The 86th Texas Legislature went into session today, and we sent a message to lawmakers: Focus on building a 21st-century Texas, not bathrooms and other manufactured controversies. Check out our press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 8, 2019
With the opening of the 86th Legislature today, Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller called on state lawmakers this session to reject manufactured controversies and focus their efforts on issues that drove a rising generation of Texans to the polls in large numbers in November.
“The November elections made clear that politics in this state are beginning to shift, and a rising generation of voters will be in the vanguard of that change,” Miller said. “They don’t want another legislative session consumed by manufactured controversies like government dictating where people can pee. They want instead a Legislature that helps build a 21st-century Texas. That means lawmakers should focus on classrooms, not bathrooms, on protecting civil liberties and women’s reproductive health care rather than restricting them, and on making it easier rather than harder for people to vote and participate in our democracy.”
Miller called on lawmakers to:
- Reject “religious refusal” legislation that authorizes businesses, health care providers, government officials and other individuals to use religion to refuse to obey laws and policies that protect LGBTQ people from discrimination
- Address the state’s maternal mortality crisis and protect the constitutional right of women to make their own reproductive health care decisions, including expanding access to abortion care
- Fully fund our public schools and reject voucher schemes that siphon tax dollars to private and religious schools
- Ensure that public school students get sex education that is medically accurate and evidence-based
- Protect local control, including the authority of cities and counties to adopt anti-discrimination protections and rules guaranteeing workers have paid sick leave so they can take care of themselves or family members when illness strikes
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Texas Freedom Network is a grassroots organization of religious and community leaders who support social justice, religious freedom and individual liberties. Texas Rising, sponsored by TFN, brings together young, diverse, politically engaged Texans under 30 to build a grassroots movement through community organizing, electoral politics and public policy advocacy.
