Once again Texas is taking the lead in challenging the overreach of the Transportation Safety Administration with a new bill to protect individual privacy against unreasonable and invasive searches. Rep. David Simpson has a new bill called the Texas Travel Freedom Act (HB80) in committee in the Texas House this week. It would provide punishment under Texas law for federal employees of the TSA who engage in inappropriate acts which would now be classified as “Official Oppression.”

It is not acceptable for government employees to treat innocent travelers like criminal suspects. As Rep. Simpson said, “Traveling is not a criminal act. Treating travelers as criminal suspects and forcing innocent citizens to submit to humiliating and unreasonable searches without probable cause as a condition of travel violates protections our forefathers envisioned in Section 9 of the Texas Bill of Rights and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Contrary to what some TSA agents have claimed, we do not believe that you give up your rights when you travel in public.”

Last legislative session state government leaders like Joe Strauss and David Dewhurst did everything they could to block this legislation, including using some very underhanded tactics. We can express them to face a lot of pressure from the TSA this time as well and to do what they can to undermine support for the bill and bully legislators into opposing it. They lack the strength of conviction to support the confrontation with the federal government over individual rights and state sovereignty which this bill is designed to oppose.

Legislators need your encouragement for the confidence to stay strong in the face of all this opposition. They need to know that the people are behind them.

The first step is to tell your Texas House member and key members of the State Affairs committee that you support the bill. Please use this form to send an email to the House before noon on Wednesday. The hearing on the bill is at 1pm. Change the wording of the letter to represent your personal concerns.

For Release: July 30, 2012

Contact: Dave Nalle (chairman@rlc.org or 512-656-8011)

Dewhurst-Cruz Race is a Test of the Character of Texas Republicans and the Future Direction of the Party

President Obama has stirred up a lot of controversy recently, after deciding to give “amnesty” to young illegal immigrants. So I’m going to give some food for thought. This issue has been one which pits the various factions within the Republican Party against each other. You have the liberty wing of the GOP–like myself–who want the market to be the primary force deciding immigration. You have the protectionist wing–old former Democrats who came to the party during the Reagan years but didn’t leave all of their big-government policies (and occasional bigotry) behind, and you have the establishment-types who are probably just trying to find the political winds and go with what’s popular. Also to consider, the large number of Hispanic Republicans at the convention, who are sick and tired of the games by those who seemingly want to choke Latin American immigration off completely.

At the Republican Party of Texas’ state convention in Ft. Worth a couple weeks ago, this ideological battle was clear and present. I was attending as an alternate for Brazos County and RLC Chair Dave Nalle was a delegate for Travis County. I won’t be going to Tampa but I’m proud to say that going to the convention allowed me to do two things I really wanted to do. Send some authentic small-government Republicans (including some Ron Paul supporters) to Tampa, and get some really dumb things removed from the state party platform during the drafting process. The end result was shocking to me at first but also gave me hope that the Republican Party is moving in the right direction. The liberty wing and the establishment united on one of the biggest hot-button issues: immigration.

During a minority report, delegates had the chance to voice opinions on the party platform before the final draft was taken to the floor–where delegates from all over the state would vote on it. Dave and I attended this session. It was small, as most of the people had left for dinner or their hotel rooms. It was around 8 PM. What I saw in the platform was an immigration plank that was very market friendly, attempting to make it easier for immigrants with the skills we need to get work visas. Work visas that may eventually lead to those immigrants becoming proud Americans. Well, the protectionists were having none of it, and they tried to get it struck down, using some of the most bogus arguments.

I testified in favor of it. Gave a brief bio of myself as the son of an immigrant and congratulated them on taking a market based approach. Immediately I was followed by some angry man who came off as a lunatic, claiming we’d become an overpopulated, poverty-stricken place like Mexico City. I wanted terribly to rebut him and put his “arguments” to shame, but we only got to speak once. Fortunately, a fellow Aggie was there to do a much better job than I did. His name was Jerry Patterson, and he will be running for Lt. Governor of Texas in 2014. Since I see no candidate emerging with better positions than him, he’s definitely getting my vote. The committee decided to keep the plank. Later, when the plank was being brought up before the at-large caucus, the protectionists lined up to testify against it, again calling the work visas “amnesty”. The establishment and the liberty wing loudly shouted “ay” as Chairman Munisteri issued a motion to move on to the next issue. The plank passed.

