That was Texas lawmaker Republican Carrie Isaac trying desperately to defend her bill, HB3137 which strips Texas cities from being able to regulate firearms in their own municipalities. This bans cities from any regulations surrounding the transfer, storage, possession, wearing, carrying, transporting, licensing, or registering ANY guns, air guns, knives, ammunition, gun supplies, or gun accessories.
Representative Jarvis Johnson asked her a few simple questions about the bill that Carrie Issac introduced, but she seemed incapable of giving complete answers. it sounded like she was trying to parrot talking points.
A buch of her colleagues then rushed up to her and started coaching her on what to say. It was laughable.
She couldn't answer Jarvis Johnson's questions because Republicans aren't writing their own bills. This has been known for years, but way too many people are still unaware.
That’s why they struggle to answer even basic questions about them. Becuase halfway intelligent people would know to atleast READ the fucking bill and try to understand the bill that someone else wrote. But no, Republicans are apparently incapable of doing the bare minimum.
So if they aren’t writing the bills they pass, then who is?
Conservative lobbyists, think tanks, special interest groups, wealthy donors, and corporations are the ones writing the bills for republicans. These bills are called Model Bills, and they use these bills to shape policy not only in each state, but across multiple states at the same time.
The conservative groups behind all this include the American Legislative Exchange Counsel, or ALEC, State Policy Network which is a network of conservative think tanks, Americans for Prosperity which is run by the Koch brothers, the Alliance Defending Freedom, Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, etc.
There are over 10,000 of these bills that are now laws. Laws that were not written by the republican legislators who sponsored them and voted for them. These bills are used to override the will of the voters. These bills that are then passed into law specifically benefit the conservative groups, corporations, and think tanks that wrote them.
The republican legislative process has been outsourced.
It’s all manipulation. These bills promise to protect the public, but instead they bolster the corporate bottom line. Take, for example, the Abestos Transparency Act. On the surface, it sounds great. The title makes it sound like it's something that representatives hammered out something that safeguards public health.
But the bill actually paints corporations as the victims. This bill requires people who’ve been harmed by abestos, who are battling cancer from it, to seek money from an absestos trust instead of actually suing the companies whose products caused their cancer. That can take months or even a year… when many mesothelioma victims often die within a year of their diagnosis.
That was legistlation written by corporations who were being sued, specifically from ALEC. It’s been introduced in 32 states and became law in 12, and it protects corporations' bottom line. Conservative politicians get recognition and an instant path to success for letting the special interest groups, the rich, the corporations, etc. shape policy, and those groups get their agendas turned into law.
And these republicans who outsource their bills are secretive about it. They do not disclose who wrote it or where it came from unless they’re confronted or it’s leaked. There are no disclosure requirements for when lobbyists, corporations, special interest groups, or rich donors write the bills.
Republican politics are literally rich people using fake religious people to convince poor white religious people that compassionate and empathetic people are out to get them. They do this to rile up their base into a frothing frenzy.
Think about that.