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Tag: Texas House

  • Fort Worth rep’s pivot to faith panel allies him with Jan. 6 speaker | Opinion

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    Rep. Nate Schatzline, standing in front of the White house announces his resignation and partnership with Pastor Paula White-Cain’s National Faith Advisory Board

    Rep. Nate Schatzline, standing in front of the White house announces his resignation and partnership with Pastor Paula White-Cain’s National Faith Advisory Board

    Nate Schatzline | X

    Rep. Nate Schatzline says he’s leaving elected office. Knowing the outgoing representative for Texas House District 93 — which covers North Fort Worth — well enough to have a strong opinion of him in any direction assumes you either pay close attention to legislative politics or his church’s sermons. Each of which is, in its own way, unwise for your health.

    While you should be informed about how Schatzline uses his podium in Austin and pulpit in Fort Worth to force us to live like we go to his church, I am sorry if I’ve stripped you of your blissful ignorance. But for Fort Worthians who either enjoy (or at least respect) the right to abortive healthcare, LGBTQ+ expression or easy access to buying books, Schatzline’s departure from the state House may feel like an early Christmas present.

    Same for those who want freedom from easily preventable disease. Schatzline honored Mercy Culture Preparatory, a school operated by the church he pastors, for having the lowest measles vaccination rate of any school in Tarrant County, framing its flirtation with exposing children to an easily preventable disease as a triumph for “medical freedom.”

    Wouldn’t it be nice if Schatzline’s upcoming job vacancy ensured liberty and justice for us all?

    Instead, Schatzline’s next gig is a promotion of personal status and political power.

    Schatzline says he is joining the National Faith Advisory Board, a coalition of faith leaders — mostly Christian pastors — allied by their opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, politics they call “family values” and “religious freedom,” unwavering support for Israel and their close relationship to the Trump administration. Schatzline said in an announcement that his job will more or less involve equipping pastors to fight for the company line. As Schatzline transitions into his new role, the Fort Worth lawmaker with a near-nonexistent record of writing Austin bills that actually become Texas law will be a half-degree removed from the American president’s ear.

    The NFAB is led by its founder, Pastor Paula White-Cain, a televangelist and Trump appointee to the White House Faith Office. Understanding White-Cain’s ministerial lean and influential profile is crucial to understanding why Schatzline would find common cause.

    White spent most of the 21st century dodging financial impropriety scandals — one of them vast enough to draw a Republican-led Senate inquiry — on her way to attaining crossover celebrity. Back in the aughts, White guest appeared as a “life coach” on Tyra Banks’ talk show, counseled superstar athletes Deion Sanders and Darryl Strawberry, and even ministered to Michael Jackson at his Neverland estate while the King of Pop faced a new wave of child sexual abuse allegations. She even became a spiritual confidant for that guy from “The Apprentice.”

    President Donald Trump joins Paula White at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last February.
    President Donald Trump joins Paula White at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last February. Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA / Fresno Bee file

    Religion scholar Matthew D. Taylor positions White’s evolving legacy beyond that of an Oprah-like influencer for churchgoers, A-Listers, and aspirational scammers. In Taylor’s book “The Violent Take It By Force,” which examines the growing influence of Christian nationalism, he calls White “the fulcrum” of the fast-growing New Apostolic Reformation, “an epochal shift in American religious politics.”

    Pentecostal in origin, the New Apostolic Reformation emphasizes the responsibility of Christians, led by modern leaders and “prophets” believed to have direct, personal access to God’s will and to reign over government and culture in devotion to Christ. The struggle for societal rule is framed as a spiritual war — metaphysical battles between those they see as the people of God and the demonic forces who oppose their values — with material consequences for who should hold power.

    You can see shades of that thinking in how the leaders of Mercy Culture, Schatzline’s church, articulate its relationship to Fort Worth. In 2021, The Washington Post reported from a Mercy Culture service in which lead Pastor Landon Schott posted a map of Fort Worth divided into four quadrants, each led by the “high-ranking demonic forces.” Choose your fighter: Greed corroding the west, Competition dominating the east, Rebellion ruling the north, and Lust perverting the south.

    Oakhurst’s foul spirit of rebellion continued having its way. Church leadership spent years describing arguments from their neighbors and city officials regarding municipal zoning law as “insane demonic resistance,” then threatened to sue City Council members if they voted against a church project. When you believe, as Pastor Heather Schott told the city’s zoning commission, that God told her to construct exactly 100 residences for sex trafficking survivors on her church property, questioning any detail of a divine directive can easily be dismissed as a Satanic attack.