Now, had I been given the opportunity to speak again on the issue, and in more detail, I would have said something along the following lines. I would have made the case for a market-based immigration policy. I would have explained to the clearly uninformed voter that our current immigration system of quotas and a ridiculously unnecessary level of federal bureaucracy is a remnant of the so-called progressive era. Progressivism is the very thing we Constitutionalists are [supposedly] trying to combat within the Republican Party.

So here’s some food for thought on why the current system is unacceptable, and why the market can solve this issue better than a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington. I’ll follow it up with my plan for an immigration overhaul: a simple, fair, merit-based system that would save the taxpayer billions of dollars and grow this economy exponentially.

First, lets talk illegals. There’s this notion that all of the 12 million illegals in American were merely border-hopping people with no respect for our laws. This is far from the truth.

A lot of the “illegals” are only so because of useless bureaucracy that originated not with the founding fathers but with progressives like Woodrow Wilson–a notorious bigot. To understand how things were prior to the progressive era, think prior to the 20th century. And just before the turn of the century there was a Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship that gives you a general idea about immigration policy before the federal government became the center of our lives it is today.

If you revisit the rationale behind the 1898 Supreme Court case US v. Wong Kim Ark, you find a realistic solution to the “anchor baby” problem, and you also put a bunch of the ridiculous birther propaganda about Senator Marco Rubio in the trash heap of conspiracy nonsense where it belongs.

The case ruled that a child born on American soil to immigrant parents who were “engaged in the procurement of non-diplomatic business” (i.e. worked in the private sector) and had established a domicile (homestead law, which varies from state to state) was a natural born citizen. Back then it was pretty much “work hard and obey the laws and you can stay”.

This is the approach we need to take as Republicans. It destroys the liberal media’s ability to smear us as racists. It exposes the Democrats for the hypocrites they are on the issue. But most important of all, it would create something that President Obama hasn’t. Tens of millions of new jobs!

Due to the bureaucracy it takes too damn long to become a citizen. My father immigrated to this country from Lebanon in the mid 1970s. He did not become a citizen until 1999. Some of this delay was due to the fact he was always working but in today’s America 20 years is probably the average length it takes from immigration to citizenship. That, to me, is just plain stupid! The bureaucracy also makes it too hard to get a green card. Take the case of a German man named Gunter. He is a restaurant owner in New Braunfels, TX. I met him last year at a Students for Liberty regional conference. He still has to leave the restaurant and return to Germany every few years and reapply for a visa because they have made it too difficult for him to get a green card. This man is a small-business owner, who obviously wishes to do business in a freer country than his own, and is being given the runaround by a bunch of gubment employees who I’m willing to bet have never created a real job in their lifetimes.

Gunter is just one example of many. We have all these high skill international students in our colleges. They outperform their American peers in science and engineering programs subsidized with our tax dollars, and what do we do? We make naturalization so difficult that they go back to their home countries and use the skills we taught them against us in the global market? How is that intelligent? They should be playing for team America. We are a country where the best in the world left their homelands to escape poverty and tyranny, and to embrace the free-enterprise system that has created more wealth and human advancement in a couple centuries than any other in the entire history of the world before in.

So I propose a new immigration system for the United States. A capitalist system.

Step 1: We reopen Ellis Island and centers like it all across the country.

That way we can actually account for the people that come into the country for national security purposes. We must still be stringent on immigrants from countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or from Gaza/West Bank, to make sure they are legitimate people seeking freedom from theocrats and not theocrats themselves coming to this country to commit terrorism. And trust me, virtually everyone would choose going through one of those processing centers to using a coyote. At least every honest person would. So at the same time it makes it easier to figure out who the good guys are. These centers should be able to provide immigrants with some advice on where to live, work, and possibly offer English speaking courses for those who need it.

Step 2: Create a new system of regulating immigration status that is based in merit and behavior.

Everyone who comes into the United States gets a five-year trial period. They would get a work visa. At the end of this 5 years if they will be examined. If they work in the private sector, and do not commit any violent or financial crimes–and I emphasize this because nobody should be deported for something like a traffic violation–and demonstrate reasonable English speaking skills, they will be awarded permanent residency in the United States. If they are convicted of a serious violent or financial crime they should be immediately deported. If the English speaking does not meet the standard they will not receive a green card, but can reapply for a temporary work visa. No need to kick them out over that. This will probably not be an issue as most immigrants will be encouraged to learn the language because they want to stay in this great country.

