The Texan Podcast - 88th Session Kickoff: Separation of Powers Panel

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup This panel was about separation of powers in Texas – both between the branches of government and between state and local governments. Our senior reporter, Brad Johnson, moderated the discussion between State Sens. Mayes Middleton and Kevin Sparks, and Rep. Matt Schaefer. Enjoy this content? Be sure to subscribe for similar podcasts and The Texan’s Weekly Roundup — a podcast released every Friday that brings you the latest news in Texas politics.

Howdy folks, Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here. Welcome to a special edition of the Texans Podcast, where we play back a panel discussion with lawmakers that we hosted at our 88th session kickoff event on January 24th. This panel centered around separation of powers in Texas, both between the branches of government and between state and local governments. Our senior reporter, Brad Johnson, moderated the discussion between state Senators Mays Middleton and Kevin Sparks and Representative Matt Schaefer. We hope you enjoy listening to this conversation and be sure to subscribe at thetexan.news to always be the first to have an insider's look at Texas politics and policymaking. Thank you all for being here.

My name's Brad Johnson. I'm a senior reporter at the Texan. I remember when we launched almost four years ago, an event like this was kind of a pipe dream. And here it is actually happening. So thank you to all of you for making this possible for us to put on. This panel is on separation of powers I'll get into a bit about what we're going to talk about but I'll introduce our panelists first we have

Senator Kevin Sparks Republican from Midland Next we have Senator Mays Middleton recently made the jump over to the Senate from the house Republican from Galveston and then Representative Matt Schaefer from Tyler. Welcome, guys. Thank you for being here. Yes. So separation of powers is kind of a broad topic. It covers a lot. Not only does it deal with separation of authority between branches of the state

government but also between local and state and we've seen a lot of fights basically every issue in the state legislature that you guys will touch encompasses the state versus local fights and so we're gonna get into a lot of that but first I want to pose more of a philosophical question on this. Senator Sparks, and I'll go to each of you after this, when evaluating policy in the legislature, where do you draw the line between state authority and local sovereignty? So, I mean, there's always that balance, right?

Because I think in general as conservatives, we believe that the more localized authority, it's closer to the voter. But as I've kind of analyzed this, we see a lot of the abuse of this in our metropolitan areas. And I look, you know, across my district, which is West Texas in the Panhandle, and I think the difference is, you know, my voters are likely to see their local leaders at the, you know, at the grocery store, at church, at different events. And so the accountability, I think, is greater in that setting than it is, say, if you're in Harris County. You know, the odds of you seeing your county commissioner or

your mayor, you know, is almost non-existent. And so I think that's really where the rub is. I think we have to really be careful that we're pulling powers away from our local communities, because as I look, and we're going to talk about, you know, some of the, for instances, over the last several years, you know, our communities out in west texas function much differently than say austin texas and so you know it's a it's going to be an ongoing debate um how do you protect the greater good without stripping us of personal liberties senator middleton well i think you have to remember how we're set up as a constitutional republic right right? So the state is sovereign over the federal government and local government as well, right? So we need to make sure on the federal side we enforce our Tenth Amendment states' rights,

but then on the local government side, the proper role of state government is to protect and defend our God-granted freedoms, right? Because that's why we're a constitutional republic and not a democracy. So what does that mean? We shouldn't micromanage for sure, but sometimes we've got to take action, like when cities like this one tried to defund the police. So the state needed to step in and make sure that our cities are providing adequate public safety and not doing things like defunding our police and compromising family safety. So, I mean, it really depends on each issue, but at the end of the day, it's the state's job to make sure that your freedoms and liberties are watched out for and protected and defended. Representative Schaefer. The purpose of government is to protect individual liberty and have an ordered society

that allows for justice and prosperity. So every question needs to start with the individual citizen. Is that level of government protecting liberty? And if they're not, then how do we work within the constitutional framework that Senator, I almost said Representative Middleton, Senator Middleton just mentioned? Focus on the individual citizen. Is the law that we're considering going to provide them more freedom or less freedom? And if it's going to be less freedom, then it's got to fit within those constitutional constraints. The biggest case study in this dynamic, this conflict between competing authorities, has been the last three years on COVID.

