Red Ink: Texas' Legislative Agenda

With the mounting anger at politics as usual in Austin, we appear to be on the cusp of a sea change in State Government. Here are the things we here at Red Ink: Texas (that would be me and my hand puppet...) would like to see addressed in the upcoming legislative session.

First off, the following measures are intended to address the critical issue of immigration reform and the failure/refusal of legal immigrants to assimilate into our culture.

1: I would like to see a bill that withholds all state monies from any political subdivision (city, county, etc.) with a sanctuary policy, or that spends monies specifically on things such as day labor camps, or any other expenditure that is patently intended to aid and abet illegal immigration over and above any expenditures that are required by Federal Law.

2: Require that all school districts receiving state funds must eliminate perpetual bilingual education and replace it with a year long English immersion program.

3: Any person who applies for or receives state services, including but not limited to: education, medical services, Unemployment insurance, WIC, AFDC, school lunch programs, housing assistance, etc. must prove his or her legal residency status or be detained and turned over to ICE for immediate deportation proceedings.

4: Require photo I.D. and proof of citizenship to register to vote. All current voters must reapply with proof of residency prior to renewal of their voter registration. Photo I.D. must be presented again when appearing to vote to prove that the individual voting is the person who registered initially.

5: Levy a 15% surcharge on any money transfer to any country designated as a known source of illegal immigration. That list is to be determined by the legislature, but I expect that Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Colombia to be among those designated countries. The revenues from this surcharge are to be spent on: Border Security and law enforcement, indigent health care and English immersion programs in state school districts.

6: Implementation of a statewide toll free number for employers to verify identity and immigration status of all hires. Anyone knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant or anyone who fails to verify immigration status prior to hiring someone will be subject to a $50,000 fine per violation. Three violations within a 3 year period will result in the seizure of the company and it's assets by the state for liquidation as well as criminal charges of aiding and abetting the commission of felony trespass for all officers of said company. The funds will go into the same programs as Item #5.

7: Soliciting for day labor within 30 feet of a public street is to be made a class A misdemeanor and will trigger an inquiry into immigration status.

8: Lenders must verify immigration status prior to issuing loans, or other credit. Credit of any sort will not be issued to those not in the country legally.

9: Forward a bill for all federally mandated expenditures as well as the costs incurred in the arrest and incarceration of illegal aliens to the Department of Homeland Security. If the Federal government does not pay the bill, then withhold all monies owed to the federal government until the debt is paid. After all, the problem is fundamentally a federal problem, we, the state taxpayer however get stuck footing the bill for the resulting problems.

10: A bill making it a class C felony to be in the State of Texas without the proper immigration status. The punishment for such criminal trespass is to be up to a year in jail followed by deportation.

11: Formation of a state border security force to be paid for in part by items 5 and 6. These are to be armed with Fully Automatic weapons and provided with up-armored humvees from Texas National Guard stores. This force is to be under the control of the Texas Rangers but will have the authority to request TNG/TANG backup as needed. Texas National Guard and Air National guard will train and patrol along the Rio Grande Valley whenever possible.

Now, for some items not specific to border security and/or immigration:

12: Expand monetary caps on non-monetary damages to all lawsuits in the State of Texas.

13: Cap all state taxes and expenditures except for those for border security, to not exceed 2% over and above the rate of population growth or inflation, whichever is higher, similar to “Prop 2”

14: Cap all school district expenditures for non-academic uses, (special wording will be needed to allow expenditures for PE without allowing the proliferate building of massive sports arenas for high school sports.) to no more than 30% of total expenditures.

15: Permanently eliminate the “blocker bill” requiring a 2/3 majority to bring a bill to the floor of the senate for a full vote.

16. Raise the pay of state legislators to $50,000 a year and eliminate all pension benefits for legislators with COLA raises automatically keyed to the rate of inflation. The amount to rise over and above COLA raises by 3% per term of office up to a maximum of 20%. Legislators may pay into a 401K account and must abide by the taxes and penalties the rest of us are subject to. Eliminate the link between state judge salaries and benefits from those of the legislature. If the Leg wants a pay raise, they must vote on it publicly.

17. All votes in either house of the legislature MUST be recorded by name and must be available for review by the public ASAP via the internet.

18. A statewide database of all public notices and announcements keyed to zip codes is to be formed and made available to all citizens on the internet. No public notice will be legally valid without being submitted to the database. This will eliminate a public notice being made in a shopping circular 40 miles away in order to circumvent the public’s ability to comment on such notices or hearings.

I will add more as I think of them…