As for welfare use. We need to crack down on sanctuary cities. Government welfare should be denied to anyone who is not a permanent US resident or US citizen. Personally I would like to see the federal welfare state abolished, but I’m a realist and understand that this is at least 20 years away from happening. Private charity, religious or secular, should not be a factor in whether or not one is granted permanent residency. If a church or private organization wants to help an individual, that is purely at their discretion. Its their money!

Step 3: Reform the naturalization process in a manner that expedites it.

After receiving their green card, they enter another five year trial period. If during this trial period they continue to meet the criteria set for them in the first, work hard and obey the law, then at the end of that 5 year period they will be moved to the front of the line and naturalized as citizens of the United States.

Step 4: What to do about the illegals already here? Well obviously it would be financially impossible to deport them all. So here’s where President Obama actually had a point for once. Focus on the criminals. As for the others, the proper solution is that they must take the new route established. They must go to the back of the line in the new processing centers, and begin the first five-year trial period. For those that were brought here as children by parents, they’re really victims of human trafficking if you think about it. Provided they have no criminal records and work hard I see no reason why they should be deported. But they should still go through the new system.

5 years to permanent residency and 10 years to citizenship, its not a bad deal. But nobody is just going to be handed it. That would be amnesty. And amnesty is not the solution.

Now, I’m gonna get some responses to this. So, I’m going to preempt some of the typical ones I get.

The left will call it ‘fascist’ for the English-language requirement. Anyone who is familiar with my views knows I’m as far from fascist as Kim Kardashian is from the Blessed Virgin Mary. English should have been made the official language a long time ago I don’t understand why it isn’t. Multikulti has failed miserably in Europe. I recommend reading Bruce Bawer’s books While Europe Slept and Surrender. I have no intention of chasing away foreign culture. I took two years of Spanish in high school and one year of Japanese in college and am currently teaching myself the latter and plan on doing the same with the former once I have the time. My father speaks Arabic and French. That’s what makes America great. Immigrants like my father bring the best of what the old country has to offer (usually in the form of cuisine or music), but unlike the lawless Islamic enclaves in European cities Bawer documents, they don’t bring the authoritarian ideologies with them, that’s why they left!

It makes it easier on immigrants when they are able to communicate with natural born citizens rather than having to search for people from their own country. The language barrier tends to break down over generations as their children learn English but it seems more efficient to me if it is expedited. There will always be Korea Towns and Little Italys. But segregation was repealed and tossed into the ash heap of history half a century ago, yet America today still has a defacto segregation. We don’t need to be living in white neighborhoods or black neighborhoods or Hispanic neighborhoods we need to be living in American neighborhoods.

Encouraging English speaking skills (notice I didn’t even say reading/writing, as most Americans struggle with grammar) as a manner to expedite the path to ones citizenship merely tests their mettle as to how badly they want to be a part of America as a whole and not just as a “minority”. It opens more doors to them in terms of career advancement, which of course leads to more money. And its not going to be an arduous task, as many of them will likely be learning it already as ESL students or employees working alongside Americans if they didn’t know some coming in.

Then of course the protectionists claim things like “overpopulation” and “they’re gonna take the jobs Americans need”. No, they won’t. In fact, we actually have people leaving the US because there aren’t jobs for them. There is NOT an overpopulation problem in the country. For those of you who think there is I have merely one thing to say to you: Have you ever been to Nebraska?

Okay, maybe I have more than one thing to say. There is no overpopulation problem, only a population density problem. In fact, if the entire population of the world, which is approaching 7 billion people was spread out into one area with the population density of New York City it would fill an area about the size of Texas. If it was as dense as Houston, it wouldn’t even fill the continental United States.

Overpopulation only becomes a problem with the presence of a welfare state. And it is the welfare state that needs to be reigned in. By requiring immigrants to work (or use private charity) and cutting them off from welfare programs, they are not a drag on the taxpayer; they become taxpayers. The welfare behemoth is going to take years to reign in and if we don’t start now we will suffer a Greece-like debt crisis before decade’s end. But as it relates to immigrants its not nearly as difficult an issue as it is relating to citizens.

