Texas Public Safety Holy Trinity Moves Aggressively on Immigration and Bail Reform

Texas Public Safety Holy Trinity Moves Aggressively on Immigration and Bail Reform

We might as well call them the Texas Public Safety Holy Trinity over at the Texas State Capitol.  That is the fearsome threesome that is the public safety conscience of Texas: Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and Senator/Judge Joan Huffman.

This year, having only a limited two-year window to implement legislative policy in general and a one-time window to angle the Texas ship in the precise direction of the Trump administration and federal policy, the Texas legislature is off to as fast a start as a Texas-bred champion quarter-horse.

Senate Joint Resolution 49 is Texas’s answer to implementation of the federal Laken Reilly Act.  The federal Act requires feds to take custody of a wide variety of defendants, including those charged with as low as misdemeanor shoplifting cases.  This proposal would change Texas’s constitution to require defendants who are in Texas illegally and charged with a felony to be held without bail pursuant to Texas state law.

Senate Bill 9 is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s recently announced priority bail reform legislation, also carried by Senator Huffman.  The legislation stands alone and does not depend on the variety of constitutional provisions being proposed gaining final approval.  Such constitutional proposals have stalled out in the divided Texas house over the past several cycles.   Given the Lt-Gov’s batting average, we see this as the centerpiece of the bail/immigration legislation that is extremely likely to become law.

In Senate Bill 9 are a variety of reforms that might be thought of as “bail reform” and immigration bail reform but going the opposite of what we saw during the previous decade:

1. Legislation to expand the list of crimes (domestic violence, terrorist threats, fentanyl related offenses, illegal firearms possession, those illegally in the country) for which a person is not offered a personal bond, i.e., a release on a promise to appear or get out of jail free card
2. A disallowance of inferior judicial officers granting personal bonds in some cases.
3. A requirement that judges consider the public safety report when granting a personal bond.
4. Expanding the right of the People to expeditiously appeal the settings of bail when the bail is set insufficiently too low.
5. Prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds going to charitable bail funds and increasing reporting requirements of such funds.

Senator Huffman: “I, along with millions of Texans, am fed up with violent, repeat offenders being released into our communities by judges that are more concerned about their own political agenda than the safety and security of law-abiding Texans. Thanks to the Governor's addition of bail reform to the list of emergency items, I anticipate that the Texas Senate will advance these common-sense, public safety-focused reforms through the Senate as expeditiously as possible.”

Before the ink could dry on this release, the legislation has already been referred to committee and set for hearing February 12. We expect that given the Governor’s declared emergency, this package of legislation will be off to a fast start and a quick finish in the Senate.