A conservative Texas House Republican filed a bill on Wednesday that would give the Legislature the power to overturn the will of the voters here with the ability to recall U.S. senators with majority votes in both chambers in Austin.
State Rep. Brian Harrison of Midlothian touted House Bill 1267 as a measure that's "necessary to restore the appropriate balance of power between the sovereign State of Texas" and the federal government.
The legislation is designed as a way to circumvent the 17th Amendment that was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1913 in a move that removed the power of electing U.S. senators from state legislatures so the people could choose them instead.
"Our founders intended U.S. senators to represent the interests of the sovereign states and safeguard against federal overreach," Harrison said in a statement that he post on X. "Unfortunately, since the 17th amendment, many have become beholden to DC special interests and complicit in the erosion of liberty and acceleration of America move to a post-constitutional era, where unelected bureaucrats write and enforce laws by edict."
Harrison - oddly - made the proposal public in a repost of a message that was published on X by a user named Dr. G. Russian Bot, who describes himself as a "Gulag survivor" and "privileged prostate possessor and enpenised individual" who's "homosexual" as well.
Harrison's measure would be an end-around the 17th Amendment that empowered the electorate after it was ratified almost 112 years ago by three-fourths of the state legislatures in the U.S. Harrison, who's nearing the end of his second term in the House, argued that the 10th Amendment that deals with states rights has been "significantly diminished" since the 17th Amendment's inception.
It isn't clear exactly how the expansion of legislators' powers at the voters' expense would fortify the rights of states.
Harrison failed to pass a single bill in his first and only regular session when he filed 67 pieces of legislation including two that actually cleared the House before dying in the Senate without votes in committees. Harrison sponsored 28 bills that went nowhere in four subsequence special sessions in 2023.
Harrison could make the case that the bills that he sponsored were doomed from the start due to relentless criticism of Republican Speaker Dade Phelan and the House leadership team. Harrison could be on the outside looking in again in 2025 with Phelan in apparent position to win a third term in the dais barring developments that are unforeseen at this point in time.
Harrison is one of four dozen House Republicans who've pledged to back GOP State Rep. David Cook of Mansfield. But Cook's campaign has appeared to be stagnant with no new names on the pledge list since he emerged as the consensus challenger for conservatives two months ago.
The legislative power grab that HB 1267 would authorize came on the same day that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz announced his support for U.S. Senator Rick Scott of Florida for the job of U.S. Senate majority leader - a post that U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas had sought.
The snub from Cruz came after Cornyn raised substantial funding for the junior senator's re-election campaign that chalked up a victory at the polls last week.