    White employs the same good-versus-evil binaries when exalting President Donald Trump beyond that of a mere ally to her cause and as a God-ordained conduit for His divine will. Any opposition to Trump can be filed away as proof of nothing more than the devil staying busy.

    One day after the 2020 election, White, who Trump appointed as a special adviser to the Faith and Opportunity Initiative during his first term, pushed the completely false conspiracy that the election was being stolen from the president’s grasp, urging Christians to “pray that the enemies to [sic] God are quieted and their plans are overturned.” In nightly prayer meetings that followed, White declared that God would, through the power of the crowd’s prayers, “keep the feet of POTUS in his purpose [and] in his position” and defeat the “demonic agenda that has been released over this election.”

    Months later, Schatzline’s new boss shared a podium with Trump right before the president ushered her heavenly battle to his earthly realm.

    When Trump urged thousands supporters at his “Save America” rally to “fight like Hell” and march to the Capitol — and hundreds of them did exactly that — White delivered a ceremonial prayer asking God for “an assurance of a fair and just election” while also wishing that “every adversary against democracy, against freedom, against life, against liberty, against justice, against peace, against righteousness be overturned right now in the name of Jesus.”

    You likely remember that insurrection attempt by its more informal name, “Stop the Steal,” or maybe just the date: Jan. 6, 2021. Or the congressional investigation that identified the numerous ways Trump merited criminal charges for instigating a riot that violently backed his illegal efforts to overturn the election results. White was right there, declaring God’s blessing over the president’s flagrant fabrications. If Pastor Paula were a Texas public school student, she could have glanced at her classroom wall and learned which of the Ten Commandments she had desecrated. (At least No. 9, possibly No. 3.)

    For Schatzline, the partnership is already bearing fruit. White was announced as a keynote speaker for his political action committee’s fundraiser in Fort Worth. (At $75 per person, Pastor Nate’s black-tie gala is way cheaper than Pastor Paula’s $1,000 Easter blessing.) And in time, he’ll get a chance at the real prize, something bigger than sermonic trolling or writing bills that don’t get passed.

    Influence. God help us all.

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    Bradford William Davis is an award-winning reporter and cultural critic writing about politics and culture in greater Fort Worth. He was an investigative reporter for Business Insider and a New York Daily News columnist. He was featured in the 2022 History Channel film “After Jackie,” a documentary about the first wave of post-integration Black Major League Baseball players. Send tips and taco recommendations to bdavis@star-telegram.com or reach him on the Signal app at ‭(646) 481-0859‬.

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  • Texas voters have mixed views on redistricting and Trump’s megabill, poll finds

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    Only one-third of Texas voters approve of the GOP-led effort to redraw the state’s congressional map, according to a recent statewide poll, which found that independent and Democratic voters overwhelmingly opposed the mid-decade redistricting and would rather give control of Texas’ political maps to an appointed commission.

    Just 13% of independent voters approve of state lawmakers redrawing the congressional map, while 41% are against it, according to the survey released Tuesday by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Overall, 34% of voters said they approved and 41% said they disapproved of the effort, with nearly two-thirds of Republicans voicing support.

    The new map, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on Aug. 29, aims to net five GOP seats in the 2026 midterms. The poll surveyed 1,200 voters across Texas between Aug. 22 and Sept. 1, going into the field just before lawmakers sent the map to Abbott’s desk.

    Attitudes on Trump’s megabill

    The Texas Politics Project poll also measured where Texas voters stand on a range of other issues, including the GOP’s tax and spending megabill approved earlier this summer. The majority of Democrats and independents have decidedly negative opinions about the legislation, fueling its underwater rating — 32% approval vs. 45% disapproval — among statewide voters.

    Republicans polled had more favorable views. Sixty-five percent of GOP voters approve of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with 28% expressing strong approval.

    Few voters expect the megabill to actually lower their taxes and health care costs. Democrats and independents think the bill will increase how much they pay, according to the poll. Almost half of Republicans expect the bill to lower taxes, but just 21% said they anticipated lower health care costs.

    Texans are also concerned about the rising prices of food and consumer goods, especially as the impacts of Trump’s tariffs loom, the poll found. Only about a quarter of voters said their economic circumstances are better off now than they were a year ago.