Hard working people sustain themselves and should not be barred from becoming citizens provided they obey the laws. They should be welcomed with open arms. They will create jobs, create tax revenue, grow the economy and shrink the budget deficit. Its the criminals and the moochers that are the problem and they should be sent home. We have too many Americans that fall into those categories.

If these immigrants “take your job” its because you didn’t work hard enough to defeat them. Sorry bro, but that’s how capitalism works, the best win.

So lets recap.

5 years to a green card, 10 years to citizenship. And all I’m asking is that they work hard and stay out of trouble? This is the immigration policy that will allow the GOP to seize control of the issue from the Democrats permanently. It gives us two things: the reduction of federal bureaucracy conservatives want, and the opportunity to join the free-enterprise system that immigrants want.

Hey Mitt, think about it!

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Aaron Alghawi obtained a B.S. in Economics from Texas A&M University in 2012. He is a national board member and Director of Student Outreach for the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Every two years the Texas Republican Party has a chance to redefine itself when delegates vote on a new version of its platform at its state convention. The system by which the contents of the platform comes together is a messy organic one which ought to represent a political snapshot of the party, but in recent years it has been hijacked by vocal special interests, producing a platform which is an embarrassment to the party and its members.

The platform originates at the grassroots of the party where delegates in every county submit resolutions which go through a committee at their local senatorial district convention which assembles a draft slate of resolutions which are then voted on by the convention and passed on, along with the 49 similar bundles of resolutions, to another committee at the state level. This committee takes all those resolutions and boils them down to make a party platform which is voted on by the delegates at the state convention who usually don’t even have the time to read them.

This sounds like a great example of bottom-up grassroots politics, but there are a few problems with this sausage-factory process.

In fact, those “grassroots” resolutions mostly don’t really originate with common concerned citizens. Most of them are written by special interest groups which send them out in mass emailings to their constituents who then obediently submit them all over the state. So what they represent is not so much the interests of common Texans, but rather the interests of the most organized and motivated pressure groups with their volume cranked up to 11 by the internet. Quite often the groups which are most vocal are also the ones which are the most radical and farthest from the mainstream, while average party members are not as motivated or as organized in opposition.

Theoretically the committees on the district and state level are supposed to filter and edit the resolutions into something representative of the party, but they operate on the principle of not making any decisions which would offend anyone who can shout loudly enough to get attention. They are literally buried under paper and there is no one in a position to set limits or take a firm hand or just sit down and write a clear and coherent platform which represents the broad beliefs of the party. Instead they get frustrated and intimidated and just include the proposals of the most strident groups, producing a platform which is an amalgamation of the pet peeves of a bunch of fringe special interests.

This hasn’t always been the case. Through the 1970s many fewer resolutions were submitted and there was much less scrutiny of the process. The state-level committee was largely free to write a platform which it felt represented the best principles of the party based on their collective experience and good judgement. It was a less inclusive process, but it was more republican and more representative and produced a better result. Today’s platform is over 30 pages long with over 250 planks, but those old platforms were only a few pages long with 10 or 12 strong, general planks which everyone in the party could agree on.

It’s almost impossible to create a truly representative platform by including hundreds of specific positions. Only an approach based around general, shared principles can be truly representative. Mainstream party members are fed up with having the party represented by the ideas of its most extreme factions. It’s hard for candidates to run on a platform which includes many ideas which they don’t agree with and don’t want to be associated with, and it’s humiliating to be connected with a platform which is the target of jokes by late night comedians, attacks from partisan pundits and outraged editorials in the national and even international press.

A lot of the criticism focuses on the most obviously offensive things which consistently make their way into the platform, like the call to reinstitute the sodomy law which was struck down by the Supreme Court or the demand that creationism be taught in public schools. But there’s something in there to offend everyone, from banning suggestive TV ads for products like viagra, to taking away the parental rights of gay parents, to the most radical positions opposing immigration and free trade, to endorsements for various “New World Order” type conspiracy theories.

There has been an increase in organized opposition to the unappealing character of the platform. The Republican Liberty Caucus has put forward a slate of sensible resolutions on key issues which they hope will get enough support from the growing libertarian wing of the party to get included in place of some of the more offensive positions. Some grassroots Republicans are trying to introduce negative resolutions opposing some of the perennial rotten planks. Other groups are trying to convince the committees to scrap all the resolutions and just produce a short and simple platform based on core principles. The final option is to do what some other states have done when faced with this problem and introduce an alternative platform from the floor of the state convention, timing the move so that most of the delegates aren’t paying attention when it comes up for a vote.

