Believe What I say...Not What I do!

House Representative Chris Paddie of Marshall has repeated two very distinctive mantras while on the campaign trail;  telling constituents that he will always represent his district in Austin and not just what the Republican Party platform says, and that he supports public education and its employees.

To be fair, the party platform does have 260 different planks representing five general topics and 27 sub topics. It is lengthy and covers many areas, in which not every plank will be agreeable to every Republican. In fact, not a single plank received 100% agreement from the 6000 plus delegates to the State convention in 2016. So, to ask a representative to be 100% on board for every plank is not realistic. We can however, expect Republican representatives to be on board for the five legislative priorities that were voted on by the delegates and ultimately approved by the State Republican Executive Committee. They were:

1. Pass Constitutional Carry while maintaining licensing as optional for reciprocity purposes.

2. Abolish abortion by enacting legislation to stop the murder of unborn children; and to ignore and refuse to enforce any and all federal statutes, regulations, executive orders, and court rulings, which would deprive an unborn child of the right to life.

3. Prioritize the allocation of funds to effectively secure the border through whatever means necessary, including but not limited to barriers, personnel, and technology over land, sea, and air, because the federal government refuses to secure the southern border of Texas.

4. Call for a limited Article V convention of states for the specific purpose of restricting the power of the federal government, including the implementation of term limits, and balanced budget amendment. Any proposed amendments must be ratified by ¾ of the states.

5. And to replace the property tax system with an alternative other than the income tax and require voter approval to increase the overall tax burden.

[These priorities were the most important to the convention delegates and passed with overwhelming numbers, including the delegates that represented the county's in Chris' district. The delegates to the state convention are voted on at the County conventions and prior to that the delegates at the county conventions are voted on by the voters at the precinct conventions, local neighborhoods. These delegates from precinct to county to State represent the voters at the grass root levels of every county. Delegates at all levels represent the voters at a much more broad level than any one representative.]

Representative Paddie's voting record as it pertains to the five Republican Party Legislative priorities:

1. Two constitutional carry bills were filed in the 85th session, HB 375 and HB 1911. Neither passed. HB 375 was left pending in Homeland Security Committee, he did not author or coauthor which would show his support. HB 1911 died in Calendars committee, where Chris is a member. It was sent to calendars on April 26. In order for bills to be on heard on the House floor they must have been approved by the Calendars committee and read on the floor a second time by the 122nd day of the session, that was May 12. Chris would eventually sign on to HB 1911, on May 8th but only after many called his office and after he knew the bill would die in Calendars.

2. There was one bill that called for the abolition of abortion in the 85th session. HB 948 by representative Tony Tinderholt. Chris did not coauthor this bill and it died in State Affairs committee where Chris is also a member. In the special session, HB 14 was an attempt to curtail agreements between Texas agencies and abortion providers. After this bill passed in State Affairs on 7/27/17, chairman Byron Cook sat on it for 2 weeks prior to sending to Calendars. It did not make it out of Calendars but Chris signed on as coauthor on 8/11/17, the next to last person to do so. HB 214 took elective abortions out of health insurance policies and Chris signed on after it passed the house.

3. While more money has been appropriated for the purpose of DPS funding and border security, in the 84th session, one amendment to HB 1 (appropriations) by representative Tony Dale would have given even more funding to border security, diverting funds from diversity training to much needed assets such as airplanes and helicopters. The amendment was tabled with Chris voting the same, along with every democrat in the house.

4. This is the only priority Chris is consistent in supporting the platform.

5. Says he is for property tax reform but voted against tax payers having a say in any property tax increase by taxing authorities. HB 486, would allow tax payers to vote on tax increases by school districts if the district wants to raise to a previous higher rate. He fought against automatic elections if a county or city raised your tax rates. He voted to silence any voices in the house that wanted to debate property tax reforms on the floor. He fought against lower rollback rates. The list goes on with this priority. This single issue may be the reason he scored so low on many conservative taxpayer watchdog organizations.

Looking at the RPT priorities, Chris only fully supported 1 of the top 5.  Now lets go back and look at his claims of supporting his district. The biggest issue he claims is education. It's true that the education industry is one of the biggest employers in HD 9. So what has Chris done to support it? I went back to the first time he was elected until today to see what bills he has authored or joint authored in regards to helping education and the classroom teacher.

In the 83rd session, he joint authored HB 1784 which tried to provide technical training to high school dropouts. He joint authored HB 2201 which required additional credits in math and science curriculum to graduate high school. He authored HB 3472, dealing with the Public Education  Information Management System (PIEMS).

In the 84th session, Chris didn't author or joint author a single item dealing with education

In the 85th session, Chris didn't author or joint author a single item dealing with education.

In other words, his rhetoric doesn't match his actions. Not a single bill to help classroom teachers get funding, to provide more money for their classrooms, money for projects, money for increased teacher pay. He didn't file one bill that would help retired teachers receive more benefits or improve upon either the retirement system or its healthcare component. The question then is; Exactly why are teachers and teacher groups supporting him? Or is it really the school boards and administrators that support him? Because again, remember, he voted against homeowners and in favor of the taxing authorities that want to increase your property taxes.

Lastly, when it comes to supporting his district, there have been several referendums on the ballot since Chris has been in office, that he has not supported while in Austin.

In 2016:
Prop 1, "Replacing the property tax", voters passed, 78%-28%
Prop 2, "Prohibit union dues collected from govt employees checks", voters passed, 53%-47%

In 2014:
Prop 3, "Abolish the Franchise Tax", voters passed, 90%-10%

In 2012:
Prop 1, "School Choice", voters passed 82%-18%
Prop 4, "Limiting increases in govt. spending", voters passed 93%-7%


Is he really supporting the concerns of his district, or the concerns of those Austin lobby groups that he gets so much money from? (See Who's Who..Part 2)