    Attitudes on THC and state marijuana laws

    Voters said regulating THC products was the least important of the nine policy areas considered by the Texas Legislature this summer that were surveyed in the poll. More than 30% of voters said “comprehensively regulating hemp-derived products without banning them” is not important or not very important. Lawmakers gaveled out last week without banning or regulating most THC products.

    Almost half of voters want the state’s current marijuana laws to be made less strict and another 16% of voters want the laws to be left alone. The majority of Republicans also want current laws left alone or made less strict, according to the poll, finding that most GOP voters remain at odds with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s push to outlaw products containing any amounts of the psychoactive compound in marijuana known as tetrahydrocannabinol.

    Favorability and approval of Senate candidates

    The poll also assessed the favorability of candidates in next year’s high-profile U.S. Senate race, which has attracted nationwide attention over Attorney General Ken Paxton’s primary challenge against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.

    Paxton won the highest marks among Republican voters, with 55% saying they held a favorable view of the three-term attorney general, while 42% think favorably of Cornyn. Multiple polls last month showed Paxton and Cornyn in a close race, with Cornyn narrowing Paxton’s early lead.

    Half of Republicans said they did not know enough to form an opinion of Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, who has been testing the waters of a Senate bid this summer. The National Republican Senate Committee — a powerful GOP fundraising group — urged Hunt last week to stop teasing a primary run.

    On the Democratic side, former Dallas congressman and NFL linebacker Colin Allred heads into his second straight Senate bid with 63% of his party’s voters viewing him favorably, compared to 12% who held the opposite view. Thirty-one percent of Democratic voters said they have a favorable view of state Rep. James Talarico, who launched his Senate bid Tuesday, but more than 60% of polled Democrats did not know enough to have an opinion.

    Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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  • Texas Legislature approves stiff penalties, fundraising limits for lawmakers who leave state to block bills

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    Texas Republican lawmakers on Wednesday evening adopted a package of sharper penalties and new fundraising restrictions for members who leave the state to freeze legislative action, in a bid to deter future standoffs like what ensued when House Democrats absconded last month to delay passage of a new congressional map.

    The array of new punishments includes a proposal to severely curtail how much lawmakers can fundraise should they leave Texas to deny their chamber the headcount required to conduct business. Under House Bill 18, absent members and their legislative caucuses will be prohibited from accepting daily political contributions beyond their per diem allocation — currently $221 a day, as set by the Texas Ethics Commission — and barred from spending any campaign cash on travel, food or lodging related to their out-of-state trip.

    The measure passed the lower chamber Tuesday and was whisked through the Senate and on to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk late just after midnight Thursday.

    Meanwhile, the Texas House also adopted new rules Wednesday that impose a handful of harsher punishments for lawmakers who break quorum, including erasing two years of legislative seniority for each day lawmakers are absent, starting after they miss three consecutive days of legislative business. The changes also include higher daily fines for lawmakers who flee the state and a new provision stripping them of committee leadership appointments.

    The new rules are largely symbolic and aimed squarely at future quorum breaks, as Democrats have returned from their August protest against congressional redistricting. And the Legislature already passed the reconfigured map — ordered by President Donald Trump to secure the GOP more seats in the U.S. House — which was recently signed into law by Abbott and now faces legal challenges.

    House members adopt rules anew at the beginning of each regular session on odd-numbered years. After Democrats left the state to delay a package of GOP voting restrictions in 2021, the House held off on updating the rules until 2023, by which time tensions had mellowed out.

    House GOP hardliners for weeks urged state leaders to castigate Democrats for what they characterize as an abandonment of their duties, though the state Constitution permits quorum breaks.

    “I think these penalties are reasonable,” Rep. Cody Vasut of Angleton, the rules package author, said Wednesday night. “I think they are strong to help deter a future quorum break.”

    The calls for retribution were answered in short order. After Democrats returned and the House approved the new district lines, Abbott — who decides which topics can be considered during special sessions — expanded his agenda, giving lawmakers permission to enact the stiffer penalties.

    Such legislation was needed, Abbott said at the time, “to ensure that rogue lawmakers cannot hijack the important business of Texans.”

    On the House floor this week, Republican Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano, the author of the fundraising restriction bill, argued that current law creates a financial incentive for members to protest with their absence, pointing to fundraising efforts touting the Democrats’ departure.

    Democrats cast the penalties — particularly the new House rules — as vindictive and unnecessarily punitive.

