Day 59: Sawed-Off Shotguns, Soviet Ghost Stories, And Other Legislative Nonsense

From bad faith bills to Red Scare fantasies, this session has it all.

Today marks the 60th day of the Texas Legislature, the last day legislators have to file bills. In a few days, I’ll have a breakdown of the bills filed, who did what, and what’s in the pipeline. It’s moving along, but the House still hasn’t begun to hear bills on the House floor yet. So, we still have plenty in front of us.

Someone gave me access to a new tool for making and cutting video clips, although it only works for House videos and not the Senate. Yesterday, I got to all five House hearings, clipped the best parts, and still had time to watch the three-hour hearing with the Senate Committee on State Affairs. (Yeah, I’m giddy over software.) We have a lot to talk about.

The climate in Texas is terrible.

Most people already know that Texas emits the most greenhouse gases of any state in the US. But Public Citizen, who testified at the House Committee on Environmental Regulations yesterday put this into perspective.

Some of their key points:

• Chemical accidents occur in Houston every six weeks.

• High levels of ozone cost Texas billions in economic consequences.

• The coal plant in Fort Bend County is responsible for 178 deaths yearly.

• Houston’s Manchester Neighborhood: 450 homes surrounded by polluting industries.

• Texas nuclear waste storage is poorly managed.

• Texas has seen more billion-dollar weather disasters than any other state.

• The cost of ignoring climate change is higher than addressing it.

The most telling part about Public Citizen’s testimony was when the Democrats on the committee discussed with him whether climate change was real and the science to back it up.

That was done for the Republicans on the committee’s benefit. The chair of this committee is Brooks Landgraf (R-HD81), who not only hails from Odessa but has also spent his entire legislative career shilling for big oil. Even when presented with evidence of climate change, there’s no guarantee that a Permian Basin-bro like Landgraf will put health and safety above oil profits, but maybe he’ll prove us wrong.

Of course, then again, he invited the Texas Oil and Gas Association to testify at yesterday’s hearing, indicating he’s taking them into consideration.

We might not all agree on what should be done with the oil industry in Texas as we phase out fossil fuels in the coming decade(s). Let’s treat them the way they’ve treated the residents of this state for the last 100 years, without a care in the world.

This oil executive did make some important points, though:

• In 2023, Texas’ state/local tax revenue and royalties from oil were $27.3 billion.

• The fossil fuel industry in Texas funds $75 million per day in roads, schools, and first responders.

If we really want to get serious about ending our reliance on fossil fuels in this country, we are going to have to find other ways to replace the tax revenue we get from the oil industry. It’s funding a lot of things in Texas. Not plugging the zombie wells, but other things.

Perhaps the free market, not the Legislature, will eventually get us away from fossil fuels. Regardless, we’ll eventually need new tax revenue to replace the revenue we lose to the oil industry.

A big liar was in the House yesterday.

In 2021, the Washington Post published an investigative report about the origins of the Big Lie. At the center of it all…Laura Pressley.

Pressley was an ally of Russell J. Ramsland Jr., a Dallas businessman and failed Republican candidate. Ramsland’s pitch was a claim that voting-machine audit logs contained indications of vote manipulation, an idea he got directly from Laura Pressley, who happens to be another failed Republican candidate. Ramsland pitched one failed Republican candidate after another, trying to convince them to audit their failed elections. Every Republican turned him down until he made the connection with Trump allies.

According to WaPo’s investigation, Ramsland and other conservative activists started an election security company heavily funded by the oil, gas, and fracking industry.

Once Ramsland could link up with Louie Gohmert, Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliana, the Big Lie was born. Although Pressley and Ramsland eventually had a falling out, Pressley was still the one who introduced Ramsland to the idea of election audits, making Laura Presley patient zero of Trump’s big lie.

She was at the House Committee on Elections yesterday, testifying on each bill.

Considering how widely it’s been known and published that this woman is a conspiracy theorist whose ties include the John Birch Society (actually), no one should take anything she says at face value.

In 2014, she ran for a seat on the Austin City Council. During her run for deep-blue Austin, it came to light that she appeared on Infowars and said she believed that data showed military-grade explosives were planted inside the Twin Towers on 9/11. She was a wingnut and conspiracy theorist long before it was cool in the GOP circles.

Pressley lost her bid for city council by a 30-point margin. She couldn’t believe it.

“I knew in my heart that I had won,” she recently told a gathering of law enforcement officers outside Houston, one of the hundreds of speeches she has given about the case, “and I became convinced there was a fraud.” – WaPo.

After Pressley lost her 2014 election, she demanded a recount. The recount confirmed that she still lost, so she took it to court. Among other evidence, Pressley cited an audit log containing nine instances when a machine made by Hart InterCivic recorded an event as “Invalid/Corrupt.” She argued that those and other alleged irregularities meant the actual outcome of the election was impossible to determine.

A State judge threw out her case and fined her $100,000 for a frivolous lawsuit. In 2016, a three-judge panel upheld the lower court’s decision. Then, in 2019, the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court said “maybe” her case had merit, ordered Councilman Gregorio Casar to pay Pressley’s court fees, and overturned all her sanctions.

While all this has happened over the last decade, Laura Pressley dubbed herself an election expert and has been touring the state, speaking to every far-right group who would listen.

Pressley is certifiable. It doesn’t matter what bill she was testifying on or her position. No one should take her seriously, but Republicans in yesterday’s hearing did.

