#TXLEGE: Springer gaslights voters with half-truths

"The truthful lip shall be established forever,
But a lying tongue is but for a moment."
Proverbs 12:19

Drew Springer just released quite the doozy of an ad:

.@DrewSpringer up on TV in #SD30 special election #txlege pic.twitter.com/YSr6x51aPs

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) September 8, 2020

Obviously, this is the type of lame ad that can only come from a Murphy-Nasica focus group (ooh look...a fire truck!!!).   Nevertheless, it contains claims that sound good.  When you look closer, however, the facts quickly reveal that Springer's occupying that grey area between chutzpah and outright lying.

Specifically, Springer says two things:

1. He voted to ban taxpayer funded lobbying.
   
   
2. He voted for the (try not to laugh) Chick-fil-a bill (LOL).

Let's take these in order.

On the taxpayer funded lobbying ban, Texas Scorecard explained the full story last week:

After watering SB 29 out via the complete substitute, Springer supported efforts to remove public schools, community colleges, and other entities from the legislation. Then he broke from the majority of his own party and voted in favor of the Democrat-Ashby amendment to exempt the vast majority of Texas counties out of the bill by population—a move that would have prevented the hollowed-out ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying from applying to the entirety of his current Texas House District and 12 of SD 30’s 14 counties.

Only after the legislation was successfully gutted did he vote for the bill to pass.

Springer may have voted for the husk of a bill on final passage, but a review of the tape shows him to be one of its most active saboteurs. Drew Springer worked to water down a ban on taxpayer funded lobbying, ensuring his own constituents wouldn’t benefit from it.

We had actually forgotten, prior to writing this blog post, that Springer carved his own constituents out of the original bill.

Then there's the (LOL) Chick-fil-a bill (LOLOLOL).

We covered this one at the time:

"No significant legal harm the the LGBTQ community" is lawyer-speak for "does nothing."

This is the substantive equivalent of the SCOTUS Colorado cake-baker case: The legislature addressed the specific actions of the San Antonio city council, but did nothing to address any other sort of abuse that falls outside of that narrow set of circumstances.

Good luck trying to live out your Faith in all the other areas of life.

But at least they were able to convince Fox News they accomplished something (and that's all that really matters).

Bottom Line: Nothing of substance was accomplished, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either a liar or a chump....

It's not really a secret that, since then, the so-called "Chick-fil-a bill" has become a subject of widespread ridicule.

Thus, for Drew Springer to brag about it as one of his primary legislative accomplishments is quite revealing.

Bottom Line: Technically, Springer's "correct."   He voted for both bills.  But neither of those bills did anything.  This is the game Texas legislators love to play, and it'll be interesting to see if Drew Springer gets away with it this time.