The big question on the minds of American social conservatives is: "is Texas next?" After frustrating vetoes of pro-family legislation by the Republican governors of South Dakota and Arkansas, social conservatives feel fed up. They ask themselves, "Has our side really been stringing us along?" In the long run, betrayals by Kristi Noem and Asa Hutchinson might even help the pro-family cause. These two governors forced pro-family conservatives to acknowledge that we have been played for fools for a very long time. It is about time we stop pretending that the "pro-life" label suffices to qualify someone as a fighter for family values.
Go on the Offense or Stop Pretending to Play
Until now, the national media cycle has not spotlighted the raucous civil war among Texas conservatives. But it's already in full swing.
As reported in earlier articles, social conservatives have besieged Austin trying to force the Republican-led legislature in Austin to act on dozens of pro-family causes. These common sense bills range from holding liable reckless LGBT counselors to reclassifying "cancel culture" as workplace harassment.
The approach taken recently by Mass Resistance comes from painful experience. The left has succeeded largely because they push aggressive legislation on every front and don't back down. The right, by contrast, plays defense, when it doesn't simply forfeit.
They Flood the Zone, While We Stumble
When conservatives do push back against the left, they often do so based on narrowly defined issues shorn of context. (Like coaches leading prayers before football games.) Leftists press-gang activists from nearly every profession to advocate for them, including educators, artists, and programmers. And they attack on every front at once. Conservatives tend to pour resources into constitutional lawyers and the lawmakers whom they advise. Grassroots traditionalists donate copious funds to activists who focus on a tiny number of high-profile court cases. Ultimately even those court cases are almost all lost.
The ingredients exist in Texas for another family-values nothingburger. The establishment GOP feels snug and entitled. Their party controls all branches of state government. Ambitious lawmakers have learned how to look conservative even while dodging the pushback (from Coke, from the NCAA, etc.) entailed in actually serving conserving anything. The state's size attracts grifters, swindlers, hustlers, and prospectors of every stripe. Here is where Elmer Gantry goes corporate.
The Mating Habits of Texas RINOs
Texas's unique system only allows for the legislature to meet for 140 days every two years. This year's session began in January but the deadline for introducing bills fell on March 12. For much of the time prior to March 12 the politicians were on vacation. A heck of a way to run a state.
CALL TO ACTION:
This article discusses time-sensitive action items currently under the jurisdiction of Texas State Representative Stephanie Klick. If you want to take action on the issues described below, you can find the phone numbers and contact information for Ms. Klick here or follow Texas Mass Resistance on Twitter at @mass_tx.
And pretty much every session, the mass of establishment RINOs sink all pro-family bills using feints and sleights. They cite time constraints, rules of order, fear of the courts overturning it, or random objections raised in committee. They buck constituents and refuse to introduce bills, or send them to committees to die. In any other year, these games would work. Texas lawmakers could keep their liberal corporate interests happy, avoid trouble for themselves, and look decent for their conservative constituents.
Not this year. 2020 changed everything. There is no such thing as business as usual. Just ask Rep. Stephanie Klick.
Loudly Christian RINOs Take Discreet Phone Calls from LGBT Thugs and … Obey
Stephanie Klick used to be chairwoman of the Tarrant County Republican Party. Famed for her deep Christian faith, her grandmother status, and career in nursing, she chairs the Public Health committee for the Texas House of Representatives. She has the power to give bills hearings and can decide whether to vote on them. Normally the Republican apparatchiks in Texas would place a discreet call to someone in her position and tell her to make pro-family boondoggles go away. Kill the bill with a smile.
According to Texas Scorecard, Ms. Klick was up to precisely such games in this session. She was helping to bury a law banning chemical castration and other "trans" abuse of teens in Texas:
[Activist Jeff] Younger indicated that the meeting was on the subject of the [Save James] bill. He says Klick refused to support the bill in the meeting and she expressed concern that it would instead "set the wrong tone" in any public hearing and "trans people would be traumatized" as a result of it being heard…
Younger indicated that he made sure to tell Klick that agencies dealing with this issue are desperately looking for leadership from legislators, hoping that would be a motivating factor for her to consider the bill.
When he brought up the mechanics of the bill as he understood them, in that it would directly go after the clinics that serve young people and work to prevent permanent genital mutilation, Younger says she immediately walked away from the meeting.
Pro-Family Texans Push Back
Klick came under massive fire on Twitter. "Stephanie Klick is afraid if we speak of this abuse often ushered in by parents that trans people will be #traumatized," posted Mass Resistance Texas. Tracy Forester tweeted, "Stephanie Klick needs to schedule these anti-child abuse bills for a hearing: HB 68, 1399, 2693, and 4014."
A reply to Forester's tweet quickly stated that Klick was now planning on scheduling HB 1399. She announced this only on Friday, April 9, after weeks of brushing aside constituents demanding action on the pro-family agenda. The late announcement left only two working days and a weekend before the actual hearings scheduled on Wednesday, April 14. Mass Resistance Texas had to scramble to put together an informational session in Klick's district in sixteen hours, to let her voters know what was at stake.