Not only between the state legislature and the governor, but also between the state government and the localities. Representative Schaefer, you talked a lot about this in the localities. Representative Schaffer, you talked a lot about this in the green room. How do you think this went over the last three years with kind of a hodgepodge of different policies, powers from the state down, from the governor down?

I think it's important to review what actually happened. And permit me all, it's always bad to read to an audience from the podium, but this is so important. Separation of powers is law school 101. It is government 101. The legislature creates laws, creates crimes, writes the law with public input, has hearings. The executive enforces it through his agencies. The courts call balls and strikes. When you get out of that separation of powers,

you are now back into what we had in 1776. The whole point of our American Revolution was that we were getting away from King George who would create a crime and then enforce a crime. There was no legislature that was doing it. So back in 1987, the legislature created an unconstitutional crime on its face. This comes from the Government Code, Section 418.173. Penalty for violation of an emergency plan. A state, local, or interjurisdictional emergency plan may provide that failure to comply with the plan is punishable with jail and a fine.

That emergency plan is created by an officer in the division of the governor. So what happened during COVID was the governor reached into this unconstitutional statute and told NIMCID at the Department of Emergency Management to create an emergency plan under COVID that creates a crime. Nim Kid did not hold a public hearing. He did not follow any administrative rulemaking process. There was no public input. He produced a plan on paper with a criminal penalty in it for violation of COVID orders. Handed that to the governor, and the governor said,

ah, look at that statute from 1987. I created a crime. Now I'm telling all my state agencies, all my licensing agencies, oh, you're the agency that licensed that woman who cuts hair. And so you have this, like I encountered a woman who had three children who had had her cosmetology shop shut down. She could not get her application for unemployment process. She was out of money. And she was listening to the governor of Texas use the word jail in connection with her business being closed. And you wonder, how did that happen? And why did that happen? He created the crime, and he was enforcing the crime. And they said, well, that's history now. We're past that.

No, we're not, folks. The governor just renewed this order in January of this year and explicitly said, executive order number 38 is still in effect. Now go read executive order number 38, and you will see that the $1,000 fine is still there. It's still there. This is still in place today as we speak. I filed legislation to remove that unconstitutional order and the ability to create that order in statute. If this is going to be something

that the governor can create an executive order and then there's a crime to enforce it, if that's what's good, then the legislature needs to file a bill, create that authority, and set out the parameters of that crime in law and restore the constitutional balance that has got us for over 200 years

you mentioned uh legislation filed last session there were two main versions one in the senate one in the house neither of which went anywhere why didn't that happen and does it seem like the time has passed to get legislation done on this? Is it, it was prevalent, especially in 2021. And have we moved too far since then? We couldn't get a hearing on it in the Texas house. Chairman Patty state affairs wouldn't give us a hearing. I think it was a time when it was so politically sensitive to the governor and to others, you know,

people didn't know what we were dealing with at COVID, right? So there's some grace that has to be extended. When it first happened, nobody knew what we were really dealing with. And so I think there's some grace that's extended to our leaders for getting through a chaotic period of time. But certainly, in my opinion, we've had a chance to cool off and look in the rearview mirror and see what could happen in the future with a governor who wanted to do something about the climate. Look at how far people are willing to go in the name of climate hysteria out there and climate change. Do you think a governor might say, oh, we're going to create an executive order that makes it a crime for oil and gas to do this, or this type of energy to be used, or gun violence. Just name the issue of the day that could

stir up people's passion, and a governor might be willing to do that. So we need to take that authority out of statute and restore the constitutional order. So we had a number of bills on that last session. Really what all this gets down to is the 1975 Disaster Powers Act. So that's the authority which we're talking about here today. And look, that's not just the governor. We're talking about, you know, county judges, mayors, and actually Galveston County, my home county, had it as a legislative priority last session to reform the Disaster Powers Act because what that really was intended for was like hurricanes. Hurricane Carla

was in the 1960s, you know, like imminent threats to public safety where, I mean, you can see the damage and destruction and suspending things needed for the recovery and rescue and whatnot. So we need to remember that that's really the purpose behind that. Well, then you get into COVID and you can see like Judge Lena Hidalgo, what's, you know, what's stopping her from saying we had a climate change emergency, we're going to shut down Exxon Baytown. We're shut, you know, that's the kind of thing that we're guarding against right now. Because, you know, we've all seen what happened with the phony Dr. Fauci modeling, right? I mean, and that's really the danger with this. So we need to make sure that the three

