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On Friday, the group of about a dozen lawmakers derailed an entire slate of more than 100 bills that were on the Local and Consent Calendar, an expedited path for legislation that is not expected to be controversial or face opposition. Bills on that calendar sail through unless at least five members object.

Some Lege watchers, playing off the upcoming holiday, began calling the incident the Mothers Day Massacre. As the dust settled, lobbyists, lawmakers and activists began to assess the damage.

Among the bills that likely died this week: a proposal to tackle the states farmworker housing crisis, a medical marijuana bill, two that wouldve addressed Texas alarmingly high maternal mortality rate, an anti-lunch-shaming bill that wouldve kept schools from identifying students who receive free or reduced lunch, an anti-gentrification measure and proposals to add protections for LGBT people to housing and employment laws. While theres a chance several of the proposals that did not advance this week such as priority anti-abortion measures will find life this session as an amendment or Senate version, the majority will have to wait for 2019.

The Texas Senate voted Tuesday to license immigrant family detention centers, which critics call baby jails, as child care facilities. The bill, which was written by a private prison corporation, allows the state to exempt the centers from any minimum standards it deems necessary in order to license them. Under the legislation, the centers could detain immigrant children for the duration of their asylum cases much longer than current law allows.

Conservatives in the House advanced a religious freedom bill this week that could result in the denial of prospective adoptive parents who are LGBT, unmarried or dont attend church weekly. House Bill 3859 could also shield faith-based foster families who subject gay children to harmful conversion therapy or refuse to provide reproductive health care to teens.

A stripped-down version of the Sandra Bland Act unanimously passed the Texas Senate Thursday. The bill isnt the uncompromising criminal justice overhaul its author intended, but it does raise standards of care for inmates with mental health issues.

A GOP-backed bill speeding through the Texas Legislature would abolish straight-ticket voting, the option that allows Texans to vote for a partys entire roster of candidates with a single selection. In 2016, 63 percent of Texans cast a straight-ticket ballot. Democrats have called the bill a form of voter suppression and said it could embroil Texas in yet another civil rights lawsuit.

More than half the Texas House signed on to legislation that would legalize medical marijuana for patients with a debilitating medical condition, but the proposal fell victim to legislative deadlines this week. House Bill 2107 was declared dead by its Republican and Democratic authors, who said the bill gained unheard of momentum for pro-marijuana legislation in Texas. They vowed to pass the measure during the 2019 legislative session.

Late last Sunday night, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sparked criticism when he signed Senate Bill 4, the controversial sanctuary cities ban that allows local police officers to be deputized to enforce federal immigration law. Abbott decided against a press conference or notifying the media and signed the bill into law around 7 p.m. after a five-minute, vertically filmed speech on Facebook Live.

We spent an afternoon with the king of birding in Texas, Victor Emanuel. His new memoir, One More Warbler, hit shelves this week. Birders are the luckiest people, Emanuel says. If youre interested in tropical fish, you have to go to where you can see them. You want to see art, you have to go to an art museum. We dont have to do any of that! Beauty is all around us. Birds are all around us. We can see birds everywhere. At least the ones that are left.

Join us Saturday, May 20, at 6 p.m. at Book People in Austin, where author and Observer contributor Rachel Pearson will read from her new memoir, No Apparent Distress: A Doctors Coming-of-Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine. Observereditor Forrest Wilder hosts the conversation. Read an excerpt from Pearsons book in our April issue and get more details about the event at the Book People website.

This years MOLLY National Journalism Prize gala, a celebration of great reporting and nonprofit journalism on June 8, will feature a keynote conversation with Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent for Slate. Get your tickets now!

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This Week: In 'Mother's Day Massacre,' Tea Party Caucus Derails 100+ Bills - The Texas Observer

The split has already wrecked the chances of more than 100 bills as the legislative session nears its end.

Correction:An earlier version of this story stated in the last paragraph that this will be Joe Straus last term as House speaker. A spokesman for the speakers office tells us he has made no such announcement. We regret the error.