The push for platform reform has never been stronger, but it will take a lot of effort and a lot of organization to overcome the stridency of fanatical single-issue activists. Texas Republicans deserve a platform which they can be proud of and which every Republican can stand by and support. The creation of a better platform is a real test of the maturity of the party. Can diversity be turned into strength, expressed as a platform of basic shared principles, or will the platform again represent the clamoring voices of extremism and factionalism which are tearing the party apart?

This article appeared in somewhat different form on Blogcritics.org

Don’t Believe the Hype.  Meet the Real Rick Perry
Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas Sends Warning to Republicans Nationwide About Perry’s Tax and Spend Record

AUSTIN, TX – Texas Governor Rick Perry may be the flavor of the day for a lot of Republicans, but Texas Republicans who are familiar with his record are a lot less enthusiastic about his presidential run.  “Perry has a unique talent for finding new ways to raise taxes and loves to use taxpayer money to subsidize his business cronies,” says Secretary Dave Nalle of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas.  “His supposed belief in limited government and states rights conveniently disappears whenever it conflicts with the demands of the special interests and corporate cronies who he serves.”

Governor Perry’s record of big government, big spending, big taxing and attacks on the fundamental rights of Texas citizens is a familiar to Texans, but seems to be much less well known to Republicans outside of the state, which may explain his high initial showing in the polls.  The Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas is compiling a complete dossier on Perry to share with fellow Republicans outside their state so that they can be informed about what they are being sold in a Perry presidential candidacy.

The file on Perry’s abuses of power, insider deals with cronies and tax and spend policies is thick, but for a start here are what Texas RLC members voted as the top five Perry scandals which GOP primary voters need to know more about:

1. Business Slush Funds: Perry made heavy use of business incentive “slush funds” which used taxpayer dollars to subsidize selected businesses, many of them run by his major campaign contributors.  Just two of these funds, the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Growth fund, spent over $700 million to subsidize businesses to move to Texas or expand operations in Texas, with little evidence that these handouts of taxpayer money produced job or revenue growth anywhere near sufficient to justify the expense.  In fact, many of these businesses eventually downsized or relocated long before they had earned the money Perry gave them, or even went bankrupt with $25 million fund dollars like Countrywide Financial. source

2. Toll Roads and Land Seizures Perry has never met a toll road project he wasn’t willing to seize huge amounts of private land for and then give the exclusive management contracts to foreign corporations.  Perry’s time in office has set records for eminent domain land seizures – over a million acres have been seized.  His toll road projects have confiscated family farms and torn communities apart.  Toll roads have been used as a massive off-the-books tax program, taking money from Texas drivers and feeding it to foreign financial interests and management groups which lobbied the governor for special deals which produce much higher tolls and higher profits than are typical in other states. source

3. Forced Vaccinations: In 2007 Perry issued an executive order which would have forcibly vaccinated every girl in Texas entering the sixth grade with Merck’s Gardasil vaccine for Human Papilloma Virus.  This massive violation of the privacy rights of Texas teenagers and their parents would have come at a cost of $360 in taxpayer money per shot.  It would have been a huge windfall for Merck, which had paid Perry’s former Chief of Staff $250,000 to lobby the governor and legislature to promote the forced vaccination program. source

4. The Job-Killing Franchise Tax: Knowing that it would be impossible to pass an income tax against popular opposition in Texas, Perry promoted the idea of a special business tax called the “Franchise Tax” which taxes businesses at different arbitrary rates set by the government.  This tax expands business taxes to types of businesses which are not taxed in most states and in many cases taxes small businesses more than large corporations they compete with.  For example it taxes small car repair shops at double the rate it taxes large dealerships for car repairs.   It’s a small business and job killer. source

5. Scuttled the Anti-TSA Bill When Rep. David Simpson led the Texas legislature towards passage of an enormously popular bill (HB1938) to hold the TSA accountable for intrusive searches of airline passengers, Perry played a key role in making sure that the bill was not passed.   When the TSA and the Justice Department began pressuring him, although Perry had promised to submit the bill to the special legislative session, he delayed submitting the bill until it was so late in the session that it was virtually impossible to hold the constitutionally mandated votes necessary for passage.  That way he could score points with the public for submitting the popular bill while at the same time making sure that it wouldn’t pass.  It’s a classic example of Perry’s insincere pandering. source

Don’t be fooled by campaign hype.  If Perry says he’ll cut taxes or get government off our back, look up his real record.  Look up his past statements.  He supported TARP.  He supported the bailouts.  He was even Al Gore’s Texas campaign manager back in 1988.  A vote for Perry in the Republican primary is a vote for more big government and more taxes and more of the the same deficits and irresponsibility we had for 12 years under Bush and Obama.  The Republican Party and the nation need real leadership, not more of the same with a nicer head of hair.