branches of government, of course, are respected. One of the bills last session was Senator Birdwell's. I think it was 30 days. The legislature has to come back in 30 days. It's a great bill. I'm going to support that again. You know, there's a lot of debate on the time of what that looks like, but at the end of the day, it makes sure that the legislature has input in this. And, you know, it's not just at the top. It goes all the way down. You saw Judge Clay Jenkins. You saw, you know, mayors doing this where they were closing businesses and, you know, telling people what they could do and couldn't do. I mean, I'll never forget here in Austin, the playgrounds had fencing around them.

They had chain link fencing and caution tape around them, you know, because that's too dangerous to allow children to play on the playground. We can't have that. Beaches got closed. That's another good example. I mean, come on, really? Open beach is actually a constitutional right, so I'm not sure how that happened. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's the three branches. But then we're still seeing this, though. So, for example, district attorneys, or that's in the judicial branch, right? Okay, well, we've got district attorneys in the state of Texas right now

that are saying we have a policy of not prosecuting certain crimes. So they're essentially taking the role of the executive and the legislative as well and saying, hey, yeah, I know we put our hand on the Bible and all to say we'd faithfully uphold and defend the laws and the Constitution of the state of Texas, but we're going to treat the Constitution and our laws cafeteria style, and we're just going to enforce what we feel like and what we don't. There's another example of an abuse of the separation of powers, where they're essentially just saying, making up on the fly, what they're going to enforce and not enforce and setting a policy of not prosecuting. It's happening in Travis County. They got a policy of not prosecuting criminal trespass.

Well, you know what? People are getting hurt and someone's gonna get killed over that. So what's gonna happen? You actually stole my thunder on that. We're gonna go to that later. But I wanna ask a follow-up. The biggest obstacle to eliminating

the Disaster Powers Act is the governor himself. He has to sign the law, if I am not misunderstanding this, right? Unless there's a veto-proof majority in the legislature. Do you even foresee that happening, Representative Schaefer? I really don't know. But if we're going to live in a time where a governor can create a crime and enforce a crime, then we need to not kid ourselves about whether we have a proper constitutional order anymore. Let's talk about it. If people stop talking about this, then we definitely won't fix it. But we got to keep

talking about this. And I've already filed my same bill. I'm going to be pushing for a hearing, and I'm going to be vocal about it. Not because I have any animosity towards our governor. He does a lot of good things. He does things that I disagree with, but he is the governor of the state of Texas. And I actually think that Governor Abbott would engender a tremendous amount of goodwill if he were to embrace this and have this in our rear view mirror and say, going forward, this is the way it should be. And as governor of Texas, I'm going to make sure that happens. So it could turn out really well.

But jury's out. I think it's, you know, all you have to do is look at what's happening at the federal level and see how this slippery slope of abuse of power when basically they don't respect the different lines of authority, how that gets abused. And, you know, we're seeing, you know, we've seen people thrown in jail without any due process. And to think that that couldn't happen

in the state of Texas, you know, under different circumstances and different leadership, I mean, we're just, we're naive if we think that that process, if you don't enforce the Constitution, as you clearly stated, then you're on that, you're on that slow path. And, you know, I had the opportunity to work on a project in Ukraine in the late 90s, and so I've kind of followed their politics since then. And you see every time a new regime is ushered in, the old ones either go to jail or they disappear completely. And that's where you're headed if you don't maintain those lines of authority. Brad, when this order came out,

I remember in my community in Smith County, our district attorney having to have a conversation with our county judge, with the sheriff, with the chief of police, saying, what are we going to enforce? Are we going to do this? And fortunately, in my community, I know what their answer was. We don't believe this is constitutional, and we're not going to do it.

But what about the rest of the state? What about Harris County? What about here in Travis County? So it starts with the individual local leaders. They have to have respect for the Constitution, but we have to have respect for the Constitution and the legislature. We have to stand up for the legislative branch, and by doing that, we are being constitutional conservatives.

