Thread by @ErinForYall

🧵 So let’s talk about what happened HB 3979, the “critical race theory” bill yesterday.

I put it in quotes because no one behind this legislation seems to know what critical race theory is.

Yesterday, @jamestalarico and I argued a point of order that sent it back the Senate.

Big thanks to @RepMaryGonzalez who found the point of order and unfortunately was unable to be on the floor to call it.

This type of point usually kills a bill, but the Senate did use an unusual parliamentary move to keep the bill alive, and it is on its way to the Governor.

But let’s back up a few steps. The bill as it hit the House floor for social studies curriculum: 1. Required the State Board of Education to incorporate certain founding documents into the TEKS, 2. Banned schools from requiring teachers to teach current events,

3. Required teachers to teach “both sides” of current events/controversial topics (just imagine how to teach both sides of the Charleston church shooting), 4. Banned schools from giving students any credit for political activity (including through an internship),

5. Banned schools from requiring any training for educators that includes “critical race theory” concepts (did I mention they don’t know it is?), 6. Banned schools and TEA from accepting any private funding to develop social studies curriculum.

So what do Democrats do when a bad bill hits the floor? We get on the back mike and talk about how bad the bill is. We ask the author to explain their thinking. @RepMaryGonzalez @RafaelAnchia @jarvisjohnsontx @jamestalarico all did a fantastic job on this.

Considering @RepMaryGonzalez has a PhD in Education Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Cultural Studies and therefore actually knows what critical race theory is, she was particularly effective in pointing out the flawed premise and the harmful impacts of the bill.

So that’s step 1. Step 2 is amendments. We take two tacks on amendments. The first is sincere attempts to improve the bills. For example, I filed an amendment to change the provision on banning credit for political activity to allowing as long as no POV is prescribed. It failed.

The second tack is filing things we believe our opposition doesn’t want to vote on. Because a “bad vote” can hurt campaigns, these amendments can be used to negotiate.

Several members filed amendments to add to that first section of the bill, the curriculum requirements.

Initially every required text was authored by a white man: @Ramos4Texas @jarvisjohnsontx @ronereynolds @jessicafortexas @CarlOShermanTX @jamestalarico all offered amendments to expand the curriculum requirements to include: teaching the writings of Frederick Douglass,

William Still’s Underground Railroad writings, MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. Also amendments to include the history of the American Labor Movement, the life and work of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, the 19th Amendment, the Indian Removal Act, the Civil Rights Movement,

the Women’s Suffrage movement, the Voting Rights Act, the lives of Ona Judge and Sally Hemmings, and “the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong.”

Republicans didn’t want to vote *against* these things, so the author of the bill just accepted all the amendments with no record vote. The plan was clearly to let the Senate strip them out and send back a different bill. And that’s exactly what happened.

The Senate amendments stripped out all of the specific texts and the language about teaching that white supremacy is wrong. But there was also another senate amendment that added a civics training program for educators.

With the help of @RepMaryGonzalez, @jamestalarico and I were able to argue under a point of order that the senate amendments weren’t germane.

Functionally, this sends the bill back over to Senate to remove the offending amendment. The timing usually effectively kills the bill.

This time the Senate did an unusual parliamentary move to “recede” on their amendments and returned to the original House version and passed it out.

There’s a debate whether that was constitutional. Either way, the bill is on its way to the Governor now.

But now it’s the version with alllllllll of those Democratic amendments the Republicans didn’t want to vote on. Now it’s the version that says our school TEKS have to include why white supremacy is immoral and the life and work of Dolores Huerta.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a bad bill that is based on a dog whistle and attacking the scholarship of people of color. But it’s now also a bill that also requires that social studies curriculum acknowledge the activism of Americans who’ve fought for civil rights.

This is your wild and wacky story of how Democratic teamwork dramatically complicated a racist Republican bill. Big thank you to every single member who fought this legislation so creatively. /🧵

Another way we fought the bill when it was on the House floor is we called points of order then as well. I argued one and @RepMaryGonzalez argued three. I also called one on a bad amendment. We only won t he amendment one, but arguing them helped us win the final point!