It's time to call the Governor & demand he veto SB 1440

[WolverineDG]

You all know I was involved in the "Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup" in 2008. I took a lot of bullshit from fascists masquerading as "liberal Democrats" for my insistence that that state was wrong & violated the Constitution in raiding the ranch & kidnapping the kids (& mothers). Thanks to the anti-FLDS/pro-CPS/anti-parent crowd, now NO child, NO family is safe from the goons at CPS. If this new law scares you (and it should; if not, you are not a Democrat or a liberal), call the Governor & demand that he veto this bill!

dg
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2009/06/bad-cps-bill-deserves-good-veto.html

Friday, June 05, 2009
Bad CPS bill deserves a good veto
Jerri Lynn Ward alerts me to a bad amendment approved in the legislative session's waning hours heaping new authority on CPS to allow them to undertake child seizures and interrogations without first notifying parents. The Parent Guidance Center issued this press release calling for a gubernatorial veto. See discussions from Tim Lambert of the Texas Home School Coalition and the blog The Travis Monitor. According to Lambert:

the bill was substituted in committee for a very different SB 1064, which was passed out of the Senate and sent to the House. The new SB 1064 gave the court authority to force parents to give CPS access to the child and/or transport the child for "interview, examination and investigation," without a court hearing or notice to the parent. Worst of all, the language in the current statute that requires CPS to prove "good cause shown" was stricken. Thus this bill would allow CPS, during an investigation in which the parents would not waive their 4th amendment rights, entrance into their home, access to medical or mental health records of their children or transportation of the child, on the simple filing of an affidavit by a CPS worker with no hearing or opportunity for the parents or their legal counsel to present their case.

The bill language allows CPS to access records without parental consent or a court hearing and lets them transport a child for questioning based only on an affidavit (without a hearing or a finding of "good cause") if the parents won't consent. Parents must be notified afterward as soon as practicable, but I don't see why it's not "practicable" to notify them beforehand.

This is clearly an overreaction to the fiasco surrounding the Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup, and an unnecessary one. I'm disappointed in Rep. Patrick Rose and Sen. Kirk Watson for carrying this piece of junk. Ward, Lambert and other conservatives are calling on the Governor to veto SB 1440 and I'd have to agree the bill deserves an ignominious demise.

Follow this link to tell the Governor your opinion.

[Aragorn]

1. thanks

Glad I scrolled down today. Do you know a place or website which lists all the bills passed this session?

[WolverineDG]

2. there's one on the Texas forum already

started by sonias, iirc. :)

dg

[Aragorn]

3. Saw it

It is far from complete. Thanks though.

[sonias]

5. You have to do your own research at MyTLO

To get a list of all the bills passed.
www.capitol.state.tx.us/Home.aspx

A lot of advocacy organizations subscribe to a service called Telicon that keeps track of all the bills for the organization that they are interested in. So a business like the Statesman probably subscribes to that as well.

You can create your own "mini-service" on the website above under the tab labeled MyTLO. But you have to add the bills yourself. So for example I track all the election bills and anytime any action occurred on a bill I was notified via e-mail. Any one can track a bill or set of bills. And it's all free. You just have to do the initial work of adding bills to your track.

You can do a bill search by key word/phrase as well and find bills that way too. Once you find the particular bill(s) you are looking for add those bills to your MyTLO track or just look up that particular bill by number.

If the history of a bill says "Enrolled". That means it passed both Houses. But the Governor still has to either sign it or let it pass into law without his signature. He can also veto a bill. He's already vetoed one this year. He has until the end of June (20 days after adjournment) to sign/veto bills so even if a bill passed both Houses it may not have become law yet.

Here are the instructions to find the list of bills that passed this session and were signed into law. You might want to wait to run this in July or after June 27th.

FAQ - Texas Legislature
26. How do I obtain a list of effective bills?
A list of effective bills can be obtained through the following steps:

1. Select the Reports link underneath Additional Searches from the home page. www.capitol.state.tx.us/Home.aspx
2. Select the General Reports tab.

The following reports consist of bills effective for the past legislative session:

* Bills Effective on January 1st
* Bills Effective Immediately
* Bills Effective in 90 Days
* Bills Effective on September 1st

Actually it's even easier than what they write up on their FAQ. Just to go the Reports page here:
www.capitol.state.tx.us/Reports/General.aspx
And choose a report you want to run.

Here is the link to the bills passed report. Keep in mind that these may not have been signed yet.
List of bills passed in both Houses 81st Legislature

You can go back to the reports page at the end of the month and pick the ones where the Governor signed or let become law without his signature.



Sonia

[sonias]

4. Done

I contacted Perry too. Sorry we completely missed this the first time. We thought the Hidebran bill was dead. His original bill but died but got resurrected as an as an amendment to this SB 1440. :(

I'm hoping that a lot of people on the right complain too. This might be one time that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Here is the link to contact Governor:
governor.state.tx.us/contact/contact.aspx

Sonia

[WolverineDG]

6. If you live in Zaffirini's district you should contact her too

Her name was on the original SB 1440. I'm sure she would be none too pleased to find out the enormous bait & switch that was done. The current language of 1440 is completely different than the bill she originally filed. And it was DEMOCRATS who did this---Watson & Rose, so we can't even blame Republicans for this outrage!

dg

[Lithos]

7. A bit of a testimony: I am one of those who are "anti-FLDS"

And I am hoping this point doesn't cause a storm here in this thread.

I am not against the majority of the FLDS people. but actually against their leadership who have in the past promoted some rather vicious, bigoted material (primarily against African Americans). That said, just because there are things I do not like about them does not mean that I need to trample their rights (and my own rights) in the process.


The actions of CPS were wholly inappropriate and I think inappropriate and truly scary. If they felt that the children were in danger, then it would have been better to have removed the fathers on a case by case basis (those with significant proof of danger) than to have destroyed on a wholesale basis the family unit like they did. However, this bill will live on long past the FLDS issue has gone away and must be examined in its full light. I do NOT support this bill as it is a matter of rights and appropriate limitation of state power. Once this in place, then there is no telling how many other families can be destroyed effectively on a whim and thru a witch-hunt.

L-

[WolverineDG]

8. Then you're not in that camp

there are those on DU who wholly support what CPS did in this case, regardless of the effect on their own rights.

Those are the people I was addressing.

dg

[sonias]

9. Groups square off over child abuse bill

AAS 6/11/09
Groups square off over child abuse bill

A coalition of conservative, libertarian and family-rights organizations are demanding that Gov. Rick Perry veto a bill they say would allow state investigators to short-circuit parental rights as they investigate child abuse cases.

But supporters say that the bill does no such thing and should be signed into law.

At a Capitol rally Wednesday, representatives of the Texas Center for Family Rights, Texas Eagle Forum and Free Market Foundation, among others, accused supporters of sneaking the measure onto another bill at the close of the legislative session in May.

At issue is Senate Bill 1440, which passed the House in the waning days of the session after it was amended to include another bill — Senate Bill 1064 — that contained the wording that the groups find objectionable.

Sonia

[WolverineDG]

10. If the language of the bill were so above board

why did its proponents have to sneak it into another bill in the dead of night? :think:

If this bill is signed into law, no family will be safe from CPS.

dg

[sonias]

11. Yep that "sneaking it in" part is never a good sign

I really do hope that the right has the clout to move Perry to veto it.


Sonia