➡ Fran Rhodes from the True Texas Project discusses the importance of an upcoming Texas election, highlighting key amendments being voted on and their recommended positions on them. They also reveal their grassroots strategy for mobilizing informed voter participation across the state.
➡ The discussed amendments aim to provide fiscal allocations for various entities, with some perceived as crony capitalism, such as giving money to corporations to broaden internet services. In addition, there’s debate over a proposed cost of living increase for the teacher retirement system, with critics arguing that the legislators are shifting responsibility onto voters. Proposals to fund park and recreation development via bonds are viewed as unfavorable due to existing municipal debts. Lastly, a proposal to extend the mandatory retirement age for state judges and justices is opposed in favor of promoting younger judges’ opportunities.
➡ Ron encourages everyone, particularly those in Texas, to participate in the upcoming vote on November 7th, emphasizing its importance and expressing enthusiasm for future meetings.

To the Untold History Channel. My name is Ron Partain, and today we have the great pleasure of being joined by Fran Rhodes from the True Texas Project. We’re going to try to do this really quickly. This is for everybody who lives in Texas. And if you know somebody who lives in Texas, then share this video with them because there is a very important election coming up, as I understand it, on November the 7th.

And Fran, tell us a little bit about what you’re doing and how important this election is. Okay, well, let me first tell you a little bit about True Texas Project. We started out as a Tea Party group back in 2009. We kind of grew and gained recognition statewide. And in 2019, we changed our name and our mission to True Texas Project. And we started expanding outside of our little corner of northeast Tarrant County.

So we now have 18 active grassroots groups all over this state. And we have monthly meetings, and we give people information all the time on important things that they need to do. We are all about action. We have what we call we’ve been building the army and then we mobilize the army for things like this election. This one is happening on the 7th. Early voting is going on now.

It actually ends today. And then actual election day is Tuesday. There are 14 constitutional amendments on the ballot this year. For most people, that’s all that’s on the ballot. But some of them have special elections for a state house rep, or they might have school board elections or bond elections. So it depends on where you live as to what’s on the ballot. But everybody in Texas will vote on these amendments.

And that’s what we’re going to focus on today, is these amendments. And I’ve got a document here that I’m going to share here and that we’re going to go over. So let’s see here. Let me actually make this a little bit bigger so that it’s visible for everybody. And let me do this here. Okay, that makes it a little bit easier to bring it down a little bit.

I try to make it big enough so that people can actually see it, so people like me can read it exactly right. And people like me, I’m right there too. But can I just say that this document is on our website@www. truetexasproject. com? It’s under the heading of November 2023 Elections. Okay? I’m actually going to put this in a Word document in the description and with the link to the website as well.

So if you’re only seeing this video, you will be able to have access to the document just at the click of a button and not have to go hunting for it. So this document will be visible to you, but I’m also going to put a link to their website in the description. So let’s go over the amendment, shall we? So position one which is what’s? HJR 126? Yes.

So Proposition One is a constitutional constitutional amendment protecting the right to engage in farming, ranching, timber production, horticulture and wildlife management. This one is getting a lot of opposition and a lot of support. We actually started out supporting this one and we changed it to against when we gained some more information. There’s some indication that there’s things in this bill that will allow the World Economic Forum and the whole One World Global ideology to kind of take over farmers and ranches.

So you really need to study the legislation for yourself and figure out what you think it does and then decide on this. But for us, we’re saying against because constitutional amendments are kind of hard to fix if you get it wrong. So we think it’s better to vote against than to vote for and then regret it. Okay, so the recommendation is against. And number Two. Proposition Two. SGR 64.

Okay, this one offers an exemption from property taxes. That’s what advalorum taxes means, property taxes. These are the taxes that are paid to your school districts, your cities, your counties, water districts and things like that. We oppose this one because we basically oppose exemptions in general to property taxes. It becomes the government picking and choosing winners, and we just don’t think that’s right. We think the taxpayers should be in charge.

And when you give exemptions to certain groups like childcare facilities, they get an exemption. When you do that, it then transfers that property tax burden to the rest of the taxpayers. So I don’t have children in childcare anymore, but if this proposition passes, I’m going to be supporting childcare facilities who don’t have to pay property taxes, but I still do. Right. That makes sense. All right, so Proposition Three, HR 132.

Yeah. This prohibits the imposition of an individual wealth or net worth tax. And you’re in California, Ron. I think California actually has one of these in place. So if your income annually is above a certain level, you get to pay more tax than everybody else. In terms of percentage. We would always be opposed to this. Taxes need to be shared. The burden needs to be shared by every taxpayer in the state.

And it is not fair to be taxing success. And that’s kind of what this does, right? As they say, pay their fair share. Meanwhile, the uber wealthy find ways to get around paying their fair share or they just don’t pay. And then their friends and the government don’t go after them, and then they go after the next people down, which are the business owners, the people that are actually doing it, the people that are making the money, that are the politicians that are getting all the bribes and whatnot.

