God Save Texas

by Lawrence Wright

  Despite the tumult and the expectations of a record turnout, only 42.62 percent of the registered voters actually went to the polls in Texas—again, one of the lowest in the nation. Young people, in the 18–24 range, vote at less than half the rate of those who are between 65 and 75. Only about 40 percent of those with a family income under $25,000 per year tend to vote, compared with about 75 percent of those whose income is above $75,000. Those with less than a high school education turn out to vote at a rate of 32 percent, a scale that rises to 82 percent for those with advanced degrees. The fact that turnout is chronically lower in Texas has less to do with race than it does with its disproportionate number of young, poor, and uneducated citizens. As Wendy Davis observed, “Texas is not a red state. It’s a nonvoting blue state.”

  Trump carried Texas by 9 points, 52 percent to 43 percent, the same margin as Ohio. When I looked at the distribution of votes throughout the country, the blue cities against a blanket of red, it was hard to see where Texas ended and the rest of the country began. It is a red country with blue freckles.

  Texas leads the nation in Latino population growth. Latinos account for more than half the 2.7 million new Texans since 2010. Every Democrat in Texas believes that if Hispanics voted at the same rate in Texas as they do in California, the state would already be blue. “The difference between Texas and California is the labor movement,” Garnet Coleman, a Houston member of the Texas House of Representatives, told me. In the 1960s, Cesar Chavez began organizing the California farmworkers into a union, which didn’t happen in Texas, a right-to-work state. “Labor unions create a culture of voting and political participation,” Coleman observed. In Texas politics, Coleman believes, “everything is about race. It’s veiled as public policy, but it encourages people to believe that their tax dollars are going to support lazy black and brown people.” Political views have become more entrenched because of redistricting, and yet the demographic majority in Texas is far more progressive than its representatives. Coleman predicts a showdown. “This is the battle about the future of the country, based on a new majority, and we have to have this out.”

  * * *

  AMONG REPUBLICANS who vote in Texas primaries, immigration is the hottest issue. Many state legislators who otherwise might not support S.B. 4 seemed intimidated by the political environment, and it was apparent that Speaker Straus and his team had no battle plan. One of Straus’s chief lieutenants, Charlie Geren of Fort Worth, presented the bill in April 2017, which he offered up to “the will of the House.” That was an invitation to Dan Patrick’s frustrated counterparts to pile on.

  Matt Schaefer, the leader of the Freedom Caucus, amended the bill to allow police officers to question a suspect’s immigration status—a “show me your papers” provision that would place every Hispanic citizen in the state in a different class from Anglos. Law enforcement authorities in Texas’s major cities had loudly opposed such an idea, saying that it would make immigrants less likely to report crimes. Art Acevedo, Houston’s police chief, said that the number of Hispanics reporting rape in his city was already down 43 percent. Schaefer’s amendment was similar to a 2010 Arizona law that had been partly struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. “This is something that Texans in our district have been asking for,” Schaefer said. “This is good policy.”

  Gene Wu, a House member from Houston who was born in China, spoke against the bill, tearfully comparing it to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, America’s first major anti-immigration law. “This topic is painful for me, because I’m an immigrant,” he said. “My parents are immigrants. I represent a district filled with immigrants.” As he spoke, supportive Democrats surrounded him. “Some are here as refugees,” he continued. “Some are here as citizens. Some are here without papers. But they are all my people.”

  For Wu, the sanctuary cities bill was the natural culmination of the “bigoted, racist mentality” that has emerged in Texas, which he calls the epicenter of the Tea Party. “Trump is simply the most visible manifestation of that mentality,” he told me. “It’s been percolating up in the Republican Party for the past decade.”

  Another Democratic lawmaker, Ana Hernandez, of Houston, recalled coming to this country as a child: “I remember the constant fear my family lived with each day, the fear my parents experienced each day, as their two little girls went to school, not knowing if there would be an immigration raid that day.”