    In opposition speeches, they noted the “outside influences” — nodding to Vasut’s wording — that nudged the GOP into mid-decade redistricting. Some struck a defiant tone, arguing that voters could kick them out of office at the polls if they disapproved of their quorum breaking.

    “When politicians change the rules of the game, it’s because they know they’re losing,” Houston Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic Caucus leader, said in a statement. “By breaking quorum, we exposed the corrupt deal between Trump and Abbott to rig Texas’ congressional maps, and turned it into a national movement.”

    The fundraising clampdown sailed through the GOP-dominated Senate, though some Republicans who supported the measure said it would not solve the issue at hand, bemoaning that it stopped short of the upper chamber’s more aggressive approach of barring lawmakers from fundraising altogether during special sessions. That moratorium is already in place for the Legislature’s 140-day regular sessions that take place every other year.

    During a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, noted that quorum breaks generally do not happen on the spur of the moment and instead are preceded by weeks of chatter and planning, during which it will still be legal for lawmakers to raise money. Hall ultimately voted to advance the measure as part of a 9-1 committee vote.

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  • Texas Senate tightens, passes bill that shields some police complaints

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    A bill that would let law enforcement agencies across the state keep numerous records including unsubstantiated complaints against officers private has been approved by the Texas Senate, after its lawmakers re-tightened restrictions on public access.

    Late last month, the Texas House cleared House Bill 15 after adopting two additional exemptions, including one that would allow parents of Uvalde school shooting victims to see records related to law enforcement’s botched response.

    On Tuesday, a Senate panel pushed forward a version of the legislation without these carve-outs. Hours later, the full chamber voted 18-9 to pass the updated bill and send it back to the House for consideration of the changes.

    HB 15, authored by Republican state Rep. Cole Hefner of Mt. Pleasant, would require law enforcement agencies to create a confidential department file — also called a “G-file” — for numerous files including any unsubstantiated allegations against an officer as well as complaints that did not result in disciplinary actions.

    Substantiated misconduct complaints, commendations, awards or periodic evaluations would remain in the officer’s personnel file, which would still be publicly accessible through the state’s open records law. Any “letter, memorandum or document” not related to those records would go into the G-file.

    The bill’s backers said it is about standardizing law enforcement agencies’ public disclosure policy. They have also said disclosure of unsubstantiated complaints could defame officers.

    Critics, however, have said the bill would hinder police accountability, including by incentivizing officers to improperly examine allegations. Some are also concerned about how it would affect the release of records related to the Uvalde shooting, as the Texas Department of Public Safety is still fighting a judge’s order to release hundreds of videos and investigative files.

    The House voted 90-41 on Aug. 28 to approve HB 15 after adopting two amendments.

    The first one, brought by Democratic State Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso, ensures that the bill wouldn’t reopen the dead suspects loophole. The state Legislature closed the loophole — which law enforcement agencies once used to withhold information when suspects die in police custody or at the hands of officers before the suspects could receive a conviction or deferred adjudication — in 2023.

    The second one, introduced by Republic state Rep. Don McLaughlin of Uvalde, would allow the victim of alleged police misconduct — or their immediate family if they are dead — to view documents in the officer’s G-files related to the case following its investigation. But they would not be able to duplicate these records.

    “This amendment is for my hometown of Uvalde and for the Robb families, who are still waiting for answers,” said McLaughlin, who was mayor during the 2022 school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers. He has also been vocal about the need for DPS to release its records. “Three and a half years and they still don’t have answers.”

    Hefner initially opposed the proposal, saying that HB 15 would not hide Uvalde records. But the motion to table McLaughlin’s amendment failed, and Hefner then accepted it.

    The Aug. 28 vote also followed Moody’s successful point-of-order — a parliamentary procedure that aims to delay or kill legislation on a technicality — against a similar proposal, Senate Bill 15, on Aug. 25. A day later, Gov. Greg Abbott updated the wording of his second special session’s agenda to address the error.

    But as a Senate committee considered HB 15 on Tuesday, its sponsor, state Sen. Phil King of Weatherford, offered a substitute that stripped away both of Moody’s and McLaughlin’s carve-outs.

    “House sent over two amendments,” he said. “We have removed those amendments, and this is the same bill that we have passed out three previous times.”

    During the Senate floor debate, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, grilled King about the removal of McLaughlin’s amendment. The Weatherford Republican responded that the bill would not change anything regarding the evidence and documents related to the Uvalde shooting.