They don’t have to pay taxes on that money. But anyway, I digress. It never works out. And it’s always the middle and lower income people that end up paying the bill. Exactly. Not wealthy. Absolutely. So your recommendation? Yes. I’m sorry. We would recommend voting for this amendment because we don’t want a wealth tax in Texas. Agreed. I’m right there with you. Okay. So proposition four. Okay. This proposition is a result of legislation that was passed during the regular session, which all the legislators are calling the biggest tax relief in the history of Texas.

It isn’t, but they’re claiming that it is. But it is a pretty big tax relief package. So it ups the homestead exemption for school taxes from 40,000 to 100,000. And it has a few other benefits. It caps the appraisal cost of non homesteaded properties. So that helps out people like people who own rental houses and apartments and things like that, which in turn should help out the renters themselves if their taxes don’t go up quite as much as they have in recent years.

A couple of other things in this bill that are good. It’s not a great tax relief bill, but since we think that some tax relief is better than no tax relief, we are suggesting that we vote for it. The ultimate goal for us and most conservatives in Texas is to eliminate property taxes altogether. But that’s a pretty high hurdle to jump in the Texas legislature. Yeah, that’s a high hurdle to jump in any legislature, much less yeah, I’m right there with you.

It’s like, yeah, well, I always like to joke and say, well, yeah, well, I own my house outright. Oh, yeah? Well, don’t pay your property taxes and see who owns your house. All right. Proposition Five. Okay, propositions Five, six, seven, and I think eight are all what we call budget busters. So these are propositions that are creating a fund to do something that should have been in the regular budget if they wanted to do it.

But the legislature spent every penny that they were allowed to spend based on constitutional spending limits. But they wanted to spend more, and they couldn’t without busting the budget caps, which doesn’t look good on a campaign mailer. So they put them into constitutional amendments. Look at the cost of some of these things. Proposition Five is going to cost about 208,000,000 the first year taken from the rainy day fund and then about 100 million per year after that.

This one is for the university funds. Okay. We already give millions and billions of dollars to the universities to run the university system, to program our kids to be Marxists. I’m sorry? To program our children to be Marxists? Yes. That’s what they end up doing. But we are absolutely against all of these fund amendments because they should have been handled in the regular budget. If they are worth funding, it should have been part of the regular budget, and they could have cut spending somewhere else, or they could have broken the spending caps with a simple majority vote in both chambers.

But they don’t want to do that, like I said, because it doesn’t look good come campaign season. So they’re putting these on the voters. Wow. And then if the voters don’t pass it, they can say, oh well, we tried, but the voters voted it down. It’s not our fault. It becomes a win win for the legislators, and most people will not understand these amendments well enough to discern that.

So that’s the major message I want to give out today, is that most of these amendments are about spending that they didn’t have the courage to put in the regular budget. Got you. Prop Five is going to cost 208,000,000 the first year and 100 million year after that. It looks like Prop Six is going to cost about a billion dollars. Prop Seven, $5 billion. That’s what I’ve been told.

And then prop eight is $1. 5 billion. And you’re recommending let’s talk about Prop Eight for a second. I believe this bill came up in the previous session in 2021 and didn’t make it through, and it obviously couldn’t make it through on its own this session. So they put it into a constitutional amendment. This is going to offer money to companies like At T and Spectrum and people who provide broad internet service to expand the service into rural counties where it doesn’t exist.

Now that’s a great benefit for the people who need it in the rural areas and don’t have it. But we’re literally giving money to corporations to do what they do so that they can then turn around and charge people the service. It’s pure crony capitalism, and we are absolutely against it. Well, people think that corporate welfare is something that’s relatively new. Corporate welfare has been going on. If you really want to know what the Civil War was about, it was about funding corporate welfare.

That’s basically what the Civil War was about. It wasn’t about slavery. I digress. Slavery was certainly a part of it. But I mean, the bulk of what the Civil War was about was about ending corporate welfare in the north. And they could not they had to have the Southern money to fund all the corporate welfare. But I agree with you. If they want to give out, it’s a noble thing to want to do to bring high speed broadband internet and services to people way out in the country.

But that should be on the companies. That should be the companies putting out that money so that they can reap the rewards. It’s risk versus reward. It shouldn’t be something that the government funds if the government were to fund it, it should be in the sense of a loan that the companies would then pay back once the service provided is paid for. But that’s not what this bill does.

It’s just free money to corporations. Right, okay, so you’re voting against that one now, proposition Nine, go ahead. What’s? Proposition nine. Okay, this one, we’re getting a lot of pushback because we rated this one as neutral. Emotions are running high on this. It’s a proposition to give a cost of living increase to the teacher retirement system. People who are drawing retirement from the teacher system so they haven’t had a raise in? Depends on who you ask.