  Behind the scenes, the Republican and Democratic caucuses met for hours, trying to find a way to dodge Schaefer’s amendment. “The Republicans came to us and said, ‘Some of us are going to have a hard time voting against it,’ ” Wu told me. Knowing that the law would be challenged in court, the Republicans offered to shelve the amendment if the Democrats made some minor concessions. But the Democrats took too long to agree on terms, and the Republicans withdrew the offer.

  After sixteen hours of emotional debate, ending at three in the morning, the House passed S.B. 4, with the “show me your papers” amendment. A week later, Governor Abbott signed it into law, on Facebook Live. “Citizens expect law-enforcement officers to enforce the law,” he said. “Citizens deserve lawbreakers to face legal consequences.”

  As usual, the legislature passed a sweeping anti-abortion bill, one that bans the safest and most common procedure for second-trimester abortions—dilation and evacuation. The law also requires health-care facilities to bury or cremate aborted fetuses.

  In addition, the legislature passed several bills to reform the agencies that oversee abused and endangered children—one of the governor’s priorities. In the first seven months of the state’s 2017 fiscal year, 314 foster children spent two or more nights in hotels or government offices. The new legislation gave raises to the underpaid caseworkers, but also stripped the state of some responsibility for its wards, handing that off to private contractors. Abbott said that Janis Graham Jack, the federal judge who ruled that Texas’s foster-care system violated children’s rights, should dismiss the case, because the new legislation “completely transforms the system in ways that will make it better.” Abbott said that he expected that the state foster-care agencies would achieve “No. 1 ranking status in the United States of America.” Child-welfare advocates worried that private groups might not have the expertise to take over case-management duties, particularly when dealing with troubled children.

  The feral hog abatement program passed, despite Jonathan Stickland’s opposition. And a new law allows hunting wild pigs from hot-air balloons. Texans could already shoot the pigs from helicopters, using actual machine guns, but balloons are more sporting. And who knew it was ever against the law to shoot pigs from balloons?

  Speaker Straus continued to sideline the bathroom bill in the House. He remained certain that most of his members didn’t really favor the measure, though they also didn’t want to be seen as opposing it. He repeatedly called on the governor to stand with him. Until this session, Abbott had been known more as a business conservative, like Straus, than a cultural conservative, like Patrick, but he showed little interest in choosing sides. He was bound to lose favor in either case. Finally, Abbott blandly stated that he favored a bill “to protect privacy in bathrooms.” He signaled that a bill then headed for a committee hearing in the House, H.B. 2899, was a “thoughtful proposal.” It would not mandate bathroom use based on one’s biological sex at birth, but it would overturn local antidiscrimination ordinances.

  On May 21, the House began to debate the measure. Once again, hours of anguished testimony ensued. Half a dozen female members wandered into the men’s bathroom just off the House floor. “We’re feeling like making trouble today,” one of the women, Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat from Austin, told reporters. “It’s that kind of mood.”

  I wondered whether minds are ever actually changed in these kinds of hearings. This legislative session had already endured many late nights, even on this subject. The people had the opportunity to make them
selves heard; that’s their fundamental democratic right. By an outsized margin, they spoke against the bathroom bill. Among the many affecting facts that lawmakers had to consider was the vulnerability of the transgender population, which is already bullied and stigmatized. A study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law in 2014 found that more than 40 percent of transgender individuals attempt suicide, more than twice the rate among gay and bisexual adults, and nearly ten times higher than the U.S. average.

  Shortly before dawn, the House committee members retired without a vote, effectively killing the measure. At the last minute, several members scrambled to sign on as cosponsors for a dead bill, the most desirable outcome imaginable.

  There were still eight days left in the session.

  * * *

  ONE OF THE MOTIVE FORCES behind the bathroom bill, and a major supporter of Dan Patrick, is Dr. Steven Hotze, a Houston physician and longtime ultraconservative kingmaker. Starting in the 1990s, he made a fortune from alternative hormone-replacement therapies and the sale of controversial supplements, such as colloidal silver, which Dr. Hotze recommends for colds, flu, “and even pet health.” Colloidal silver can cause argyria, a condition in which a patient’s skin permanently turns the color of a blue jay.

