(The Center Square) – The Texas House passed a relief package for Texas Hill Country victims but it was not without controversy.

While House Democrats claimed their priority was flood relief in the first special session, they left the state for 17 days and missed voting on the flood relief package in the last session. More than 50 Democrats absconded to prevent a quorum from being reached, effectively blocking all legislation and killing the session.

After a second special session was called, a quorum was met and the House passed the congressional redistricting bill Democrats had left Austin in protest over. Next, the Texas House passed a package of six bills to provide relief and implement a series of reforms in response to the July 4 Hill Country flood disaster.

The package includes HB 1, to require safety measures for youth camps; SB 2, to strengthen disaster preparedness and emergency management response across multiple agencies; HB 3, to create the Texas Interoperability Council to develop a statewide strategic plan and implement an integrated emergency communication infrastructure; SB 5, to allocate funding for disaster relief, early warning systems, enhanced weather predictability, and interoperability infrastructure; HB 20, to create protections related to charitable solicitations fraud; and HB 22, to allocate funding for local governments to implement early warning systems and interoperability improvements.

After the package passed, House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the Texas legislature examined “the systems and processes in need of improvement so we are better prepared for all future emergencies.”

State Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Waxahachie, voted against four of the six bills, saying “government solutions can often be worse than the problems they’re intended to solve.” He also opposed amendments added by Democrats. He voted for HB20 and HB5 and voted against the rest, often as the sole lone no vote.

HB1 “started out as a good bill that I intended to support. However, Democrats were allowed to amend the bill on the floor in a way that may harm or shut down countless camps where safety has not been an issue, nor is likely to be at risk from life threatening floods,” Harrison said.

He also said House Democrats who shut down the entire legislative process shouldn’t have been allowed to make amendments.

“It is indefensible that after breaking quorum for weeks House leadership rewarded them today by allowing them to ruin what started out as a good, reasonable bill,” he said.

The bill passed by a vote of 135-1, according to the unofficial vote tally. Harrison was the lone no vote. 

Three bills, SB 2, HB 3 and HB 22 “unnecessarily grow government,” which Harrison opposes, causing him to vote against the bills.

SB 2 creates “new occupational licenses when Texas already has more occupation regulations than any other state,” including every single Democrat state in the country, he said. The bill “usurps voters by allowing their locally elected officials to be removed from office too easily, and creates new red tape that I believe will make it harder to find volunteers in future emergencies.” Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison and Republican Reps. Lowe, Money and Olcott.

HB 3 creates “an entirely new government entity with significant and unchecked authorities without necessary transparency and safeguards, and delegates too much new power to the Governor and executive branch bureaucrats,” he says. Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison.

HB 22 expands “an existing corporate welfare fund that has nothing to do with emergency response and should be abolished (not given more authority to spend tax dollars arbitrarily),” he says. It also “increases the likelihood of increased spending and taxes in future budgets” to continue funding it. Everyone voted for the bill except for Harrison.

The Texas Senate is expected to pass the bills, which Gov. Greg Abbott says he will sign into law.

(The Center Square) — At an Alachua County School Board meeting in Gainesville, Florida, this week, Crystal Marull, a mother of two students, claimed school officials targeted her sons for their conservative views.

According to Marull, her high school son was mocked in class for his interest in history and participation in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. 

During a class activity, her son’s history teacher reportedly tried to give the student a fake certificate and nominated him “Most Likely to Become a Dictator.” 

The teacher also “let students label him a ‘Naziphile,’” Marull added. 

Her other son, who is 6 years old, was allegedly prevented from sitting next to his friend on the school bus because the friend’s parent did not like the mother’s conservative views.

“I do apologize that [your son] was offended by the Class Superlative … To my knowledge, he did not ask to be removed when he was nominated or when the class voted. When I passed them out today, I reiterated that they were just for fun. These were not meant to be offensive. I do apologize,” was the teacher’s response to Marull about the incident in the high school history class. 

The apology didn’t ease Marull’s concerns.

“This is just one incident emblematic of the litany of abuses and offenses that conservative families face in this district,” Marull said in a statement. “Not only was it wholly inappropriate, the apology was hollow, and although I reported this to a school board member at the time, the board failed to follow up with any consequences.” 

Marull has always been an advocate for strong conservative values, especially gender ideology and banning woke books within school libraries.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, a Republican, sent a letter Thursday to the School Board of Alachua County, asking for an investigation into the incident.

“Florida law prohibits bullying and harassment … This teacher violated Florida law, the School Board’s policy, and no less than six ethical principles. Her teacher’s certificate must be revoked,” Uthmeier wrote. “Teachers who bully and harass their own students are unworthy of the public trust. Despite this teacher’s nasty immaturity, we commend this young man for his strength in the face of rank political discrimination. Remove this teacher from the classroom. Parents and students in Alachua deserve better.”

Because of Marull’s story, many posted on social media, outraged, calling for accountability.

