House Leader Team Republicans Join
Dems in Vote on Bill Police Opposed

Capitol Inside
April 30, 2021

Texas House Democrats teamed up with Republicans on GOP Speaker Dade Phelan's leadership team on Friday in a vote for legislation that's designed to crack down on misconduct among police who'd been united in opposition to the measure.

House Bill 829 cleared the Legislature's lower chamber on a 100-28 vote that featured a mix of conservatives and moderate Republicans on the losing side. Veteran Democratic State Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston characterized the proposal as a way to keep cities and counties from "passing the trash" with the establishment of a statewide disciplinary matrix that would make it easier to filter out bad cops.

The state's two largest police groups and chiefs in most of the largest Texas cities fought the measure without success in the Capitol's west wing where Thompson fashioned the measure in a way that would give it appeal on both sides of the aisle. She gave GOP State Rep. John Cyrier of Lockhart significant credit for working with her in the development of a plan that could win support on both sides of the aisle.

The House vote represented another setback for law enforcement officials at a regular session that they'd entered with high hopes based on promises that Governor Greg Abbott and other top GOP leaders had made to them on the campaign trail last year.

House Republicans might be willing to give a consolation prize to cops who've been historically underfunded with a bill that aims to stop the defunding of police departments in a state where that has never actually happened despite GOP claims to the contrary.

The State Affairs Committee revived the police defunding prohibition on Thursday when it approved House Bill 1900 on a 9-3 party line vote after allowing it to languish without action for more than three weeks. The panel hadn't held a hearing or vote on a similar proposal from the Senate on April 13 before the jump-start on HB 1900 on the day before the significant piece of police reform legislation in HB 829 passed the House this afternoon with support from 57 Democrats and 43 Republicans.

The Republicans who voted against HB 829 included some of the House's most conservative members and moderates who Phelan had pushed to the end of the bench along with three GOP representatives who chair relatively low level committees in the west wing of the statehouse.

All of Phelan's highest-ranking Republican lieutenants voted for the Thompson plan that would give the state more authority in the implementation of disciplinary policies for police that are run by municipalities.

A 48-year House veteran who's Black, Thompson said that she still calls her son every night to make sure he hadn't been killed that day as a result of his skin color. She argued that HB 829 would help alleviate those sorts of concerns. Thompson had a terse message for white colleagues who hadn't found racial stereotyping to be a problem in their lives.

"Take that up with God," she said.

House and Senate Republicans have ignored pleas from police on the inherent dangers of an unlicensed carry gun bill that a special Senate Constitutional Issues Committee endorsed on Friday in a move that set the ostensible stage for a vote on the floor next week.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick had appeared to be on the same page with the police when he contended this month that there weren't enough Republican votes to pass the gun measure in the upper chamber. But Patrick capitulated to heat from the hard right when he created the special Senate committee exactly one week ago to give the appearance that he's doing everything in his power to pry the so-called constitutional carry from the chamber.