Threats to Stickland reveal hypocrisy of "I'm Poncho" #TXLEGE Republicans....

"For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known."
Luke 12:2

At the beginning of the last #TXLEGE session, there was a modest kerfuffle that was politically useful to the business as usual crowd.  On the first day of the session, anti-Second Amendment Democrat Poncho Nevarez got into an excessively heated policy discussion with a libertarian leaning activist from Tarrant County.  While the actions of the activist in question were counterproductive, at the end of the day they were also harmless and irrelevant.

But when you're the business as usual crowd looking for excuses to run out the clock on a 140-day legislative session, any excuse to waste time works.  Following the above incident, the House held a hand wringing 'debate' about whether or not to allow members to install 'panic buttons' in offices (Sidenote: Poncho Nevarez never did.)  This was accompanied by the embarrassing spectacle of Republicans wearing "I'm Poncho" stickers on the floor of the House.

As the Trib explained at the time:

“I think when somebody threatens a representative because he doesn’t vote, it’s everything we don’t stand for in this state,” said state Rep. Phil Stephenson, R-Wharton. “You can fire us, but you don’t get to shoot us because you disagree.”

A Republican, Drew Springer of Muenster, was behind the gesture. He said he came up with the idea after Nevárez joked that he should hand out “I’m Not Poncho” stickers to fellow lawmakers so that they would not be targets.

“Immediately I thought just the opposite — we need to show support for him, that we aren’t going to let people threaten us,” he said. “We’re not going to let people, in some cases from out of state, threaten us physically and try to get their way. That’s just not the way democracy works. It’s not the way Texas works.”

Springer said he gave out name tags to about 70 House members, from both parties, before he ran out.

Marsha Farney of Georgetown was among the Republicans donning the name tags. Others included Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, the author of a bill to lift state handgun licensing requirements.

“We’re showing support for Poncho to show that we stand with him as far as, not necessarily a policy position, but for safety issues,” said Farney.

[Author's Note: We told Stickland privately at the time that he shouldn't go along with that farce but, let the record state, that Jonathan Stickland was far more magnanimous in that situation than we would have been.]

Fast forward two years and that self-same Jonathan Stickland receives deeply chilling anti-Second Amendment threats at his home.  This isn't a policy discussion in an elected official's office with some (admittedly counterproductive) heated rhetoric, this is an active threat from a deranged anti-Second Amendment sadist.  So, naturally, the Republicans who ran around last session with "I'm Poncho"stickers were falling over themselves in 'solidarity' with Jonathan Stickland...right?!?

LOL.

Drew Springer's Facebook Page (as of 12:11 pm on 12/23/2016): Nothing.

Phil Stephenson's Facebook Page (as of 12:13 pm): Nada.

Marsha "Felicia" Farney (as of 12:15): Negative.

Bottom Line: That the average Republican in the Texas House will go along with an anti-Second Amendment Democrat's politically expedient exaggeration, while remaining silent on an actual threat to the family of a pro-Second Amendment Republican, speaks volumes.

Civil Asset Forfeiture: A Case Study in Team Straus' Obstruction

"Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need."
Ephesians 4:28

This afternoon, TPPF released a paper on Civil Asset forfeiture and held a policy primer on the same topic; as is the norm with TPPF, both are fantastic.

Civil Asset Forfeiture is the process by which law enforcement can legally confiscate a citizen’s property without a criminal conviction. It’s a procedure that conservatives, libertarians, and liberals all despise for different reasons. Given it’s unpopularity across the political spectrum, why has it been so hard to reform the process in Texas?!?

At this afternoon’s primer, an audience member asked that question of Rep. Phil Stephenson, who sponsored one of several bills last session that would have reigned in forfeiture. Stephenson blamed the Calendars committee, which bottled up the bill for a couple months. Ultimately, it was put onto the calendar on ‘chub day.’

Chub day is the final day to pass bills during a regular legislative session. In recent sessions, it’s been a time where conservative bills are placed at the end of a long calendar, behind a long slew of lobby or liberal bills. The idea is to force conservatives to pass the bad bills quickly so that they can get to the good bills in time. During this process, the Democrats talk and talk and talk (a process dubbed ‘chubbing’), the process drags on for several hours and when the clock strikes midnight the conservative bills are dead till next session. Chubbing is a game Team Straus plays to give members political cover so they can “blame” the Democrats for the death of various bills.

Chubbing is a direct consequence of the leadership decisions made by members at the start of the legislative session; in other words, Representative Stephenson’s civil asset forfeiture bill died the second Representative Stephenson voted to return Joe Straus to the speakership.

Several other conservative bills, dealing with topics ranging from fiscal policy, to pro-life, to religious liberty were similarly chubbed to death.

Texas desperately needs to reform (if not abolish) the practice of civil asset forfeiture.  There's widespread agreement about this across the political spectrum.  Unfortunately, under that current leadership, that means nothing in the Texas House of Representatives.