    “It also has the same effect on this bill as if … the amendment had said, ‘Strike everything below the enactment clause,’” King added. “It completely terminates this bill.”

    McLaughlin said the removal of the House amendments was disappointing.

    “This is not the first time the Senate has disregarded House priorities and removed carefully considered changes without even consulting us,” he said in a statement to The Texas Tribune. “That pattern continued here, and it leaves families and communities without the transparency they deserve.”

    Moody didn’t immediately respond to a comment request.

    The updated version of HB 15 will now go back to the House, where lawmakers can either accept the changes or find a compromise.

    The proposal came after a 2023 state review of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, which requires that the agency “standardizes what documentation needs to be included in a license holder’s personnel file.”

    If adopted, the bill would extend the use of G-files to every law enforcement agency across Texas, which has under 110,000 peace officers and jailers, according to TCOLE.

    Such files already apply to around 26,000 peace officers, according to Jennifer Szimanski, deputy executive editor of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. These include officers in dozens of cities that have opted into the state framework for police and firefighters’ civil service, including major ones such as Houston and San Antonio.

    The bill doesn’t cover certain materials, such as body-worn camera footage. It also would not affect Austin’s Police Oversight Act, which unseals G-files despite the city having civil service rules. In addition, the proposal would not stop disclosures for criminal investigations and court processes as required under the Sandra Bland and Michael Morton acts.

    More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 13–15! This year’s lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of “CNN NewsNight”; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today!

    TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

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  • When the White House calls, do state lawmakers listen?

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    On the eve of the Texas House voting on a new congressional map, President Donald Trump ordered his “Republican friends” in the state legislature to get it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk “ASAP.”

    They’re taking heed — the state House passed the map on Wednesday and the state Senate is expected to do so this evening, just days after Democrats ended their out-of-state protest and returned to Austin — clearing the way for passage by the end of the week. Trump’s direct message to Texas Republicans is the president applying his standard pressure campaign playbook that has worked on Capitol Hill to a new audience: state lawmakers.

    When Trump wants something, he’ll often directly ask for it himself. And the president really wants to see GOP states take up mid-decade redistricting to carve out more Republican seats.

    Texas Republicans, including Abbott, initially didn’t want to take on the gambit. But the White House forced their hand, setting off a redistricting arms race across the country that Republicans are well-positioned to win. Should states like Indiana, Missouri and Florida move forward with mid-decade mapmaking, Republicans could pick up as many as 10 new seats ahead of the midterms, and it’s unclear at this point if any Democratic-led states beyond California will jump in to blunt the GOP advantages.

    Indiana is the latest target of the White House’s political operation, and Trump’s allies are even making the unusual consideration of backing primaries to Indiana state lawmakers who won’t accept the mission — an unusually direct involvement from a president in a state legislature. Some Indiana Republicans have expressed public resistance to falling in line — like state Rep. Ed Clere, who told POLITICO that “under no circumstances will I vote for a new map.”

    Clere, a longtime member from Southern Indiana, said he doesn’t want to see emergency special sessions called unnecessarily, and he believes too many procedural and legal hurdles stand in the way. “What Texas and California are doing is simply wrong for America,” he said. “It is the political equivalent of the cold war concept of MAD — mutually assured destruction. Indiana needs to take the high road.”

    Democrats are mostly powerless to respond to the White House’s intrusion into state legislatures. “I cannot recall another time that this has happened,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures. “At the core here, the president is pressuring these lawmakers to change the maps, because that is the only way that Republicans can win.”

    Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has put the onus on the legislature to take up redistricting. While legislative leaders have not revealed their plans, the pressure campaign is working on the congressional delegation, which one by one has come forward in support. And state lawmakers have been summoned to a White House meeting Aug. 26, according to invitations reviewed by POLITICO, where redistricting will likely be top of the agenda.

    Another state that is surely on the White House’s radar: Ohio, which — unlike the handful of states choosing to remake their maps — is required under state law to redraw its map ahead of 2026. The White House may apply similar pressure to Buckeye Republicans to go for a maximalist approach, as Republicans there debate whether to carve out two or three seats during their process.

    “You have to appreciate the hands-on engagement,” said Indiana Republican strategist Marty Obst, who predicted that Indiana will convene a special session on redistricting. “If [state lawmakers] know that the White House is active, and they know for the president himself this is a top priority, it’s going to be very hard for them not to carry that out.”

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