Some people say ten years. Some people have said 13 years. I had one lady tell me it’s been 19 years. So yeah, they are way overdue for a cost of living increase. But like those other budget buster amendments, this one could have been put in the regular budget if the legislators had the courage to do it. They did not. They spent money elsewhere and did not prioritize retired teachers.

So they put it into a constitutional amendment, and if the voters vote this down, they’re going to say, gosh, we tried to give those poor people a raise, but the voters said, no, it’s not our fault. I’ve gotten a lot of pushback on this. People want us to support it. I totally believe that these people deserve and need to have that increase. But I also totally believe that the legislature, sorry, is playing tricks on us and we shouldn’t let them get away with it.

This will cost the state about three and a half billion dollars over the biennium. And I’ve also heard people say, oh, it won’t cost anything extra because it’s already been set aside for this. That’s kind of silly. Just because you’ve saved up money to buy a car doesn’t mean that the car didn’t cost you anything when you buy it. Right? And every penny that goes out of the state coffers is our money.

It’s taxpayer money one way or another, and we should be much more frugal with it, or at the very least, be honest about what we’re doing with it. And the legislature is not being honest about this one. Well, I could go on for a while about legislatures not being honest, but we’re trying to keep this pretty short and concise here. Okay. Prop ten. Okay, that’s like the other one with an exemption for childcare.

This one’s an exemption for people that make products for the healthcare industry. Again, it’s just the government picking winners and losers, giving tax breaks to this particular industry, which then moves the tax burden to average citizens like me. Got you. Okay. Prop eleven. Let’s see. Oh, yeah, this one’s strange to me. A few years ago, an amendment was passed that allowed certain counties to float bonds to develop parks and recreational facilities.

Why it was just certain counties, I have no idea. This amendment adds the county of El Paso to that ability to float bonds. We are recommending against because we generally are opposed to bonds. Texas has some of the highest municipal debt in the country already, so all of our municipal governments are already overburdened with debt. And we think there are other ways to develop parks and recreations. Not that we don’t love parks and recreation facilities.

We do. Amen. The government is giving themselves money anyway. Well, yeah, we’re going to keep it short. I’m sorry. Prop twelve. This one we originally said for and we changed it to against when we heard from some people in Galveston County. It seems some counties have a county treasurer, other counties do not, but Galveston County does. And the current county treasurer ran on a campaign of eliminating his job.

He thinks it’s a waste of taxpayer money, and he won that election, which is admirable. He worked to get elected to a job he was trying to eliminate. So this is a decision for the folks in Galveston County. Even if the whole state approves this amendment, if the folks in Galveston County don’t approve it by a majority, it will not pass. So it’s kind of a double layered election.

I personally kind of think that eliminating a government position is good because I believe in smaller government, and if someone that’s already in the government can perform these duties, then by all means, I think they should do it. But our local people in our satellite group down in the Galveston County area are opposed to this. So that’s what we’re recommending. Got you. Okay. Prop 13. This is changing the mandatory age of retirement for state judges and justices.

So this would be like all of the appellate courts, the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals. Currently, the mandatory age, I believe, is 75, and they’re recommending that it be moved to 79. We are recommending against this one mostly to try to give better opportunities to younger judges to have a chance to get elected. Also remember that it’s when you turn 79 within the term that you were elected for.

So if you turn 79 in the first year of your term, you’re still good for the remainder of that term, and you could be 83 years old by the time you are forced to retire. So they’re four year terms? Yes, they’re four year terms. Okay. Correct. Okay, so we are recommending against this one. Okay. All right. And the very last one is Prop 14. Yes. This one creates a Centennial Parks Conservation Fund to be used for the creation and improvement of state parks, just like the other one with El Paso County Parks and Recreations.

This is a silly way to fund new parks and recreation, and there are better ways to do it. And again, the legislators, if they wanted to do this, should have had the courage to make it part of the regular budget. Gotcha. Okay, well, that is the cut and dry version of the Texas election on November the 7th, guys. We’re not going to put a lot of fluff into this.

That was it. Fran, I want to thank you for taking the time, because we put this together in probably about 15 minutes from the time that she said, hey, let’s do it. It was very rapid to get it done. So I want to thank you for taking the time to come out and do this, but we wanted to do this so that we can I know a lot of people in Texas, and I want to get this out to help.

I want to help the people in Texas as much as possible, because Texas is a main battleground. Right? I want to thank you for your time, Fran, for coming on on such short notice. And we’ll put all the good stuff in the description. And if I miss anything, by all means, don’t hesitate to reach out to me and let me know that I need to add or subtract or do anything.

So, again, thank you for your time, and I wish you all the best and what you guys are doing over there. Thank you. Ron. Awesome. Good to see you. Thanks, Fran. And everybody, get out there and vote. If you’re in Texas, get out there and vote on November the 7th. It’s extraordinarily important. So thanks, everybody, and look forward to seeing you again next time. Take care. Bye. .