centerpiece, at least for those 30% of the Republican Party that want it so bad,” said Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association.

Polling released Wednesday by Everytown, a national gun-control group, found that 79% of Texas Republicans who voted in the November 2020 election support the current permit requirement to carry a handgun in public in Texas.

Lawrence spoke with the Tribune on Thursday evening, before it surfaced that Patrick had created a new committee to hear HB 1927. Doug Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, said in an interview Friday morning that it was “kind of a surprise” to see the new committee but that he was hopeful it would produce a measure that better reflects law enforcement concerns.

“We hope that we come to a good resolution, one that protects the citizenry, protects the rights of them to carry and protects our ability to properly do our jobs and keep people safe,” Griffith said.

The movement in the Senate came after days of building pressure on the chamber from Republican forces on the outside, including Texas GOP Chairman Allen West. “Constitutional carry” is one of the Texas GOP’s eight legislative priorities, and Allen West — already an aggressive advocate for the priorities — has further sharpened his lobbying since the House passed HB 1927.

On Thursday, West and the National Association for Gun Rights announced they were teaming up to push the issue across the finish line at the Capitol, in partnership with the NAGR’s Texas affiliate. The chapter’s executive director is Chris McNutt, who angered the GOP House speaker last session, Dennis Bonnen, when he went to Bonnen’s Lake Jackson home to advocate for permitless carry. That prompted Bonnen to declare the proposal “dead.”

“Squishes in the legislature are M.I.A, and even worse, [Gov. Greg] Abbott and Patrick are actively running away from this legislation,” West said in a news release announcing the coalition. “You’d think they’d be proud to whip the legislature and get it done.”

In a radio interview Tuesday, West rejected the idea that the Senate should tweak HB 1927 to appease law enforcement, calling it “not acceptable.” Speaking with Lubbock host Chad Hasty, West said the GOP activists who decide the party’s priorities “applaud … what happened in the House, and they expect the same thing out of the Senate.”

Pressure has also come from Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who has left open the possibility he could run for another statewide office in 2022 — and sued Patrick last month over the Senate rule requiring people to take COVID-19 tests before to entering the gallery and committee rooms.

“Constitutional Carry is must-pass legislation,” Miller wrote in an email to supporters Thursday. “There is no way that it should die in a Republican-controlled Texas Senate with a Republican Lieutenant Governor as its presiding officer.”

Perhaps seeking to show they are not roadblocks to the proposal in the Senate, several GOP senators have publicly declared their support this week for the House bill and “constitutional carry” in general. They include Sens. Drew Springer of Muenster, Brandon Creighton of Conroe, Bob Hall of Edgewood and Dawn Buckingham of Lakeway.

Senate rules require 18 votes for a bill to reach the floor for a vote in most cases. There are 18 Republicans in the Senate, meaning all would have to be on board with the proposal if no Democrats sign on. Several Senate Republicans have remained silent on the issue.

Even if the Senate were to pass a permitless carry bill, it is not known if Gov. Greg Abbott would sign it. He declined to say Tuesday whether he supported such a measure, saying he was currently focused on passing his emergency items.

But addressing Harris County Republicans earlier this month, Abbott spoke favorably of the concept as he introduced South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, praising her for signing a law that allows permitless concealed carry of handguns in her state. Abbott made the remarks at the Harris County GOP’s Lincoln Reagan Dinner on April 8, which was closed to reporters. Video of Abbott’s speech was publicly released Wednesday.

“She’s … a leader for Second Amendment rights,” Abbott said. “She signed into law a ‘stand your ground’ law like what we have here in the state of Texas and she signed into law a ‘constitutional carry’ law like what the state Legislature is working on as we speak.”