RLC of Texas Chairman Judson Vandiver asks, “Let’s hope Republicans outside Texas see through all the hype.  Let’s all say to to Perry what he said to a Texas state trooper when he tried to bully her after she pulled him over for speeding YouTube: ‘Why don’t you just let us get on down the road?’”

To the dismay of many Texans and of civil libertarians nationwide, after a dramatic struggle this week, the Texas legislature’s special session ended on a sour note with the defeat of Rep. David Simpson’s bill opposing invasive TSA searches of airline passengers.

The failure of the bill was made considerably more bitter by the underhanded tactics by which a tiny faction of the House leadership scuttled the bill against overwhelming support from both parties and the public. With all of the hard work put into promoting the bill by grassroots groups, its defeat under questionable circumstances has redirected anger originally aimed only at the TSA to political leaders in Texas, particularly House Speaker Joe Straus.

The story of how such a widely supported bill could end up not being passed is an object lesson of how easily the will of the people can be subverted by those who value power over principle.

During the regular legislative session Rep. Simpson’s anti-groping bill made it through the House of Representatives by unanimous acclamation . It was passed out of committee and onto to the floor of the Senate where it was set to pass when the TSA stepped in and lobbied against it and the Department of Justice issued a letter threatening to close Texas airports if it passed. This lead Lt. Governor David Dewhurst to apply his influence to get the bill which was minutes from passing pulled from the floor.

As the inevitable special session approached, Senator Dan Patrick and other supporters convinced the governor to come on board and support the bill and agree to sign it if they could get a pledge from a majority of the members of the House and Senate to support it. This would let them fast-track the bill through both houses and to the governor for his signature quickly without unduly delaying other legislation.

They got the votes. They notified the Governor’s office that they had the votes and they asked the Governor to call the bill for the special session. Governor Perry was out of town doing a pre-presidential tour and when confronted by a citizen journalist and asked about the bill he said that he was not aware that the necessary votes had been pledged, but when he returned to Austin on Sunday the 19th of June he did put the bill on the call for Monday the 20th.

Already a week had been wasted, but there was still time to pass the bill. Despite the Governor’s support, after the session began on the 20th the bill was not scheduled for consideration until the Friday the 24th, wasting more precious time. Then, when it was scheduled to be introduced on Friday, House Speaker Joe Straus made a public announcement that he thought the bill was a “publicity stunt” and not serious legislation, sending a clear message to his supporters to oppose it. This despite the fact that he had not voted against it in the regular session.

Nonetheless, a version of the bill was introduced in the House and another in the Senate with wording which had been edited by the Attorney General’s office to reduce the chances of the bill being contested in court and to satisfy complaints from Speaker Straus, but because of wrangling over the language any votes on the bill were delayed until Monday with the session scheduled to end on Wednesday.

With the Speaker apparently unwilling to advance the House version of the bill, desperate supporters in the Senate passed their version through committee and passed it on the floor in a matter of hours and sent it on to the House where the decision was made to use the Senate version as written to avoid the possibility that the Speaker would keep the House version off the floor.

The House session didn’t start until 2pm on Tuesday and when the messenger from the Senate arrived with the bill the Speaker’s office refused to accept the bill and it was kept waiting for several hours. This final delay guaranteed that passage of the bill would be extremely difficult because of Constitutional rules about how bills have to pass the House.

Under the Texas Constitution, for a bill to pass the House it has to be read and voted on three times, on three separate days and win each vote. At the point where the bill finally made it to the floor there was less than 24 hours left before the end of the session on Wednesday, so the only way to pass the bill was to hold a vote to suspend that constitutional rule to allow them to hold two of the three votes on the same day. Although there were plenty of votes in favor of the bill – enough to make up a supermajority – the vote to suspend the Constitutional rule required a 4/5 majority, and that was going to be very difficult.

