Day 44: Between the Conception and the Creation Falls the Education

Today is the 44th day of the regular session of the 82nd Texas Legislature. Both the House and Senate will reconvene at 10 am.

The House Public Health Committee meets today at 8 am for it's "organizational meeting". Chairwoman Kolkhorst will discuss her priorities for the session and get a feel for where other committee members want to go. HB 415 by Anchia (D-Dallas) has been referred to the public health committee.

Under Texas law adoptive parents may petition the court to have a new birth certificate that reflects the adoptive parents names. This is standard practice and is done to make easier for those parents to prove their relationship to the child. Unfortunately the law specifically prohibits two men or two women from being listed as parents on a birth certificate (despite it being perfectly legal for two men or two women to adopt a child). HB 415 would fix this problem.

Anchia has filed this bill before and it's always received an emotional hearing in committee, but has never been voted out and on to the House floor. I'm hopeful that it may be better received in committee this session (read Legislative Queery's Day 38 post for more information).


Last night I sat on the Panel for 'Issues & Answers - Bullying' in Houston with Rep. Jessica Farrar and Houston Independent School District Trustee Juliet Stipeche. Farrar indicated that HB 1386 by Coleman (joint authored by Farrar) may be referred to the Public Health Committee as well. HB 1386 is similar to HB 224 by Strama (the big "Bully Bill") but far more comprehensive and inclusive, going well beyond just bullying issues in schools to require training on suicide prevention awareness for almost all state employees who interact with youth. The hope is that since HB 1386 deals with the broader issue of suicide that it will be considered a public health issue and not just a public education issue.

The Speakers office has broad latitude in referring bills, but Speaker Straus has a reputation for respecting members wishes so it's quite possible that HB 1386 will go to the Public Health Committee. If that happens we may see two committee hearings on a very similar topic in the next month or so. This is good. The 82nd Texas House is almost 2/3 freshmen and sophomores. Although bullying legislation has been filed ever session for over a decade many of the current members of the House may never have been in a hearing when a parent described the heartbreak of their child's experience, or a teacher talked about the frustration of not having the tools they needed to address the problem. There is value in Committee Hearings, even when bills never make it out of committee, because it educates members.

This is the challenge of changing the law: the slow, torturous process of educating lawmakers on experiences that they have never had. It's a slow process, two steps forward and one step back, but it's how our system works. Before this idea that being tormented by other students should not be a part of any student's reality takes root and is born full-fledged as common wisdom, amidst all the struggle and pain, the conjouling and convincing we must educate, we must tell our stories and insist on being heard.

Day 43: This is the Dead Bill, This is the Cactus Bill

Today is the 43rd day of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature. The House will reconvene at 10 am, the Senate at 11.

The House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence meets today at 10:30, but will not be considering either HB 604 (repeal of the offense of homosexual conduct) or HB 172 (study of the effectiveness of the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act). This is how bills die slow deaths - if hearings are delayed (either because the chair does not wish to schedule a hearing or the bills sponsor is not prepared for a hearing at the time or, simply, that all concerned place higher priority on other legislation) they can get so far behind in the process that they can never catch up. That's what happened to last sessions version of the hate crimes study bill, it passed committee, but did so late in the game and never made it to the House floor.

In 77 days all bills will be required to have had their "second reading" on the House floor (this is the first opportunity for the entire House to discuss and vote on a bill), if that hasn't happened they die. Between now and then both of these bills will have to have a public hearing, been voted on by committee, the committee report submitted to calendars (the calendars committees set the schedule for the House floor) and then put on a schedule for second reading. The clock is ticking.

Please call the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and encourage Chairman Pete Gallego to set these two bills for public hearing at the committee's meeting next week. The number is (512)463-0768.


I'll be sitting on the panel tonight for "Issues & Answers - Bullying" cosponsored by the Harris County Democratic Party and Houston Stonewall Young Democrats, joining me will be Houston Independent School District Trustee Juliet Stipeche and, via skype, State Representative Jessica Farrar. The panel starts at 6:30 pm at the HCDP Headquarters at 1445 North Loop West, Suite 110 in Houston.

Houston School Board Candidate Attacks GLBT Caucus - Fakes HRC Endorsement

Houston ISD School Board Candidate Peter Schwethelm has found the solution to ending school bullying... magicians. The outsider candidate - who has also suggested that getting Whole Foods to give away free vegetables is the solution to nutritious school lunches - is seeking to assure the queer community that he has a magician diligently working on a, yet un-articulated, program to end the torturous conditions that queer children endure.

Schwethelm just can't understand why Houston's GLBT Political Caucus won't support his candidacy and its, yet to be conceived, magician powered bullying solution. So Schwethelm has decided to camp out at the early voting location nearest the historic 'gayborhood' of Montrose and pass out literature attacking the Caucus. (high quality version available HERE)


The criticism of the GLBT Caucus is a fair one, and one I've made myself. The Caucus is perceived by many to be little more than a tool for the Democratic Party. It invites all candidates to screen - but rarely - if ever - endorses non Democrats even in nonpartisan races like school board. One would think, however, that it might behoove Schwethelm to know the name of the organization he was criticizing before sending his flier of to the printers. (I suppose it's possible that "The GLBT" refers to some other organization - perhaps one the magician told him about).

Just for a second though look past the 'creative' syntax - the criticisms of partisan politics followed by the touting of an endorsement from a partisan organization - the lack of understanding of what "legislation" is and that school board members do not introduce it - the confusion about the meaning of the phrase "detailed plan" - the vague ideas about youtube and reinventing facebook and magicians - look down at the lower left hand corner of the flier.

See that? That's the logo for the Human Rights Campaign - correction: that's the TRADEMARKED logo for the Human Rights Campaign (the nation's largest lobby organization fighting for the rights of LGB (and when it suits them - T) people) which has neither endorsed, nor it seems ever heard of Schwethelm before this flier was distributed. Indeed HRC has issued a "cease and desist" order threatening legal action if Schwethelm continues to imply a connection between his campaign and HRC.

I kind of feel sorry for the guy, clearly he cares about this issue, but his bizarre way of attempting to discuss it regulates him the same class as the "rent is too damn high" guy or that porn star who keeps running for Governor in California - candidates so laughable in their ineptitude that they can never be taken seriously.

There are some good candidates running for School Board (Juliet Kathy Stipeche, who received the GLBT Political Caucus endorsement among them) and I am confident that the people of Houston are smart enough to elect a qualified, intelligent person to the position. Although with magicians involved, who knows?