GOP Lawmaker Makes Fun of Homeless in Bill
in Agenda with Solar Decommissioning Plan

Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside
March 1, 2021

A rookie Republican state lawmaker filed his own version of a bathroom bill on Monday in a move that may have eclipsed the sexy cheerleader ban from 2005 in the competition for ridiculous at the Texas Capitol. .

At a time when the Legislature is already short on time in the face of monumental challenges, GOP State Rep. Bryan Slaton of Royse City has added to the plate with legislation that would name a stretch of Interstate-35 in downtown Austin as the Steve Adler Public Restroom Highway if the official caption is correct.

Slaton, a tea party favorite, put his perseverance and resiliency on display when he ran three times for the House District 2 seat that he finally won last fall after knocking off a longtime incumbent in the primary election a year ago. But Slaton seemed to be mocking the legislative process with the unveiling of House Bill 2471. He admitted that the measure had been inspired by stories that he'd heard about homeless people urinating in public view not far from the statehouse.

"A good joke requires some truth in it, and this has truth in the name," Slaton told the Austin American-Statesman.

Adler is a Democrat who serves as the mayor of the Texas Capital City. Slaton's proposed designation of seven blocks of the nation's most traveled roadway after the liberal local leader is his way of showing his disdain for Adler's more compassionate approach to homelessness. Slaton explained that he'd conceived HB 2471 with bipartisan support and advice from lobbyists on the homeless problem in Austin that's most visible to lawmakers with encampments in the area that he wants to spend taxpayer funds to name as a symbolic insult to a policy that he clearly finds offensive.

But Slaton also demonstrated that he'd fallen for tales by fellow Republicans like Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick on Austin as a haven for violent criminals where they claim that socialist-minded city council members defunded the police last summer. Slaton said he'd had a hard time to find an apartment in a part of town where he would be safe while in Austin for five months off and on this year.

"All they're talking about is the overall safety in Austin, and no one's excited about it," Slaton revealed. "They think Austin's way different now and not for the better."

The only other piece of legislation that Slaton has authored in his first seven weeks as a legislator is bill that would decommission solar power facilities in Texas. Slaton is teaming up with GOP State Senator Bob Hall of Edgewood as the sponsor of the solar energy dismantling in the upper chamber.

But Slaton might find it harder to find someone to carry the Austin freeway designation legislation across the rotunda as a consequence of the way it could make it all but impossible for anyone to take them seriously after that.

Texas legislators have been known to surpass the bounds of absurdity when it comes to creative legislation. The late Texas House Democrat Al Edwards of Houston, as a prime example, will forever be known as the mastermind of legislation that would outlawed sexually suggestive behavior by cheerleaders at high school sporting events. Edwards argued that some cheerleaders had been "breaking it down" in ways that the younger kids at school shouldn't be allowed to see.

Edwards passed the cheerleader regulation in the House on a vote of 85-65 before it died in the Senate without a hearing.

Slaton has been misinformed on the threat of crime in Austin despite attempts by Patrick and Abbott to portray the Capital City as one of the nation's most dangerous places. Slaton might find it easier to sleep at night once he's spent enough time here to learn that Austin is actually the safest major city in Texas by far.

Slaton probably won't be betting on a hearing or a vote in a House committee for HB 2471 in 2021 in a chamber that Republican Speaker Dade Phelan is leading for the first time this year. But the bill that pokes fun at homelessness probably has the same odds that Patrick encoutered with the bathroom bill in 2017 when he and his Senate allies tried and failed to sell House Republicans on a fabricated pitch about the dangers that women faced in public restrooms across the state as a result of transgender people here.

 

 

 

 

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