A good bill from the House Committee on Elections… No, a great bill.

Believe it or not, there’s something good coming out of the Texas Legislature. HB665, filed by Rep. John Bucy (D-HD136), is a straightforward, no-nonsense bill that would actually make it easier for Texans to participate in elections.

Right now, if you want to figure out who your local elected officials are, when their terms end, and when the next election is, you have to go on a scavenger hunt. Some county websites have the information. Some don’t. Some cities make it easy to find, while others bury it under ten drop-down menus. School board elections? Good luck.

HB665 fixes that mess. It requires the Texas Secretary of State to maintain a centralized online database with clear, updated information on every partisan race, mayoral election, city council seat, and school board position in the state. That means one website where Texans can find out who represents them, when the next election is, and how to contact their local officials.

This bill would be a real game changer. Because the Texas GOP knows that when fewer people vote, they win. Keeping voters in the dark is a feature of the system they’ve built, not a bug. Republican officials love holding local elections in random months when turnout is low. That’s why they make it difficult to know what’s on your ballot ahead of time. That’s why they fight any effort to make election information more accessible.

No one should have to dig through government websites like they’re searching for buried treasure just to figure out when their local elections are. This bill is common sense.

More bullshit from the Texas Senate.

Someone recently asked me to cuss less. I’ve honestly been trying. But yesterday, the Senate Committee on State Affairs heard a bill to legalize sawed-off shotguns. I’m not sure what to call that, other than bullshit.

That’s right. Texas Republicans are pushing a bill to make it easier to own a weapon that’s practically designed for mass murder.

Sawed-off shotguns (or short-barreled shotguns, if we’re being technical) have been heavily restricted at the federal level since 1934. Why? Because they have no practical civilian use outside of crime. They’re not used for hunting. They’re not used for home defense. They exist because short barrels make shotguns easier to conceal and more devastating in close quarters.

Think of mass shooters looking for a weapon they can sneak into a school.

And yet, Texas Republicans think this is what we need more access to.

In 2018, a 17-year-old walked into Santa Fe High School with a sawed-off shotgun hidden under his trench coat and killed 10 people—eight students and two teachers.

Yesterday, Flo Rice, a survivor of that shooting, testified against the bill.

She was shot six times. The shotgun’s blast was so loud that she thought a bomb had gone off. She collapsed on the ground, looked up to see her friend Ann dead in front of her, then looked down at her own legs, riddled with bloody bullet holes.

“The kids were trapped. They were easy targets for the wide blast of this sawed-off shotgun. He didn’t even have to aim. Some of them hid in closets, and he shot them through the door as they were holding it shut heroically to protect their friends.”

Flo Rice isn’t some liberal anti-gun activist. She’s a Second Amendment supporter. But she knows firsthand how dangerous sawed-off shotguns are, and she knows that gutting restrictions on them means making them more available to the next school shooter.

That’s the real story here.

This bill isn’t about “gun rights.” It’s about deregulating a weapon that has already been used in a mass shooting in Texas.

A weapon that was hidden under a trench coat, snuck into a school, and used to kill 10 people.

And instead of listening to survivors like Flo Rice, who still carries the scars of that day, Texas Republicans are making sure the next shooter can do it all over again.

Communism bad! Red scare! Red scare!

Thanks to my new tool, I had time left over yesterday after the Legislature clocked out for the day, and I went back to watch the Senate Committee on Education from Tuesday. One of the bills they discussed, SB24, was about mandating the teaching of the “dangers of communism” in Texas schools from grades 4 to 12.

The hearing prominently featured Pastor Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz’s daddy, who delivered a long, historically inaccurate, and highly ideological testimony about the evils of communism.

It was one of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen. He claimed that communism is inherently anti-God, destroys competition, eliminates individual initiative, and results in widespread poverty. He asserts that the American public education system has been infiltrated by Marxism since the 1930s, thanks to John Dewey, and argued that critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are modern forms of Marxism.

Throughout his testimony, Cruz made false claims about Cuba, American history, education, and economics, which Senate Republicans eagerly accepted without question. Several Republican Senators suggest adding CRT and DEI to the bill, falsely equating them with communism.

This hearing was a propaganda session, not an honest policy discussion. The bill is designed not to teach history but to push a far-right, Christian nationalist agenda. Senate Republicans want to demonize anything they dislike as “communist,” whether it’s CRT, DEI, public education, or secular governance.

Pastor Rafael Cruz’s testimony was riddled with lies and historical inaccuracies that went completely unchallenged. Texas Republicans embraced his falsehoods, actively suggested inserting more misinformation into school curriculums, and framed Christianity as the only valid ideology. 🙄

Texas Republicans are on a roll.

In just a few days, they’ve prioritized legalizing sawed-off shotguns, making it harder to vote, and mandating Cold War-era propaganda in public schools. If there’s one thing you can count on from this Legislature, it’s that no problem is too small to ignore and no solution is too ridiculous to propose.

This is what governance looks like in Texas: prioritizing paranoia over progress, conspiracy theories over common sense, and fear over facts.

It’s exhausting and infuriating, and it’s exactly why we have to keep paying attention. While they’d love for everyone to check out and stop caring, we don’t have that luxury.

And neither do the people who will pay the price for these policies.

• June 2: The 89th Legislative Session ends.

• June 3: The beginning of the 2026 election season.

• Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.

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