The bill passed its first reading easily on Tuesday and then passed a second reading on Wednesday morning easily 106-27, but by the time the held a vote on the motion to suspend the constitutional rule some members had left and it passed with a 96-26 majority – an overwhelming vote in support of the bill, but not quite enough to meet the 4/5 requirement. Ironically the previous vote did meet that requirement, but it didn’t apply to that particular motion. At that point the bill which so many supported and which was enormously popular with the public, was dead.

Before adjourning the special session, the Speaker allowed Rep. Simpson to make a final speech about the bill and how the legislative process had failed so dismally. Simpson was not afraid to point fingers, saying:

“The people in support of this bill have succeeded in shining the light on those who collaborate with the growing tyranny of our federal government….Its’ defeat only propels the liberty movement in this state. The people now know that it is possible to fight back.”

His sentiments were echoed by a statement from the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas, one of the grassroots groups which had made calls to legislators in support of the bill, which said “We may not have won the final victory today, but we sure flushed out the enemies hiding in the brush.” Another grassroots group, Stop Austin Scanners thought that Governor Perry should share the blame, citing Perry’s “failure to call the bill in a timely manner despite numerous requests to do so, his total lack of stewardship in the process, and Speaker Joe Straus’ willful misconduct are the principal reasons why the legislation was derailed.”

At every step Rep. Simpson and his allies did what was requested by the leadership. They amended the bill. They watered down the language. They even ultimately changed “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion” to give the Feds an easy out. Yet despite promises from Governor Perry, they were met with obstruction and delays from the Speaker at every step of the way. With two weeks to pass the bill they ended up having to try to pass it in two days with a special suspension of the rules requiting an outrageously large majority and creating the ironic outcome that a bill which passed easily with a 4/5 majority in the morning when it didn’t need it could not get that same majority in the afternoon when it did.

The defeat of the bill was not a complete loss.  It raised awareness of the issue substantially and drew attention to the forces opposing it and exposed the heavy-handed tactics of the TSA. There’s also some evidence that Simpson’s bill helped influence the TSA’s recent decision to reduce the intensity of their searches of children, though it did not stop them from carrying out a horrendous and highly publicized abuse of a 95 year old Leukemia patient.

This fight is not over. The issue still draws great public interest and anger at the TSA and its practices has never been higher. Supporters in Texas promise to continue to pursue the issue and legislators in a growing number of additonal states are introducing similar legislation. People don’t like having their privacy invaded and their persons violated in the service of excessive security procedures which have never been proven to be at all effective. The people may have lost this battle, but the war is far from over.

A version of this article appeared previously at Blogcritics Magazine.

After much wrangling over two different versions of the bill and various amendments to the language in committee, it looks like a reasonably effective version of the TSA anti-groping bill is poised to pass the Texas legislature and move on for the Governor’s signature on Wednesday. The most significant change is a downgrading of the level of proof required for a legitimate search from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion” but the basic objective of the bill – to hold TSA employees accountable for their actions – remains intact.

At this point it would still be helpful to make more calls and send more emails to Texas House members. Their have the final say on the bill in a concluding floor vote sometime Wednesday. You can use this handy tool to send an email, or call your representative directly by looking them up on the House website. If you don’t live in Texas just pick one and call to let them know they’re doing this for all of us.

Our friends at StopAustinScanners.org offer a full report on the steps the bill has gone through and its current status:

This evening, Texas Senate Bill 29 (SB 29), which proposes state prosecution and punishment for the offense of official oppression by the intrusive touching–(a euphemism for TSA groping)–of persons seeking access to public buildings and transportation and defines criminal penalties for such offenses, was moved out of the House Criminal Jurisprudence committee without amendment by a vote of 7 ayes, 1 nay, 1 not present, with no abstentions.  This puts SB 29 on track for final passage on the House floor tomorrow, Wednesday, June 29th.

Both SB 29 and House Bill 41 (HB 41) were passed in their respective chambers yesterday, although HB 41 was subject to multiple amendments that alarmed true proponents of the legislation.  Upon passage in the House, Robert Kepple, Executive Director, of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, recommended abandoning HB 41 for the judicial problems the amendments introduced.