We all talk about being constitutional conservatives. Well, are we really? We're not if we don't actually hold to the Constitution. Senator Middleton, one of the biggest points of conflict during the pandemic and the use of all these emergency powers was in schools. I know you are a big proponent of school choice. We talked about that earlier in an earlier panel. As far as I'm aware, you're the first person to file a school choice bill this session. Why have you decided that is such a big issue for you to tackle, specifically regarding the way school districts conducted themselves during the pandemic?

I mean, you've seen educational choice, empowering parents. That's really just an issue that's blown up over the past two years. And COVID is a lot of the reason for that, honestly. You saw it in Virginia. You know, and when parents like Biden's FBI, you know, investigated parents that were going to school board meetings at the request, by the way, of a taxpayer-funded lobby group, the National School Board Association, requested Biden's FBI investigate them as domestic terrorists because they were making their voice heard.

You know, and frankly, parents were being told you're the enemy when they were going to school board meetings in silence like that. So, you know, at the end of the day, this is just about empowering them where, you know, you're not always like, so Travis County here in Austin ISD, it's really not fair or right to say, hey, you got to go vote out all the school board members if you're not happy, right? I mean, so what we need to do is make sure that they have the tools and are empowered with the tools to decide for themselves and have the money follow their child if there's something they're not happy about, right? And that's really all that is about. I mean, we saw, you know, like, I mean, I had school districts that enforced the mask mandate against the governor's executive order that banned mask mandates, right? And they wasted a bunch of money on legal fees. And eventually, I think one of them got thrown out in court. But I mean, you know, these are some of the things that we saw happen. And parents are

being told, you know, with that kind of message, you don't know what's best for your child. Well, I'm sorry, but a parent always knows what's best for their child. You mentioned taxpayer funded lobbying. and since coming to the legislature, that's been, if not your biggest issue, one of your biggest issues. It's died at the hands of your fellow Republicans, both sessions, the last two. Does it have a chance of passing this session, and in what form so you know first session in the legislature 2019 um i actually did pass the senate we got it to the house floor uh the gallery was loaded and when that bill was on the floor with taxpayer funded lobbyist um because they were hoping that that that bill would they're worried about their paycheck at your expense.

And it failed with 18 Republicans' vote short. So, you know, it was 18 Republicans that killed it. And they got up and cheered in the gallery. The taxpayer-funded lobbyists did what it did. And that is the voice of the Austin swamp, which is exactly why we need to win this fight and we're going to win this fight. You know, at the end of the Austin swamp, which is exactly why we need to win this fight and we're going to win this fight. You know, at the end of the day, it's for speech, right? I mean, you don't agree with what the lobbyists are lobbying on. Well, what are you going to do

about it? Quit paying your property taxes? Then what happens? Someone's going to take your house, your business. So it is for speech. And, you know, they're lobbying on things that the voters in those areas don't support, like election integrity. They lobbied against that. Texas Association of School Boards actually has critical race theory on their statement of beliefs. And I don't know if y'all saw last week, they put out a legal memo which essentially encourages boys to go in girls' restrooms. That's really what it does. And they did lobby against that bill in 2017, the last time we tried to prohibit boys from going to girls' restrooms. They did lobby against it back then. So, I mean, it's very clear where they are in this. You know, and then taxpayer-funded lobbies were also against the Protect Girls sports bill as well.

So sadly, you know, parents' own tax dollars are being used to lobby against them. And that's why it's so important to pass the ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying. And really, you know, one of the main reasons that I heard, you know, against it in 2019, they said, well, we don't want to at that that session we had the school finance bill going through and there was concern about the impact on schools has become the main reason to pass it now right so that's one of the biggest changes between 2019 and 2023 is the main argument against it has become the main argument for the ban. Representative Schaefer.