Other tweeters pointed out that the proposal Klick chose to schedule — HB 1399 — did not match the bill being considered by State Sen. Bryan Hughes's State Affairs Committee. The Senate bill would ban social transitioning of minors under the age of fourteen, but would leave high schoolers with no restrictions on gender transitioning.
Should Texas Schools Pressure Kids into Transgender Transition?
The House bill would ban puberty blocking drugs and surgery for minors under the age of eighteen, but would not ban "social transitioning." Social transitioning is the knot of counseling pressure, demand for pronoun discipline, cross-dressing, opposite-sex identification, and social contagion that often leads young people to decide in haste that they are the opposite sex. Such social transitioning is often enforced by schools, counselors, and courts.
Sen. Hughes assigned meetings to pro-family bills first, and then pressure mounted on Rep. Klick.
A source on the State Republican Executive Committee stated that public campaign pressures are still necessary despite Klick's scheduling of the haring for HB 1399. This source stated, "if the hearing takes place on April 14 but Klick's committee does not hold a vote, then chances are, this is a smokescreen and it's not going to the House floor for a vote."
The Texas RINO Machine Does the Bidding of Transgender Extremists
The SREC source said, "this is usually how bills get killed. If there's a delay in voting in committee, the calendar committee will then claim there is not enough time for the House to vote on it." Everything depends, it seems, on Stephanie Klick not only conducting the hearing but also calling for a committee vote and then aggressively pushing for the legislation to go through.
The GOP weasels who do not want to be exposed for sinking the pro-family bill will ideally want Klick to make HB 1399 go away. That way everyone can claim he tried to oppose the LGBT agenda, but pro-LGBT donors will be satisfied. And pediatric gender transitioning will continue to grow across the state.
As Tracy Shannon and Jeff Younger both point out in this teach-in, we are still not in the clear even if Klick calls for a committee vote and her committee sends the bill to the House floor. The calendar committee can simply stonewall it by not entering a time for it to be heard on the floor. If it passes the House, it must then go to the Senate, where it might be thrown back into a Senate committee. If the Senate passes it, the bill has to reach Governor Abbott's desk.
Will Abbott Sell Us Out Again?
Given Governor Greg Abbott's courtship of big business, nobody in Austin is optimistic that he will sign the bill. One insider said, "the ideal scenario for the governor is it never reaches his desk at all."
And remember – HB 1399 is merely the banning of puberty-blocking drugs or surgery on children under the age of 18. An enormous array of other interventions necessary to protect family values are not even in play at all. Nobody has introduced bills for them, despite heroic lobbying. Or committee chairs like Klick are refusing to give them hearings. Such is the fate of HB 68, introduced by Rep. Steve Toth, which would have classified pediatric sex reassignment as child abuse. That bill was lucky enough to be introduced but Klick wouldn't even give it a hearing.
A Case Study in GOP Betrayal of Pro-Family Causes
Hailing from the cities wedged between Fort Worth and Dallas, Klick represents House District 91. Her world is a typical battlefield for the GOP's electoral future.
One could classify District 91 as either mildly urban or exurban. When people talk about the suburban mom vote, this is it. Fifty-two percent of the district is female. Women there are about 10% more likely to be mothers than the national average. The median home value is $168,000.
Trump's America is a restless place too. Texas would be an ideal locale for grassroots revolts to primary RINOs in 2022.
The per capita income sits at $30,818, which is ten percent lower than the U.S. But the average household income is $69,541, which is ten percent higher than the national average. The divergence between per capita and household income statuses reflects the social fabric of this community. Whether because of immigrant traditions (the district has higher Latino and Asian populations than the national average) or because of white Christian family values (several thoroughfares in District 91 are essentially church districts), people tend to form families and live as family units.
The voters in Klick's district are 58% white, while 26% are Latino. Only 27% of them hold college degrees. Humble but stable, hardworking, prayerful, family-focused, and struggling to attain the American dream, this is Trump's America in its purest essence.
Time to Hunt Down RINOs in the Primaries
In 2020, Klick won re-election against her Democratic challenger by a breezy margin of 28 points. The largest city in her district, North Richland Hills, still abounds in "Back the Blue" signs and Trump flags.
But Trump's America is a restless place too. This would be an ideal locale for a grassroots revolt to primary Klick in 2022. It could be a theater for Democrats to stage a comeback with a charismatic candidate who can reconnect with his party's working-class roots.
Jeff Younger's son is the child at the center of the "Save James" movement. Younger has been fighting his ex-wife who wants to transition their son James into a girl called Luna. He feels the battle in Texas stands in for a larger social crisis.
"I think Stephanie Klick is part of the Texas establishment. Whatever her personal beliefs are, she wants to stay there," Jeff Younger said. "Our leaders are on the verge of showing the electorate that they will allow the sexual mutilation of children … When Republican voters see that, they will absolutely understand that their leaders will not protect their children from child abuse. When the people realize that it will be the end of the Republican Party."
Currently activists like Jeff Younger are asking people to contact Texas officials and push for support of the Save James bills. They also request prayerfully that conservatives ask Texas Republicans to extend the filing deadlines of the present session so more issues can be addressed, or to hold a special session focusing on pro-family bills. See Mass Resistance's site for more.
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