Race Theory Bill that Senate Exhumed
Gives GOP Small Solace after SB 7 Fall
Capitol Inside
June 1, 2021
Texas Republican lawmakers pulled a consolation prize from a dumpster fire of a voter restriction when they sent a proposed ban on critical race theory in schools to Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday after a potentially illegal reincarnation on the regular session's final weekend.
House Bill 3979 is heading to Abbott's desk after unprecedented maneuvering in the Texas Senate that passed the measure late last week two days after a deadline for votes on legislation that originated in the House. The new law - barring an unforeseen veto - will limit the teaching of the influence that slavery and race have had in Texas and American history.
With Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick dictating the shots to Republican allies, the Senate voted on Friday night to recede from amendments that it added to HB 3979 before the initial vote for the bill in the upper chamber on May 22. But the Senate never approved the measure in the form that's going to the governor despite the revisions recision move that fell five votes short of the number that were needed to suspend the rules for a truly valid vote on the unamended version.
State Rep. James Talarico of Round Rock killed HB 3979 on Friday with a parliamentary objection that GOP House Speaker Dade Phelan sustained. Talarico said that the Senate's raising of the bill from the dead was blatantly unconstitutional. House Democrats might have missed a chance for a final shot at the critical race theory bill, however, when none raised a point of order to challenge the Senate ploy in a move that would have put Phelan in position to make the final call.
Patrick and the Republicans appeared to be patterning the power play on a vote that the Texas Senate took in 1941 to recede from amendments on a bill that would ggive pharmacies the right to fill prescriptions from doctors for liquor. But House Bill 373 - unlike HB 3979 in 2021 - had overwhelming support in the 47th Legislature that had a Democratic monopoly at a time when Democrat W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel was serving as governor.
The medical alcohol measure had to survive a final attempt in the House to block the measure with a point of order that challenged the Senate resurrection before Democrat Homer Leonard overruled it as the speaker during the session in 1941.
Texas is following the lead of a dozen smaller states with the critical race teaching ban that will be challenged as unconstitutional at the courthouse on multiple grounds. Donald Trump has been leading the push to ban critical thinking on race in favor of education that promotes patriotism.
The Texas Legislature has been more original with the passage of the Star Spangled Banner Protection Act that will punish professional sports teams that refused to play the national anthem at home games. But the Patrick patriotism enforcement plan in Senate Bill 4 lost substantial luster when Democrats played along with the measure that they know will have no real effect in a state where all of the pro teams already play the anthem.
But the anthem and critical race teaching bans were barely on the radar screen during the session that ended on Monday with the Republicans' overriding priority with a so-called election integrity bill dead in its wake. The voter restriction measure fizzled late Sunday night when Democrats walked out before a final vote on SB 7 in a move that left without a quorum.
With Abbott vowing to revive SB 7 in a special session this summer or fall, Texas Democratic lawmakers appealed to President Joe Biden and U.S. Senate Democrats for help with the passage of a federal election measure in Congress or the elimination of the filibuster as a weapon of last resort.
more to come ... |