  Hotze is affiliated with an evangelical Christian group called the Coalition on Revival. He signed their manifesto in 1986, which endorses the idea that “the ultimate cause of all disease, deformity, disability, and death is the sin of Adam and Eve.” As for government: “We deny that any final authority outside the Bible (e.g., reason, experience, majority opinion, elite opinion, nature, etc.) ought to be accepted as the standard of government for any individual, group, or jurisdiction.”

  Hotze has hosted a show on the talk-radio station that Patrick now owns in Houston. He has even released a couple of songs—or perhaps they should be called lamentations—such as “God Fearing Texans Stop Obamacare”:

  What would Sam Houston do?

  What would Davy Crockett do?

  I know what I’m going to do.

  I’m going to fight Obamacare,

  I’m going to defeat Obamacare.

  Hotze’s main cause is attacking homosexuals, or “homofascists,” as he calls them. “The homosexual political movement will force churches, schools, businesses, and individuals to accept, to affirm, and even celebrate those who participate in anal sex,” he has said. Sodomy, he went on, “will be mandated to be taught to children in the schools at an early age, starting in kindergarten.” It goes without saying that homosexuals “want to make Texas a clone of California.”

  “He is the LeBron James of hating on gays,” Evan Smith, the CEO of the Texas Tribune, told me. “He’s the MVP every year. There is no close second.”

  In 2014, when Dan Patrick first ran for lieutenant governor, Hotze became one of his chief fundraisers. In a video endorsement, he stands next to Patrick and says, “Dan Patrick’s leadership will keep Texas the most conservative state in the country.”

  In the video, Patrick makes it clear what the stakes are in his election. “The Democrats understand that if they can take Texas, they’ll never have a Republican in the White House again,” he says. “They will control the country. There’s not another Texas to move to, folks. This is it.”

  In 2015, Hotze became involved in defeating an antidiscrimination ordinance in Houston that was championed by the city’s lesbian mayor, Annise Parker. Hotze passed out bumper stickers saying “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms,” the same formulation that Patrick and his colleagues would apply to S.B. 6, which they styled “The Women’s Privacy Act.”

  Hotze runs a political action committee called Conservative Republicans of Texas, and he maintains that group’s website. “There are Texas legislators,” Hotze wrote on the site in May 2017, “who would allow perverted men and boys, who sexually fantasize that they are women, to enter women’s and girls’ bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms.” He implored his readers to pray with him:

  In the name of Jesus, I prophesy and declare: May all the individuals serving in the state Legislature, and their staff, who support, promote and practice sodomy and other perverted, sexually deviant lifestyles, who support the killing of unborn babies, and who hate God’s Law and God’s Word, receive just retribution from God for their evil actions…May they be consumed, collapse, rot and be blown away as dust from their current positions because of their wicked works, thoughts and deeds. May people scorn them and nations abhor them. May their punishment lead them to repentance and faith in Christ. May God’s will be done in their lives.

  In an email to me, Patrick’s office described Hotze as a “longtime supporter,” but added, “The Lieutenant Governor does not agree with everything that any of his supporters say or do.”

  Straus told me, “Steve Hotze exists on the fringes. Mainstream Republicans don’t take him seriously.”

  Meanwhile, Hotze was campaigning to have Straus removed as Speaker.

  * * *

  IN THE MIDDLE of all this political chaos, Tom Mechler, chairman of the state Republican Party, resigned. He issued a letter pleading for unity and civility. “A party that is fractured by anger and backbiting is a party that will not succeed,” he wrote in his resignation note. He also warned that Republicans had failed to attract voters beyond the shrinking Anglo electorate, and was destined for electoral extinction. “If we do not continue to make efforts to engage in the diverse communities across Texas, our state will turn blue,” he warned. He urged that the next chairman reshape the party in the image of modern Texas.