A split in the Republican ranks could doom hundreds of bills still pending before the Texas Legislature. Tea party members frustrated with House GOP leaders have already brought business in the lower chamber to a halt.

Last night at midnight marked the cutoff for the House to vote on bills originating in the chamber this session. Members of the House Freedom Caucus railed that they were being stifled as the leadership focused on pressing through as many bills as possible. When the deadline passed, the group used a procedural move to kill more than 100bills scheduled for a vote today.

Whats happened to us has been personal retribution, said State Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano), who announced the move. Its been personal attacks, personal retribution, petty, personal politics. And this caucus has had enough of it.

Brandon Rottinghaus, political science professor at the University of Houston, says the rupture could make it much harder for Republicans to work together. The person who has to be the great unifier here is [Governor] Greg Abbott, he says. How Greg Abbott governs and how he chooses to run out the clock on these last pieces of legislation, what he signs and why are going to be pretty telling for what the future of the party will be.

Rottinghaus says the split is only likely to get wider next year.

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Tea Party Republicans Revolt Against House GOP Leadership ... - Houston Public Media

With local elections days away and another national fight on the horizon, Blair County Tea Party members met Friday in Altoona for their annual gathering their first ever under a unified Republican government in Washington, D.C.

Both the setting and the mood had changed from past years: Now indoors at the Bavarian Hall, the crowd and speakers celebrated President Donald Trumps victory and called for renewed efforts to defend his government. It was a noticeable change from past meetings, where attendees called for resistance against federal overreach under then-President Barack Obama.

Last November we voted in an agenda a new agenda, your agenda, said state Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Jefferson Hills, who is seeking the GOP nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., next year. That agenda is to simplify the tax code, to reduce government spending.

And while standard tea party issues like taxes and national debt were mentioned, the deeper message was that conservatives must seize the remaining levers of power in Harrisburg and Washington.

Saccone described Trumps enemies the news media, college faculty, left-wing activists among them as a six-pronged force constantly challenging the executive. Only by voting out figures like Casey could Trumps agenda be enforced, he said.

The message was the same at other levels. Gubernatorial candidate Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York, didnt make it as planned, but in an address supporting him, state Rep. John D McGinnis, R-Altoona, compared the state senator directly to the president.

I heard somebody say, Scott Wagner is the Donald Trump of Pennsylvania,' McGinnis said. I beg to differ: Donald Trump is the Scott Wagner of national politics.

McGinnis described Wagners broad financial support during his own election to the state House in 2012. The trash-disposal magnate pumped $30,000 into the McGinnis campaign and provided material and legal help, he recalled.

Not long afterward, Wagner won his own seat in the Senate and is now challenging Democratic Gov. Tom Wolfs re-election.

The message was clear: A unified insurgent force had overthrown orthodox Republicans in Harrisburg and Washington and now those victories had to be redoubled.

The battle has just started, Tea Party President Rhonda Holland told the audience, listing the challenges they still face. We really must be vigilant on all items.

Mirror Staff Writer Ryan Brown is at 946-7457.

HOLLIDAYSBURG The Blair County Sheriffs Department is awaiting a second canine officer expected to arrive ...

HOLLIDAYSBURG In an attempt to curb excessive speeding on a borough road, officials voted Thursday to ...

HOLLIDAYSBURG Blair Countys processing of issuing new and renewed licenses to carry firearms is on hold for ...

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Blair County Tea Party seeks to expand influence in Pa. - Altoona Mirror

Given the rhetoric of conservative activists and Republican officials during the 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that the opposition to President Barack Obama would be strong. At the time, the rhetoric often spoke of unprecedented socialism and the idea that America would be forever changed. Obama was seen as more than just a liberal or a progressive, he was a devout socialist with numerous ties to dangerous radicals to his opponents.

After Obama took office, a movement of conservatives and libertarians would rise from the ashes of a defeated cause. Despite failing to stop Obama in 2008, these activists and concerned Americans would not give up. The result was a movement of people known as the Tea Party. The name is derived from the original Boston Tea Party during the American Revolutionary period, where demonstrators dressed up as Native Americans and dumped tea into Boston Harbor.