A lot of the angst in our public schools is around this gender issue. And this goes back to separation of powers. Did Congress change the definition of the word sex in Title IX and federal law or in the civil rights statutes? It has not. Congress has not taken any action on that. But yet school boards like Austin ISD are changing the definition and trying to abandon truth about males and females. The legislature certainly hasn't changed that definition. This is all coming from the executive branch out of the president through executive orders and dear colleague letters from the Department of Education and through the threat

of federal force from the executive branch. It's a separation of powers issue. And yet you have school boards that are acting like lawmakers. And they're not. They should be about reading, writing, arithmetic, and science. And yet they're trying to should be about reading writing arithmetic and science and yet they're trying to get into the political policy making world and it's a separation of powers issue senator sparks um you're from a more rural area and we've heard the um lieutenant governor say in his speech that there's a plan to bracket out rural districts in In the state of Texas in the school choice plan that we have talked about

How would that affect is that first of all is it even possible is that something that your community is looking for? and how would that affect localities and You know their authority to run their schools? Yeah, so, yeah, is that a good idea? Not positive. I haven't seen exactly, you know, what the lieutenant governor's thoughts are on that. You know, I can tell you, as traveling across my district, which is mostly rural, those smaller independent school systems appear to be, in a lot of respects,

in much better shape than what we're seeing, once again, in larger school districts. So not sure that there's necessarily that need, but I'm going to I mean I'm gonna be sensitive to that they rural Texas is disadvantaged in a lot of ways you know they have a hard time attracting teachers they have our time attracting medical professionals and I think we need to be sensitive to that but at the end of the day I truly believe that it's

it's free enterprise that is going to improve all of education, just like that's what's going to improve our health care as well, and you're going to give the parents that opportunity. If, you know, if a school shuts down and says, hey, we're not holding class this semester, that parent ought to have the opportunity to send their child to a school that decides, hey, we're going to hold class this semester. And I think that's the way, you know, we do that, we're going to figure out where our state is, right? Are there more of us that really believe in our own personal freedoms and liberties and are willing to take responsibility with that?

Or, you know, are we going to become a socialistic state like a lot of, you know, frankly, a lot of other states have gone down that path? Okay, now we'll get back to the district attorney issue. Representative Schaefer, we saw a bill filed by Representative Cook in your chamber. Senator Parker filed the same version in the Senate. It allows the state to restrict the discretion granted to district attorneys. Specifically, you must prosecute certain things right and usually reserved for

the most serious of crimes why do you think this is such a what I think that this has so much momentum this time around as opposed to last session the crime and brutality we're seeing on the streets of Texas is a direct results of district attorneys and judges not doing their job. And so there's a tremendous amount of frustration. The problem is not the law. The problem is not even the Texas Constitution. We keep trying to do a bail reform bill in the Texas Constitution. Show me that the Texas Constitution is actually broken on bail. I don't believe it is. I believe the problem is with the judges and the district attorneys. So we always have to be careful, very careful when we take discretion away from a local

judge and a local prosecutor to look at the totality of the facts and what happened in a criminal episode, because the power to take someone's freedom is an extraordinary power. We have to be careful with that. But what we have with these district attorneys is a very clear abdication of their constitutional responsibility to do their job. They should be impeached. They should be thrown out of office. So I'm willing to explore any legislative solution here that holds to our constitutional framework? I mean, you're seeing it here. So, you know, one of the first things that brought my attention to this was the media is not in talk about this because they don't want to. But there was a

riot at the Texas Capitol around June of 2020. And the building got spray painted. They tried to get in, break in. They pushed over monuments. and seven state troopers were injured. DPS, they did a great job finding the suspects or made dozens of arrests. And guess how many have been prosecuted, right? So there's no justice for those state troopers that were injured on that day because guess what? The Travis County district attorney has set a policy of not prosecuting whether it's written or unwritten we're not talking about restricting prosecutorial discretion or interfering with prosecutorial discretion we're not talking about that

not about probable cause we're talking about when they set a policy of not prosecuting uh the fort ben i believe the fort ben district attorney came to a House committee, interim committee, not that long ago, and basically said, oh, well, you know, my constituents don't like these laws, you know, that Republicans are passing, so I'm not going to enforce the pro-life laws, more or less. I mean, that was pretty much the long and the short of it. So I'm sorry, you know, it's Johnny Holmes, right? He was the famous law and order, tough on crime, Harris County district attorney, and he said he was going to prosecute to the maximum extent of the law. And if people didn't like it, they need to go change the law.