  Soon after Mechler’s resignation, Rob Morrow—the former Travis County GOP chairman, with the motley fool hat—announced his candidacy for the statewide position. His priorities had not changed since he was drummed out of the county office: “I like big titties. I am a proponent of boobyliciousness. In the past several years I have shared on social media the pics of over 500 extremely hot, busty women.” He concluded by saying, “I am for having bikini contests at the Alamo every 4th of July. Case closed.”

  * * *

  THE TWELVE MEMBERS of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus were furious at Straus and his allies for keeping their bills off the floor, legislation that included yet more bills targeting abortion, and measures that would further loosen gun laws. They decided to get revenge.

  It was called the Mother’s Day Massacre.

  Bills that are not considered controversial are often placed on the local and consent calendar. Included were 121 uncontested bills awaiting a pro forma vote in the House. However, if five or more members object to a bill, it must then go through the normal legislative process and be scheduled for discussion on the House floor. The clock for such discussions ran out at midnight on May 11, the Thursday before Mother’s Day weekend. Hours before midnight, the Freedom Caucus objected to the entire slate of consent bills, making it impossible for them to be heard in the 2017 session. The doomed consent bills included two that addressed the sharp rise in maternal mortality in Texas. Shawn Thierry, a Democrat from Houston, begged Freedom Caucus members to spare her bill, which would have commissioned a study that focused on low-income black mothers. Thierry herself had nearly died giving birth four years before because of a severe reaction to an epidural. She was forty-two years old at the time, an age when pregnancy complications are more likely. “But I certainly didn’t know that I was three times more likely to die by virtue of being African American,” she said after reading a state-issued report. She argued that her bill was pro-life, because the mothers who died in childbirth had carried their babies to term. The Freedom Caucus members agreed with her on this point, but they refused her request, explaining that it wasn’t personal. “It was like a drive-by shooting,” Thierry later said.

  Next, the Freedom Caucus chewed up time in leisurely debate, bringing the House to a standstill. An hour passed as they considered inconsequential amendments to a bill
on industrial-workforce training. It was an old tactic, perfected by minority Democrats in the past.

  Drew Springer, the representative from North Texas who killed Stickland’s anti-hog-abatement amendment, pleaded for H.B. 810, which would fund experimental stem-cell treatments. He spoke on behalf of his wife, who was in a wheelchair. Such treatments “might give somebody like my wife a chance to walk,” he said, between sobs, as supporters gathered around the microphone. “I’ll trade every single bill I’ve ever passed, every single one, to get the chance to hear H.B. 810.” The Freedom Caucus gave in on this one, and it passed.

  Among the slain consent bills was H.B. 3302, a sunset safety-net bill. It had been crafted to preserve important state agencies that would otherwise be phased out under the automatic review policy, which takes place every twelve years. One of the five agencies up for review was the state medical board. If the medical board expired, there would be no one to license doctors. It wasn’t clear if members of the Freedom Caucus had realized the far-reaching consequences of killing H.B. 3302.

  Dan Patrick, however, recognized that an important lever had been handed to him. The only way to avoid the consequences of H.B. 3302 failing to pass was for a similar bill to be passed in the Senate—which had a later deadline—and then be sent back to the House. On the Monday after Mother’s Day, Straus wrote a letter to Patrick, formally requesting that the Senate pass such a bill, along with the budget, so that the legislature could avoid a special session. In response, Patrick privately sent him the specific terms for such a deal. The House had to pass the bathroom bill and another of Patrick’s priorities, a bill that intended to put a brake on local property taxes. In return, the Senate would agree to pass its own version of the sunset safety net bill, as well as the budget and several other items, including one championed by Straus, which dealt with school finance reform. Over the years, the state’s contribution to public schools has sharply diminished, with property taxes having to make up the difference. To restore the balance, Straus wanted to add $1.5 billion from the state to the public schools. However, Patrick’s offer came with what Straus called a “poison pill”—a provision for vouchers for private schools, which the House had already firmly rejected; moreover, under Patrick’s terms, the state’s contribution would be a fraction of what Straus proposed.