It also allows the state to withhold sales taxes from a city that defunded police, giving that money to the Texas Department of Public Safety instead.Ī similar bill, Senate Bill 23, requires voter approval to cut law enforcement budgets in counties with a population larger than 1 million people. House Bill 1900, authored by a number of Republicans, would freeze property tax revenue for cities with a population of 250,000 or more that defunds police. Legislation discouraging defunding policeĪfter activists made calls to “defund the police” over the summer in the wake of George Floyd’s death, Texas went the other direction, passing legislation that would punish cities if police funding is slashed. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Digital Journalist Fares Sabawi joins to discuss what passed during the 87th legislative session. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. POPPE: I wouldn't say that it's not the first time that something like this has probably happened in the state's history, but it certainly is the first time that I've seen things get to this type of boiling point between state lawmakers. Is this normal for the Texas Legislature? I know that some legislatures are boisterous, if that's the word. INSKEEP: Ryan, I want to ask you as someone who covers the state Legislature in Texas. And, you know, lawmakers are adjourned, so we'll have to see what happens next. But now Rinaldi says that he is under a protective order by state troopers. And they went about their business, you know, eventually adjourning the session, since it was the final day. Things calmed down after, you know, the fight had broken up. INSKEEP: Did anybody actually take the fight outside, as some of the Democrats allegedly wanted? POPPE: He not only acknowledges it he tweeted about it several hours after the session had finished. INSKEEP: Rinaldi acknowledges saying that, something to the effect of, I'm going to shoot you in the head? And it culminated to the point where Rinaldi threatened to shoot one of those Hispanic lawmakers in the head over a threat that he had made about taking the fight outside the Capitol building. POPPE: That resulted in more shouting, a shoving match, like you mentioned, between some of these Hispanic lawmakers and Rinaldi. INSKEEP: And how violent, if that's the word, did things get? And by that he was calling immigration agents to come to the state capitol and deport some of these protesters that were holding these signs. POPPE: Well, he started shouting at the Hispanic lawmakers that some of the protesters had signs saying that they were illegal and that they were here to stay. INSKEEP: Oh, Freedom Caucus, just like they have in the House of Representatives in Washington. Some Hispanic lawmakers began recording the protesters on Facebook Live, and that angered one state Republican, Republican State Representative Matt Rinaldi, a member of Texas' Freedom Caucus. So state troopers were called in to clear the gallery and remove all of the protesters. And the noise level had gotten to be to such a point where lawmakers couldn't hear themselves talk, even on the House floor. POPPE: Well, it actually was a protest that had kind of overtaken the House gallery in the Texas House of Representatives. And then it came up for discussion yesterday. So President Trump, on the national level, wants to target sanctuary cities, and here's a state government acting in support of that, in effect, by passing this legislation. And it has stirred up quite a bit of tension amongst state lawmakers. POPPE: Well, that's the Texas sanctuary cities ban, which would allow local police to ask a person about their immigration status, even during something as simple as a routine traffic stop. What were they arguing about in the Texas Legislature yesterday? So we're going to get to the quasi violence here, but there's an underlying issue. Texas Public Radio's Ryan Poppe was there. A less polite way is to say that lawmakers had a shoving match, an argument about immigration. A polite way to describe yesterday in the Texas Legislature is that people had strong feelings.
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