The Tea Party stood by basic conservative ideas such as defending gun rights, fiscal responsibility, and limited government constitutionalism. Tax Day rallies were launched by the Tea Party, who would use the day dedicated to collecting to the income tax to demonstrate their patriotic message. Activists would come together at massive gatherings and listen to speakers talk about the need to enact these principles in government.

This movement was also portrayed as radical by the American left. From Democratic politicians to left-leaning talking heads, the implication was that these groups were dangerous anarchists who wanted overthrow democracy because of racial tensions harbored against the first black President. The Tea Partys support of basic gun rights amounted to an embrace of violence against other human beings and government itself in the eyes of the left. Their support of limited government meant an endorsement of anarchy.

All of this hyperbole has continued to escalate over the years, with the portrayal as dangerous right-wing radicals subverting democracy continuing to remain prevalent.

But is it really the Tea Party Movement that is dangerous?

Whereas the Tea Party held peaceful rallies and elected politicians to numerous levels of office from municipalities all the way up to federal Congress, the new Resistance Movement has officially endorsed obstruction and destruction. In the aftermath of President Donald Trump pulling off a long-shot victory last year, many left-wing activists have adopted an explicitly pro-violence approach to politics that is based on intimidation and fear.

Alt-right youth icon MiloYiannopoulos and conservative firebrand Ann Coulter have both become targets of mass intimidation movements by leftists acting aggressively in large numbers. Reports of vandalism and assault are on the rise, such as the case in Berkeley when opposing viewpoints were invited to the college to speak.

What is more dangerous and radical: peaceful gatherings or disruptive violence?

This is a source of constant hypocrisy in American politics. When the Bundy ranchers took over a Bureau of Land Management building when it was empty and didnt fire a shot at any government official, they were portrayed as dangerous domestic terrorists by the left who needed to be taken down through force. After riots broke out across Ferguson that resulted in injuries, violence, and looting, the same leftists celebrated these violent protesters as agents of change.

What is the real danger to social order and stability?

The dangerous hypocrisy of the American left, which emboldens its more radical elements, should not go ignored. Disagreeing with the Tea Party is fine, it is an American right that even members of the Tea Party would defend. However, the left is now guilty of the exact transgressions they once accused the Tea Party of doing back when Obama was in office.

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What Sounds More Radical: Tea Party Or The Resistance? - The Liberty Conservative

State Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, dressed down some of her tea party-aligned colleagues in a fiery speech on the House floor after they objected to a bill she authored that is aimed at identifying victims of human trafficking.

Back story: Thompsons speech on Thursday came after she had an exchange with the six Republicans who had petitioned to remove herHouse Bill 2629 from the Local and Consent Calendar, the agenda for non-controversial bills that pass without significant debate.

Now Im going to tell you something. I cursed out several members that was on that list. I used some bad words to them. I apologize for the bad words if any of yall heard them. I didnt apologize to them, Thompson said in her nine-minute speech.

Her bill would require beauticians to be trained in identifying signs of human trafficking in their clients. The conservative members objected because it created a new mandate. But they did not alert her ahead of time that they planned to raise questions about the bill, Thompson said.

I understand now what your position is, but you didnt talk to me before, and thats why you got that cuss out a little while ago, she said. Im Christian and Im here on a mission to do the will of God, and it does not mean protecting a pimp. It means Im going to protect and do everything possible for the victim.

While the bill is not dead, any minor derailment of legislation can be fatal with just a few weeks to go in the legislative session. The bill has been sent back to the Local and Consent Calendar Committee, where Thompson can amend it and bring it back to the floor.

Those who objected were Reps. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano; Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving; Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, Kyle Biedermann, R-Fredericksburg, and Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, according to the House Journal. Thompson also mentioned Rep. Jonathan Stickland, a Bedford Republican she refers to as Sticky, as a part of the group that objected.

That group ofconservative GOP lawmakers regularly raises questions about bills that otherwise would sail through floor proceedings, oftentimes frustrating their colleagues and slowing the work of the House.

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WATCH: Rep. Senfronia Thompson gives tea party colleagues a ... - Austin American-Statesman