80th Legislature: English As An Official Language, Green Schools, Crisis Pregnancy & More

With the final day for filing new bills rapidly approaching, we’ve gotten a little behind in keeping up with each and every single one.

However, there are a few we want to draw your attention to this Friday morning.

First, let’s look at a pair of bills by Rep. Mike Villarreal (D-San Antonio).

First, HB 2223, which regulates crisis pregnancy centers. Crisis pregnancy centers are one of the the pet projects of the anti-choice crowd, and most are religiously affiliated and non-profit organizations. This is an excellent bill because it will stop the CPC’s from providing the people they seek to serve with bunk information and help those they seek to serve that they aren’t hospitals. It would add the following language to the Health & Safety Code:

Sec. 172.003.  FACTUALLY OR MEDICALLY ACCURATE INFORMATION REQUIRED. An agent of a crisis pregnancy center shall provide a woman who is seeking counseling or information about pregnancy or abortion only with information the agent knows to be factually or medically accurate information.
Sec. 172.004.  NOTICE. (a) A crisis pregnancy center shall prominently display on letter-size paper that is clearly visible from the area at which the center conducts intakes the following notice:
[Name of center] is not a medical facility.
[Name of center] does not perform abortions or refer women for abortions.
[Name of center] does not provide information on pregnancy prevention or refer women for pregnancy prevention.
[Name of center] is not a licensed medical provider qualified to diagnose or accurately date pregnancy.
[Only a licensed medical provider can confirm pregnancy or provide medical advice about pregnancy.

This is great stuff. For one thing, it will require the CPCs to provide accurate information to women, as opposed to merely religious guilt trips.

I fully expect a lot of hell to be raised over this bill from the Right.

Second, let’s look at HB 1824 by Villarreal. This bill promotes high-performance “green” schools by increasing the EDGL from $35 to $37 for schools built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Greening Building System) standards.

The EDGL is is the guaranteed amount of state and local funds per student per percent of tax effort that each Texas school district is guaranteed to help pay the principal and interest on school bonds issued for instructional facilities.  Right now, the EDGL is at $35; Villarreal’s legislation would raise it to $37.
“Green” schools are a good thing for Texas not only because they help the environment and save energy but also because they help save taxpayer dollars.
Then, we have HB 2205 by Bill Zedler. This is yet another piece of anti-immigration language that’s totally pointless. It would declare English as the official language of Texas. Forget that German, Polish and Czech are actually still spoken freely in the Hill Country, or that people were speaking French in this state before they were speaking English. It’s simply another slap in the face of diversity. Worse than that, except for ballots as required by the Voting Rights Act, it would provide that no state agency is required to print anything in any language except English. Yeah, that’s going to work out really well.

And, we have HB 2227 by Heflin, which would reimburse counties for the costs of the May 12 proposition election relating to the busting of the spending cap.

We also like HB 2229 by Swinford. This bill would help rural schools that have to travel significant distances to help their kids participate in extracurricular activities by providing that TEA give them additional transportation allotments if they apply for them.

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