Seven legal guidelines handed within the Texas Legislature’s second special session are set to take impact Thursday, together with the sweeping GOP voting and elections invoice that has been challenged in six federal lawsuits.
Different new legal guidelines embody abortion restrictions, limits on how race could be taught in Texas school rooms and limits on how giant social media firms management content material — though the social media legislation additionally has been challenged in court docket, with a listening to set for Monday morning on a request from tech associations to dam it from taking impact.
On the voting invoice, 5 of the lawsuits had been filed on behalf of two dozen civil rights organizations and advocacy teams in addition to six voters. The sixth got here from the U.S. Division of Justice.
Learn extra:Justice Department sues Texas to block portions of new voting law
The entire lawsuits problem particular sections of Senate Invoice 1 as unconstitutional, unlawful or discriminatory — together with its ban on 24-hour and drive-thru voting, ID necessities for mail-in ballots, protections for partisan ballot watchers, and limits on what polling place assist could be given to these with a incapacity or restricted understanding of the language.
Not one of the lawsuits seeks to cease SB 1 from taking fast impact; as a substitute, they concentrate on overturning the challenged provisions earlier than the overall election in November 2022. With the trial set for July, which means the March 1 Republican and Democratic primaries will probably be carried out below SB 1.
Texas social media crackdown
Home Invoice 20 would let social media customers sue in the event that they or their opinions are blocked from view or eliminated on Twitter, Fb or YouTube. It additionally provides the state lawyer common the ability to sue social media firms on behalf of affected customers.
The legislation was impressed by complaints that conservatives are being censored on giant social media platforms, notably after Twitter and Fb eliminated President Donald Trump for inciting violence earlier than the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“It’s now legislation that conservative viewpoints in Texas can’t be banned on social media,” Gov. Greg Abbott stated in September as he signed HB 20 into legislation.
Social media:Tech groups sue in attempt to void new Texas law
HB 20 permits authorized challenges by anyone who lives in Texas, does enterprise within the state or “shares or receives content material on a social media platform on this state.”
Two tech associations sued in Austin federal court docket, arguing that the legislation violates the businesses’ First Modification proper to have editorial discretion over what seems on their web sites and can impose onerous authorized prices on firms compelled to defend numerous lawsuits from customers.
Race within the classroom
SB 3 was the second try by GOP lawmakers to crack down on the educating of essential race concept, which explores how racism formed historical past, insurance policies, the authorized system and extra.
Although essential race concept shouldn’t be particularly taught in public colleges, Republicans argued that it produced instruction designed to label white college students as racist and promote racial divisiveness. Democrats disagreed, saying SB 3 was an try and whitewash historical past by downplaying racism and the contributions individuals of shade made in historical past.
SB 3 adopted a legislation handed within the Legislature’s common session that Abbott stated did not go far sufficient — HB 3979, which restricted how academics can talk about race and present occasions in social research programs and barred them from awarding course credit score for social or political advocacy work.
Extra:Austin ISD dismisses Texas lawmaker’s probe into books on race, sex
SB 3 applies to all programs from kindergarten via highschool and requires instructors to show racial subjects “free from political bias.” College students additionally can’t be taught that persons are consciously or unconsciously racist by advantage of their race or chargeable for actions dedicated by different members of their race.
Some academics have expressed confusion concerning the legislation’s limits, and a college administrator in Southlake made headlines final month for saying the legislation required academics to supply opposing views on the Holocaust and different delicate subjects if their instruction relied on one supply of data.
Abortion, courting violence and extra
These different legal guidelines will take impact Thursday, 90 days after the second particular session ended:
- SB 4 limits the supply of abortion-inducing medicine, prohibiting their use for sufferers who’re greater than seven weeks pregnant as a substitute of the earlier 10-week restrict. The legislation additionally makes it a state jail felony for physicians to prescribe abortion-inducing treatment with out first conducting an in-person examination. It additionally prohibits the supply of such medicine via the mail or a supply service.
- SB 6 bans judges from permitting no-cash bail for these accused of violent crimes and people arrested for a felony whereas they had been free on bail. A number of sections of the invoice go into impact in January, together with limits on charitable organizations that pay for bail and the creation of a brand new system for reporting a defendant’s felony historical past and any failure to seem in court docket after posting bail.
- SB 9 requires classroom instruction on forestall little one abuse, household violence, courting violence and intercourse trafficking not less than as soon as throughout center college and as soon as in highschool. Abbott added the difficulty to the second particular session after he had vetoed an analogous measure in the common session, saying lawmakers failed to provide mother and father the choice of getting their youngsters skip the category. With SB 9 requiring college students to obtain parental permission earlier than attending the category, Abbott signed the invoice into legislation Sept. 17.
One superfluous legislation
One legislation taking impact Thursday will not be wanted.
SB 13 would have delayed the Texas primaries if lawmakers wanted extra time to finalize redistricting maps to account for inhabitants adjustments recognized within the 2020 census. These district maps — for the Texas Home and Senate, U.S. Home and State Board of Schooling — had been authorised within the third particular session and signed into legislation, retaining March 1 because the date for the GOP and Democratic primaries.
Texas legislature:Democrats allege discrimination, challenge redistricting measures in 3 new lawsuits
A number of different payments handed throughout the second particular session took fast impact, most notably laws giving an additional month’s cost to these within the Instructor Retirement System of Texas.