Right? And that's how district attorneys are supposed to operate. But unfortunately, and you've got George Soros. Like here in Travis County, there was more moderate district attorney, Margaret Moore. And I guess she put too many people in jail. And George Soros didn't like it much. district attorney Margaret Moore, and I guess she put too many people in jail, and George Soros didn't like it much, so, you know, he funded an opponent that now is a, you know, of course, a very woke left-wing district attorney that has a lot of policies of not prosecuting with many

different crimes. So, you know, it's unfortunate we're losing cadet classes. It's very demoralizing for law enforcement to know that they'll make these arrests and risk their life when there's not going to be any prosecution. I mean, how are we supposed to attract people, right, to go into law enforcement? Why are they risking their life if, you know, they know that there's not many justice at the end of this? So it's so important also, like you said earlier, to respect the branches of government. You know, I mean, that's essentially the DA is all three branches, if that's how they're operating, pretty much. You know, I mean, that's essentially the DA is all three branches, if that's how they're operating, pretty much. You know, I mean, they're the judiciary, they're the executive, and they're the legislative.

They don't care what we do and on what laws we pass. So this is a separation of powers issue as well. And frankly, the DAs that are doing this and have policies that are not prosecuting, not only do they need to be removed from office, they need to be disbarred, and I'm going to file legislation to get that done this session. A lot of the examples, the most obvious examples,

are in the state's most populated counties. Is this happening outside of those? Can you think of any examples that you've seen similar types of policies at these district attorney offices? Senator Middleton? I mean, the worst offenders, of course, are the big blue counties, right? I mean, you can find instances like, you know, we've had issues of election integrity. I can't remember, a county in the Rio Grande Valley where the AG came in and tried to prosecute. You know, I mean, you can find those,

but by and large, we're talking about the big blue counties. So Dallas County, Bear County, Travis County, Harris County, you know, the big ones that really represent most of our state's population. And that's why you're seeing like, you know, I don't know if you saw in the news, the city of Houston is starting to lose population lose population well it's because of public safety you know so that's why this is so important because look at the end of the day um like i said earlier we're here to protect your and defend your god-granted freedoms of life liberty and property but but if there's not public safety someone's take your life something to take your liberty something to take your property and that's why this is so important to get right. Do you have anything, Dad? It didn't happen in my district, but it did happen in a

very close district to mine. During COVID, a police officer showed up to a gun store about them closing because they refused to close. Well, you have a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Well, you can't keep them if you can't get them. And when a guy with a gun and a badge showed up to that business, you have a law enforcement officer who doesn't understand the constitution. So I do want to stand up for rural Texas because a lot of this transgender stuff that's happening, a lot of this insanity with COVID, it just did not happen in our rural areas. And a lot of our public schools, probably most of our public schools are not wading into the cesspool of that transgender ideology. Let's get that clear. Let's stand up for the school districts that are getting it right. And the same with our law enforcement and our judges

and our district attorneys out in the rural areas. This is primarily an urban problem right now. Senator Sparks, have you seen anything like this out in your community? Have you heard any complaints from your constituents about specific policies not being enforced? I'm not aware of anything that's happening across far west texas um but there certainly may be those circumstances where the same thing happens um again i think part of it is in those more rural um counties you know they're you're just closer to the people. And the people are the ones that hold them responsible, which is the way our system is supposed to work. But I do think

when you have bad actors that aren't doing their job, there has to be a mechanism in there to correct that. Actually, one of the mechanisms we have seen increasingly deployed, or at least proposed, the Texas Heartbeat Act provided a civil cause of action, allowed citizens to bring suits against instances of abortion after six weeks. I saw the same mechanism put in Representative Carl Tepper's bill on diversity, equity, inclusion offices in higher education. It seems like this is a growing strategy among the state legislature, Republicans especially, to try and push back against certain policies they see at the local level. Is that a concerted effort,

Representative Schaefer, or is this something that's just kind of developed? It's actually not new. It goes back to English common law. It's actually very old, and we've had it in Texas statute for a number of years with our Medicaid fraud. Medicaid fraud in the state of Texas can be enforced by a private right of action by a citizen. So we're basically just dusting off an old legal mechanism and bringing it into modern times. Yeah, and that actually is, from the beginning, as the enforcement mechanism for the ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying, the best accountability enforcement is you, right? And that's why I think we need to make sure we insert more civil penalties in our election integrity laws, you know, so you are the watchdog, and we put you in the driver's seat. So, you know,

and the taxpayer that's suffering an injury because of this can make sure that the law is enforced, and, you know, I mean, it's hard for government is slow, right? I mean, government is very slow. And I'm not saying that we don't have people that aren't fighting to do the right thing we do, but it's still government, right? So a civil penalty operates much quicker because we know the speed at which we hold, you know, violations of election law, tax law, whatever, accountable, matters a lot. So that's why I think civil penalties are important because it's much quicker. Well, go back to COVID.

