Latest / Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement / Legislative Update from your TMPA team

Transcript

Legislative Update from your TMPA team · Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon and welcome here at TMPA.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Just wanted to jump on and talk for a few minutes about what's going on down at the Texas Capitol.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: As you're all aware, legislative session starts up in January, but the pre-filing period started, what was it, Clint, three weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Deadline or the beginning kickoff was probably two and a half, three weeks ago.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there's already been hundreds and hundreds of bills that have been pre-filed.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Prefiling is now over, but your team with at TMPA, our legislative team, is you know, they continue to work hard year-round on all these issues.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: As of right now, we want to we want to give shout-outs to a couple of representatives in particular.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Representative Patterson has been working with us for the last couple of sessions on the workers' comp issues.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And workers' comp for law enforcement and first responders in this state has has been in shambles.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We made some good progress in the last session with some bills that were passed, but there's still a lot of work to be done.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know uh currently where those bills sit?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where they sit.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh John Wilkerson and our ledge team have their sleeves rolled up, and um our members continue reaching out to us to the the issues that are important, and um please know because it's not on the forefront of social media posts every day or things like that, that we continue to work year-round.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and one confusing thing is the session.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Although it's every other year for about five months, your ledge team works year-round.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's a year-round process to stay ahead of the issues, build relationships, network with um our members and the reps and senators.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, those relationships to have a professional, meaningful um produce pr results, uh, that's a year-round effort.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: We uh I was with John Wilkerson a couple of weeks ago when we met with representatives from the Texas Municipal League Risk Pool.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: That that's the entity that TML created to underwrite health insurance and workers' comp insurance for a lot of cities.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh TAC has a similar situation, but uh what Senator what Representative Patterson is currently working on, we went and met with uh the the lobbyists and lawyers that work for TML Risk Pool uh about what we're trying to accomplish there.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and it was a, as you can imagine, it was a pretty contentious meeting, and it lasted a lot longer than we thought it would.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um but what the trouble we're having there right now is the contested case hearings, and they don't seem to be willing to reach out to work with us on it right at this particular moment, but we have at least agreed to meet again to see if we can't find some common ground.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we've still got work to do on the on the workers' comp bills.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: We also have the Brady issue, which we've been working on for several sessions now.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: We have met with uh uh the governor and his staff, we've met with the lieutenant governor and his staff and the speaker and his staff.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: We've met with just about everyone with the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, and there have been a couple of bills filed that haven't gotten any traction.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, the the point here is not to pass a bill.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The point here is to pass a bill that will actually make a difference and it will pass constitutional muster.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: District attorneys are constitutionally elected officials, and as such, the legislature is limited as to exactly what they can and cannot do to rein in elected DAs.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it ha you have to be very cautious with that, and you have to make sure all the all the stakeholders understand the lay of the land.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that's a great point you just made though.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy to file a bill and then and then claim you filed a bill or you did this or you did that.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then blame everybody else when it doesn't pass.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: File on the bill's easy part.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Working with um stakeholders around the state, working with various legislators, getting a bill passed that is effective and produces something, that's that's much more important than uh the the easy part is leaving the gate and saying you filed something or you did something or uh social media posts saying you did something.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: The real results is when you get um results that are meaningful and actually advance the the profession and help help the guy on the street at 2 a.m.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: um turn to go home to his family.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which ties into the other shout out I wanted to talk about, and that is Representative Cody Harris and the bill that he has filed.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, and this is where and and you I'm sure you want to talk more about that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I want to make the NASCAR reference.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's an old expression in NASCAR that says, if you're driving in a race and there's a wreck in front of you, what do you do?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is you aim for the wreck.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is you don't know where the wreck is going to be by the time you get there, but it's not gonna be where it is right now.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why you aim for that spot.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Legislation is the famous Ricky Bobby quote, wasn't it?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Shaking back, baby.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Shaking back.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the the point here is when legislation gets filed, don't get too caught up in the specifics of that legislat uh of that bill the way it was filed.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: What Representative Harris has filed is a bill that was filed last session.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same exact bill.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't go anywhere.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Representative Harris is not expecting it to go anywhere.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: What he's expecting is for us now to get together with all the different stakeholders and redraft that bill into one that actually will work.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great point.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um stakeholders unity.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's about 88,000 cops around Texas, and the more we can communicate stakeholders, whether it's a two-man agency or a 5,000-person agency or um anywhere in the state that you are, the more we can unify to work together to better our profession again.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: That that's that's the game changer, and that's when we can make some meaningful change.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I w I was uh going back and forth with uh one chief of staff this week uh about the F-5s and what's gonna happen next with that.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of talk about it, you know, with this the T-Cole sunset uh process going on yet again.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they've issued their report yet again, even though the public hearing isn't until I guess next week.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it there we're gonna see some other stuff happen with T Cole, but the snake, you know, the proof is the devil's always in the detail.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: The proof is in the pudding.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's which cliche can we use?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have to make sure you pay attention day in and day out to what these things are doing.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, some folks like to get up and beat their chest and you know say, look at us, look at us.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what we do.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: We get out there and work in what's in the best interest of you, the members and law enforcement officers across the state.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe we should trump our thump our chest a little bit more, but it's just not who we are.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to mention briefly about uh it's been a hot topic around the state and uh some of our large areas, what we've been working on regarding DAs?