State Rep. Liz Campos (D-San Antonio) advised a gathering of the Tejano Democrats on Saturday that Gov. Greg Abbott sought to make use of her vetoed harmful canine invoice as leverage to courtroom her help for his college voucher program.
Lawmakers from each events had shut down college voucher plans within the Texas Home for many years, however Abbott went to excessive lengths to push one by way of for the primary time within the state’s historical past final yr.
He used an exceptional $6 million marketing campaign contribution from a Pennsylvania billionaire to assist root out detractors of the concept in Republican primaries, together with considered one of his outdated allies, state Rep. Steve Allison (R-Alamo Heights), who was so disillusioned by the assaults that he mentioned he not acknowledged the Republican Celebration.
In response to Campos, the governor put large strain on Democratic members too — although none wound up coming over to his facet.
“I had an important invoice, the canine invoice right here in San Antonio, that went all the way in which to the governor’s workplace. Sadly, it obtained vetoed,” Campos in a speech on the Tejano Democrats’ candidate discussion board at Luby’s.
“I personally had a gathering right here with [Abbott] in San Antonio and requested him why he vetoed my canine invoice that’s so wanted,” she continued. “He advised me that he wanted my voucher vote, and if I gave him that vote, he may un-veto my invoice.”
The voucher plan was accredited in the course of the 89th Legislative Session with the help of all however two Home Republicans. Each Democrat voted towards it.
“I advised him, ‘With all due respect, that’s not truthful,’” Campos recalled of her dialog with the governor. “‘It’s a great invoice, and I’m not going to provide you your voucher vote. That’s not going to occur.’”
The Ramon Najera Act — named after the 81-year-old veteran who was killed in a canine assault in 2022 — seeks to permit nameless reporting of harmful canine and to empower native animal care service departments to analyze aggressive canine with out affidavits or a sworn assertion. The invoice would even have elevated penalties for repeat offenders.
Lawmakers from different counties wished no a part of these modifications, but it surely was accredited by each the Texas Home and Senate within the 2023 legislative session after lawmakers bracketed it to use solely to Bexar County.
Abbott mentioned in 2023 that the invoice’s modifications to the penalties amounted to overcriminalization, and the state’s present legal guidelines already penalize assaults by harmful canine a lot that felony arrests have already been made following Najera’s demise.
On the time, Campos mentioned Abbott’s workplace had “agreed to work with me on it,” so she reintroduced it throughout a particular session that yr, which was aimed at college vouchers.
She introduced it again once more within the 89th Legislative Session, with GOP Reps. Marc LaHood (R-San Antonio) and John Lujan (R-San Antonio) as co-sponsors, but it surely wasn’t taken up for a vote within the Public Well being Committee.