All the lawsuits that were filed kept getting thrown out because it lacked standing. The courts kept saying, you lack standing. Well, I filed legislation that would address that, that would give an individual citizen standing if the government is not using the least restrictive means to accomplish their purpose in a disaster. And so we do need to restore the individual right to bring their case to a court. Do you think it perhaps presents the potential for frivolous lawsuits, or is that just kind of, it comes with it, right? Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. Is there any danger in that, you think? It's hard to win a legal case.

It's expensive. It takes a lot of time and energy. So I think only the cream is going to rise to the top, and the stuff that's frivolous is going to get thrown out very quickly. Well, I mean, there are going to be groups, though, that will fund those types of suits, but that's the way our system is set up. And so it may be time to fight those suits and get that determined.

Well, and on that, so I think a good way to handle that is loser pay. Like, so, you know, the Protect Women's Sports Bill, which I'm going to follow, you know, when the left challenges that and we win, in other words, it's upheld, they pay our legal fees, right? So I think an important way to kind of fix that issue

is put loser pay in there when we have civil penalties. Because, I mean, everything conservative the legislature has ever done, someone files a suit to stop it. They don't win real often. So that's why that provision is so valuable. So for a final question, I want to ask about the legislative session. What do you think the biggest fault line is going to be on, in terms of policy, relating to this topic of state versus local or the separation of powers

between the branches of the state government? What do you see coming down the pipe that is going to yield a pretty big fight in the legislature? Senator Sparks? I probably ought to defer to my two colleagues because this is my first time through. I'm sure they're already visiting with, they probably already have a pretty good idea of what's going to be the largest fight i i think um um parental empowerment in my mind most is is likely the most critical um issue to address this session senator milton yeah i agree i mean that you know uh educational

choice is gonna be a huge fight and we have a lot of great school districts we have a lot of great public school teachers but at the end of the day this is just about the parents right I mean that's who we're empowering with these tools and having money followed their child and making sure every child is qualified and every child is treated equally and every child is treated equally, and every child is in the program. But, again, parents' own tax dollars are sent to taxpayer-funded lobby groups that come to Austin to oppose everything we want to do to empower parents. So, I mean, that's a huge fight because you're paying for the opposition.

Now, everyone here today is here because they believe in it, right? Unfortunately, the problem with the taxpayer-funded lobbyists is they're there because they're paid to be there. You're there because you believe in it. And that's not fair, and that's not right. I mean, that's one reason why that bill is so important to pass as well. And that's a big fight as well because, you know, you're essentially defunding the lobby. We're spending about 40 ish million a year on taxpayer-funded lobbying you know congress avenue is loaded up

uh with taxpayer-funded lobbyists and uh you know they've got expensive offices and they're in the capital every single day and you're paying for all that sadly so uh that's a big fight because you know we're taking we're going for their paycheck is what we're doing you know and we're amplifying the voice of the grassroots and our constituents when we do that because you're not having to compete against someone that's paid to be against you anymore so that that's that's my soapbox on that one you know okay representative schaefer i think the biggest test is going to be the degree to which Texas stands up to the Biden administration this session. Whether that be the insane energy policies that are coming out of Washington that want to literally shut down our oil and gas industry and put us into energy poverty, whether that be the transgender executive policies that

are coming into our public schools, COVID, the Second Amendment. We have a clear battle in front of us as a state of Texas that we're going to either stand up for Texans and the Tenth Amendment rights, or we're going to cave, or we're just going to come out of session having kind of done a little bit, but taking no strong approach. I believe we have to forcefully and with great strength resist what's happening in Washington right now. Well, that concludes our panel. As you watch the state legislature and the regular session,

try and view it through the lens of state versus local, these fights that we will see constantly and in almost every issue. I find it very interesting to see the various fault lines in that. But we look forward to seeing how it turns out, and thank you all for being here. Thanks for having us. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter, tweet at the Texan news. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek

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