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, again, uh like I say, we we've met with uh any of the stakeholders out there, the governors you know attempts to rein in some of these different DAs have been uh have had some mixed uh results.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We we have we have met with everybody.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you though, we have we've seen some things happen in other states that I think would be great in Texas, except for the fact that they're happening in states that have different constitutions than we do.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when we when you start looking at Illinois or you look and you look at Iowa, you look at what California has, and you think, man, that's a great idea.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it's a great idea if we could do that.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is the Texas Constitution would have to be amended in order to make some of those things happen.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, you have to get a bunch of different things you know involved and different players involved, and so on and so forth.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: The long and the short of it isn't, and this is where we want to talk about Representative Harris's bill, because that's that's his objective with this latest bill that he's filed.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it's HB HB 799.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that's it.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the language that's in that bill right now is probably not the language that's good we're gonna wind up with, but the the intent is still the same, and it is to rein in these rogue DAs who are simply trying to implement their own versions of social engineering instead of doing their constitutional duties and enforcing the law.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's even a bill that was filed to uh eliminate the city of Austin and make that the District of Austin under the control of the state legislature, like the District of Columbia is under the control of the Federal Congress.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: The People's Republic of Austin.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody once somebody, and I know I've getting off topic, but somebody once referred to the city of Austin as 440 square miles surrounded by reality.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think they got it just about right.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Any other bills you can think of?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned uh T-Cole sunset.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um is there kind of a status on that, or are they gonna reevaluate that blue ribbon down the road somewhere?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: My guess is, and what is in the in the report, uh it basically says they are recommending once once again that a blue ribbon panel be created and appointed to work on it for two years, uh, go ahead and and continue T-Cole for two more years as is.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the problem is they they now are without ex an executive director, they're understaffed, they're underfunded, and if we kick it down the road two more years, that means two more years that we've got we've still got the same old problems we've always had.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: The flip side is you got people that want to give you know T Cole the authority to be the internal affairs investigators for every law enforcement agency in the state.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as I told Kim Vickers back in the day, and as I told uh Representative Cerrier when he was chairman of that committee, that's fine as long as you include due process in there for every cop in the state of Texas.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And until you get due process in there, we're not gonna agree to letting T-Cole be internal affairs for anybody.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: They want to do criminal investigations, that's fine.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: If they want to have authority to revoke a license where there is still an appeals process where officers are guaranteed due process, that's great.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're gonna let them decide whether or not an officer gets to continue in their career without due process, we will fight that all day long.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And due process is really the crux of the issue with Brady.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: You have 254 counties, uh, 200 and something DAs that are all interpreting and enforcing Brady 200 different ways.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so due process is the core of the issue that that needs to be addressed, and that goes back hand in hand with the DA bill we're working on with some of the activist DAs, and uh those those two issues are almost intertwined.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I think we'd be remiss if we don't point out, by the way, some of these policies that have been implemented, even those radical DAs are starting to walk them back.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed that uh Judge Crusoe up in Dallas has now decided he will, in fact, prosecute some theft cases between$100 and$750.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Part of that is because he's seeing the crime rates skyrocket.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's seeing the quality of life deteriorate.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's seeing a backlash from his own voters saying, hey, this isn't working for us.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we tried to tell him going in that that was gonna happen.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: You were gonna see an increase in crimes and then more lawlessness.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the the social engineering package that was being pushed, and in some quarters is still being pushed, basically is an attempt to simply normalize crime.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't see how good, hardworking, honest Texans are gonna are gonna go for that for very long.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And even uh some folks on the West Coast, we recently heard from our friends at Seattle that Seattle is elected a Republican or two, which they never thought would happen.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they thought the oceans may freeze over before that would happen again.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we do see that people are tired of crime.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're tired of um the defunding and and disarming of law enforcement.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Portland is seeing some pushback as well.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we just came back from the uh Porat conference in California and heard reports that uh that much of the uh police reform measures that were passed in California are now being repealed and and drawn back because of the uh we will call them unintended consequences, but they certainly were foreseeable consequences.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: But they came they came to fruition as we said that they would.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now the voters are pushing back and insisting that their elect elected representatives do more about pushing back against crime.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we're seeing that push back in the other direction.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not happening fast enough in a couple of Texas counties, so we're still working on it.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else before we sign off, Mr.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Executive Director?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I you know, there are like say, there's I think there's fifteen hundred bills that have been filed already, pre-filed already.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're tracking, I I want to say thirty-something percent of those, both of which are significantly higher than they were for the pre-filing period last session.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so just know this.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: We if you don't think you're hearing from us fast enough about what's going on at the Capitol, just keep in mind it changes minute by minute.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Literally.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, we can we can get on this afternoon and give you a report about what's going on, and by the time we finish the report, it could be inaccurate.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And changing the the purpose, the intent, the the whole crux of a bill can be as simple as changing a period to a comma or changing an and to an or.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is it is that intricate a system.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we will keep you informed as best we possibly can, and know you are always welcome to reach out to us, any member of the team.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: We will respond to you as quickly as we possibly can.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Before we sign off, uh again, we'd like to thank State Representative Patterson and State Representative Harris for their work.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: We've got some podcast episodes that we will be shooting out with some really good guests with um different backgrounds, all law enforcement related, the Blue Grit, the Voice of Texas Law Enforcement Podcast podcast that we'll be spinning out.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you need somebody, reach out to your field rep, your ledge team, your training team, anybody, any of us down here.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Take care, be safe.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: God bless each of you, and God bless Texas.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Watch your six.