Legislators Guide to the Issues 2005-2006

Protecting Texas Critical Infrastructure: Prevention, Mitigation, and Recovery from Natural Disasters and State Actor and Terrorist Attacks

Protecting Texas Critical Infrastructure: Prevention, Mitigation, and Recovery from Natural Disasters and State Actor and Terrorist Attacks By: The Honorable Chuck DeVore Download the full research paper here. Key Points Texas’s critical infrastructure remains vulnerable to natural disasters and attacks. The federal government largely abandoned civil defense 50 years ago. Should key elements of Texas’s...

Safe Schools and Fair Standards

Safe Schools and Fair Standards  Key points: Texas’s higher education code is not aligned with Supreme Court precedent on the correct standards for defining harassment. Texas statute does not define what makes conduct “severe,” “persistent,” or “pervasive.” The existing legal framework should remain intact but needs updated definitions that protect both free speech and students...

Oakland fined this couple $915,000 for preventing fires. That’s 18 times the penalty for actual arson

Imagine buying a piece of property, being ordered by the government to clear it of fire hazards, and then being handed a near-million-dollar bill by that same government for doing exactly what it asked. It sounds like a dystopian satire of bureaucratic overreach, but for Matthew Bernard and Lynn Warner, it is a harrowing legal...