Potty Parity and Other Useless Bills in the TxLege

[TexasTowelie]

By Carol Morgan

I thought the reason for a legislative session was to solve problems for the people of Texas. I was wrong.

The 84th Legislature is actually creating problems instead of solving them.

Monday’s vote in the Senate will decide SB 185, the so-called Sanctuary Cities Bill which is nothing more than a law that makes racial profiling legal.

As Senator Jose Menendez remarked, “the state is working just fine without these bills.” Texas has a myriad of stop and identify statues, why do we need another bill on top of another bill?

Law enforcement is against it. It seems everyone is against, except for the Texas GOP. How shameful would it be for a military veteran, who fought for us in war and who just happens to be Hispanic, to be stopped and asked to prove they are an American?

Another controversial duplicate law is the religious freedoms bill. Texas already has a religious freedom law that was passed 15 years ago. The extreme faction wants another, but do we really need one? Has anyone been denied the freedom to practice their religion? State Representative Matt Krauss wants to strengthen the law and is proposing a religious freedom amendment to the Texas Constitution, but actually has nothing to do with religion.

It’s merely the Texas version of separate drinking fountains.

Dallas Morning News has a nice map which shows that the majority of states that have religious freedom laws are in the south. Doesn’t that make Texas proud? To align ourselves with states like Mississippi and Alabama?

Or how about the one that declares that #txlege is the official Twitter hashtag for the Texas Legislature? Or the campus carry bill? (by the way, if you oppose this, come join a rally in front of Representative John Frullo’s office (4601 50th St # 216) on Wednesday, April 8th at 3:00.

And there’s so many more bills in the coming weeks (courtesy of Texas Vox) proving the trivial mindset of the extremists in our legislature.

Senate Bill 635 by Senator Campbell would prevent wind developments from receiving any state incentives if the receive federal incentives. This would unfairly increase the costs of wind developments at a time when renewable are on their way in and fossil fuels are on their way out.

The most vexing (and cruel, too) bills are HB 1747 and 1748 which have been introduced by Representative Debbie Riddle (remember her embarrassing rant about "terror babies" on CNN?) And this pair of bills would criminalize the use of bathrooms by transgender people. There would be jail time not only for the offender (whose only crime is needing to pee) but businesses who make bathrooms available for them could serve jail time as well.

As an educator, I recall that conferences and convocations were always problematic for women educators. The lines to the women’s bathroom would be a mile long, while there was no line at the men’s. We solved the problem by having a man stand at the door, while all of us women used the men’s facilities.

So would we be arrested for independently solving our group’s problem?

All kidding aside, read the sad story about Caomhán Ó Raghallaigh, a woman transitioning to a man while he worked in the Texas House.

Why isn’t the Legislature focusing on the real problems of Texas, instead of creating non-existent ones? Our state has plenty of problems available: education, health care, infrastructure, and ethics.

It’s time for you to get to work.

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Carol Morgan is a career/college counselor, a freelance writer, and former Democratic candidate for the Texas House. She is the award-winning author of two books: Of Tapestry, Time and Tears and Liberal in Lubbock. Email Carol at [e-mail] , follow her on Twitter and on Facebook or visit her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org

http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2015-04-06/potty-parity-and-other-useless-bills-txlege#.VSIljeHy3SI

Permission granted to post Carol's blog in its entirety.

[Gothmog]

1. No true Texan can sleep soundly in their bed when the Texas legislature is in session