Bills To Combat Sweltering Prison Conditions Back In Texas Legislature Despite Past Legal Battle kut.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kut.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
âWhen you make making a mistake on a voter registration application a second degree felony, thatâs the equivalent of arson and aggravated kidnapping,â said Sarah Labowitz, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
Conservative politicians have tried to justify the rollback by masquerading behind Donald Trumpâs claim that last yearâs presidential contest was stolen â despite a complete lack of evidence, and even though their party won handily in Texas.
Allegations of widespread voter fraud have almost become a âlitmus testâ among Texas Republicans, said Juan Carlos Huerta, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.
Will Texas Criminalize Supportive Parents of Trans Kids?
Legislators debate a bill making it child abuse to let kids have transition procedures, while advancing a trans-exclusionary sports bill. April 15 2021 4:14 PM EDT
The Texas Senate advanced a bill Wednesday that would bar transgender athletes from participating in school sports under their gender identity, and the state is considering a radical bill on gender-confirmation procedures for minors criminalizing parents who help their children obtain such care.
The Senate passed the trans-exclusionary sports bill by a vote of 18-12, sending it on to the House. The bill’s text addresses sports in public schools and open-enrollment charter schools, not state colleges and universities. It would require students to be assigned to the teams designated for their “biological sex” as shown on their original, unamended birth certificate.
Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune
The Texas Senate on Wednesday approved the chamber’s priority bail legislation that aims to keep more people accused or previously convicted
of violent crimes in jail before trial unless they can post cash bonds.
Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, previously said her Senate Bill 21 is meant to “address the appalling uptick in violent crimes by defendants out on multiple personal bonds,” which don’t require cash up front. The bill passed out of the Senate on a vote of 23-8 and will now head to the House.
Many bail reform advocates have criticized the bill, as well as the governor’s priority legislation in the House, for still relying on a money-based system. Texas’ systems for deciding how to release people from jail while awaiting trial have long been criticized for unfairly keeping poor people locked up simply because they don t have the cash to post bail.