“It’s not enough for the teacher to be fired, though that’s a start. The teacher and Alachua School District should be sued for the intentional emotional distress of both boys,” one user commented. 

The Center Square reached out to the Alachua School District but has yet to receive a response.

(The Center Square) – Parents who lost their daughters from flood waters at Camp Mystic said their deaths were “100% preventable” and asked the legislature to implement mandatory safety protocols for camps statewide.

Camp Mystic, an elite Hill Country multi-million-dollar enterprise, repeatedly appealed to FEMA to remove it from a 100-year flood plain designation; the appeals were granted, according to federal records. Located in “Flash Flood Alley,” the Guadeloupe River tore through part of the camp, taking the lives of 27 campers and counselors and one of the camp’s owners.

The camp charges roughly $8,800 for four weeks and roughly $15,000 for the summer, with an additional $2,000 for horseback riding, a relative who lost a camper told The Center Square. The camp had no alarms, no cell phone tower or communication capabilities, including radios, or evacuation system in place, parents said. Campers were told to stay in their cabins.

A Houston area mother, Lindsey McLeod McCrory, who attended the camp, told news outlets the policy she and others followed during a 1987 flood event was to stay in their cabins. Thirty-eight years later, her daughter, Blakely, died from flood waters that killed the youngest children bunked just feet from the river.

At a Texas Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, Michael McCown, who lost his daughter, Linnie, 8, said, “We trusted Camp Mystic with her precious life, but that trust was broken in the most devastating way. The camp had a heightened duty of care, and they failed to perform. That failure costs 25 campers and two young counselors their lives. No one had to die that day.”

“We did not send Linnie to a war zone. We sent her to camp. We trusted that she would be safe. There was never a question in my mind that a camp would not be prepared.”

The camp’s no cell phone policy should not apply to staff, he said, adding that all camps should have “fully up-to-date” communication systems and “safety measures must not lag behind.” He expressed support for SB 1, which includes “keeping cabins out of floodplains, requiring real emergency plans, mandating weather radios and alert systems,” which he said “should already be the baseline for every summer camp.”

Cici Williams Steward told the committee, “My daughter was stolen from us. Cile’s life ended. Not because of an unavoidable act of nature. But because of preventable failures.”

Her daughter, Cile Steward, 8, is the only Camp Mystic camper still missing. She is one of two known victims who remain unaccounted for.

“Texas summer camps must be properly equipped, trained, and held accountable so that future generations of children can experience the joy of camp without being placed in preventable danger,” Steward said. “Cile’s chance to experience camp only existed because I was ensured that her safety and the safety of all the young girls was paramount. I ask you, what could have been more important than that? But that assurance was betrayed. Obvious common sense safety measures were absent. Protocols that should have been in place were ignored.”

Clark Baker, who lost his daughter, Mary Grace, said, “My daughter should still be here. Her death was 100% preventable. Complacency, among other things, led to the deaths of 27 amazing, innocent, beautiful girls. We can’t let complacency claim the life of another child. We simply ask for mandatory, common sense, state regulated safety protocols for camps.”

“Camps, especially those in areas prone to flash floods, should have adequate warning systems and not build cabins in dangerous floodplains,” he said. “Surely don’t put 8- and 9-year-olds in them. Have a legitimate evacuation plan. Know the plan. Practice the plan. Train workers and counselors to implement the plan.” He said camps “should be held to a standard similar to other institutions that oversee our children.”

Baker, who lives in Beaumont, said, “Hurricane Harvey hit us hard. The very next year we were blasted by Hurricane Imelda. These disasters were both considered 500-year-floods.” Another flood or natural disaster “will happen again,” he said, which is why safety measures must be put in place for 1,100 camps in Texas.

Blake Bonner, who lost his daughter, Lila, said, “Knowing what we know now about that night makes one thing painfully clear. … This was an act of pure complacency. A common tragic theme you will find amongst the 27 angels we lost is that they … followed the rules. They did exactly what they were told to do that morning: stay in their cabins.

“Our daughters paid the ultimate price for their obedience to a plan that was destined to fail. This risk is obviously not theoretical.”

He said what happened was “Preventable failure. It was a failure of planning, prevention, detection and response. Which leads us to the questions that will forever haunt us: Why were our children sleeping in a known high risk flood zone? Why was the stated evacuation plan to stay in place? Why were there no adequate warning systems in the cabins, despite a similar tragedy on the very river as recently as 1987? Why were summer camps entrusted with the care of our most precious gifts, exempt from the basic safety standards required of every daycare and school in Texas?

“These are the questions that demand answers … in the form of meaningful legislative action. To delay action is to tell every parent in Texas that their child’s safety is not a priority. It is to accept a risk that has already been paid by the lives of our daughters.”

Every parent who testified expressed support for SB 1, which includes a series of reforms for camp safety in Texas. The committee advanced the bill, which is expected to pass the legislature and be signed into law.