The principal concerns introduced by the amendments to HB 41 were:

1) lowering the standard by which a pat-down might be permitted from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion”,

2) providing a defense if the “actor” (TSA agent) was performing the search pursuant to an explicit grant of federal statutory authority, which is the case for all TSA agents and renders the legislation effectively meaningless,

and,

3) effectively giving the U.S. Supreme Court ultimate authority in defining the propriety of a search.

Mr. Kepple had testified earlier in the day before the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security committee in favor of amending a substituted version of SB 29 to eliminate vagueness and firmly structure the legislation as a matter of Texas state law, and make it enforceable to the maximum extent that is “consistent with federal constitutional requirements”.  This was proposed to correct bad language that was snuck into a version of SB 29 substituted in committee by Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa.

The amendments suggested by Mr. Kepple were later adopted in the Senate version, and are believed to legally restrict TSA agents from offensive touching in the same manner that FBI agents and federal Marshalls are now restricted.  It is believed this modification will provide the public a greater measure of protection, and the State of Texas greater standing in future judicial proceedings.

The language that provided the TSA wider lattitude when defending itself from criminal penalties when performing unlawful searches by lowering the standard from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion” is included in SB 29.  Another perceived shortcoming introduced into the bill by amendment allowed grounds for a TSA search to be an “unknown, prohibited or unlawful object”.

While the bill’s proponents strongly objected to this language, wanting the phrase “unknown object” to be stricken, there was general consensus that it would better serve the public good to have slightly flawed statutory law that could be amended as the flaws became more widely known than to have no law at all.

We think the public can now reasonably expect the TSA to use the “unknown object” defense in its vigorous quest to discover all those diaper bombs carried by infants and cancer victims in their last days of life.

The passage of SB 29 in the House Criminal Jurisprudence committee effectively sidelines HB 41, its companion bill, from further consideration, which StopAustinScanners considers to be a major victory.

If you’re a real political action junkie you can watch the final vote live online tomorrow at the Texas House website.

There are a host of upcoming Republican Liberty Caucus events that we want you to be a part of!

………………JUNE
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• San Jose Area RLC Monthly Meeting
June 20, San Jose
RSVP/learn more.

• Utah RLC Convention
June 21, Draper
RSVP/learn more.

• Los Angeles RLC Chartering Meeting
June 22, Los Angeles
RSVP/learn more.

• Virginia RLC at TV Filming Tutorial
June 22, Fairfax
RSVP/learn more.

• Minnesota RLC Meeting
June 22, S. Saint Paul
RSVP/learn more.

………………JULY
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• Arizona RLC Meeting
July 9, Tucson
Contact us for details.

• Los Angeles RLC Meeting
July 13, Los Angeles
RSVP/learn more .

• Central Texas RLC Meeting
July 15, Austin
RSVP/learn more.

• Lake County (Indiana) RLC Meeting
July 16, Schererville
RSVP/learn more

• Arizona RLC Social
July 19, Tucson
RSVP/learn more.

………………AUGUST
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• Heartland Liberty Conference
(Sponsored by the Nebraska RLC)
August 6, Omaha
RSVP/learn more.

• Central Texas RLC Meeting
August 12, Austin
RSVP/learn more.

• Gary Johnson at the National Press Club
Topic: Social Issues and the Republican Party
August 19, Washington, DC
RSVP/learn more.

• Calvin Coolidge Clambake with Gov. Gary Johnson
(Sponsored by the Maine RLC)
August 26, Portland
RSVP/learn more

Republican Party of Bloomfield Hosts Rep. Justin Amash
(Sponsored by the Michigan RLC)
August 29, Metro Detroit
RSVP/learn more.

As a result of aggressive efforts by grassroots groups in Texas, Governor Rick Perry has offered to put Rep. David Simpson’s TSA anti-groping bill on the agenda for the upcoming legislative special session which starts this coming week if certain conditions are met. Although threats from the Justice Department and the TSA temporarily stymied bill sponsors in the state Senate after it passed the House with an overwhelming majority, they are now ready to put it through both houses in the special session where rules require only a simple majority of both houses for passage. Governor Perry has promised to put the bill on the agenda if there is a guaranteed majority supporting it in both houses and to sign the bill if it passes. A good summary of the situation can be found in the Washington Times.

Simpson’s HB 1937 (now SB29 and HB41) would make it a felony for TSA agents operating in Texas to engage in certain forms of intimate touching during the course of an “enhanced pat down” of an airlin