Texas Progressives and moar Lege stupidity from both duopoly aisles

That's most of this week's Roundup as we near the finish line. Without further ado, we dig in.

The Lege

SocraticGadfly looks at recent bills by the Texas Legislature and has a mix of supportive and critical thought for both critical race theory and gender critical radical feminism.

OK, file this under another sweetheart deal for Big Oil. That's who benefits most and most obviously from the train wreck semi wreck that is HB 19, which would make it harder to sue trucking companies for what their drivers do. Yeah, it also benefits Uber and Lyft, but Big Oil is the big beneficiary. What's even more disgusting, but not totally surprising, is all but one Senate Democrap and about half of House Democraps support this. The Observer has more on just how disgusting this is. Sadly, though, it tries to blame just Rethugs for the bill. Once again, Bernard Rapoport is turning over in his grave.

Gunz for all gun nuts, no questions asked, looks like it's coming.

Poor Ruth Hughs. Another Dum Fuq Texas Secretary of State designee by Strangeabbott doesn't get a confirmation hearing. She was the one who either accidentally or deliberately misinterpreted Drew Springer's HB 2504 from 2019 during last summer's run-up to the general elections, leading the Texas Supremes to reinstate Greens and Libertarians on the ballot. Sadly, the Lege has agreed with her misinterpretation this year and third party candidates, not just nominees, will have to pay filing fees even though they don't have primaries.

The Observer notes that, probably deliberately, the House and Senate's budget differences means that Strangeabbott gets final say on distribution of supplemental federal education money, which ultimately means that he'll again try to attach clawbacks to it unless the Biden Administration again tells him no.

The Lege and cops

It would be nice for small towns to ferret out potential bad cops before hiring them from elsewhere. Hearne, mentioned in the Trib story about this, has a history of this, far beyond the one incident listed, and frankly, I think their current city manager is halfway full of shit in trying to make this look so hard. (I have personal knowledge of some of their history.) That said, per the link, the two halves of the Lege may manage to accidentally or semi-deliberately gut such reform again.

The two halves of the Pink Dome are also wrassling over other criminal justice bills.

Other Texas gov

Off the Kuff analyzed the 2020 election returns in State Senate districts.

Grits for Breakfast hypothesizes that "anti-defund" legislation could have the effect of redefining what it means to be a "police officer" in this state. 

Jessica Montoya Coggins brings us some drama over racist language from The Real Housewives of Dallas. 

Mike Siegel calls attention to a progressive candidate in a runoff with a conservative incumbent in Grand Prairie.

Texana

The LBJ Library opened its doors 50 years ago. Here's the story. (Long read.)

Friend Chris Tomlinson is co-author of a new book about the legends of the Alamo. Texas Monthly has an excerpt about Phil Collins' collection of memorabilia and whether it's all that. (Long read.)