Three Texas Lawmakers Sound Alarm on Raft of Discriminatory Bills

By Peter Schurmann

The Texas state legislature holds sessions on a biannual basis. The current session ends on May 31. Bills now pending threaten to further roll back abortion and transgender rights, and strip non-US based Chinese, Iranians and Russians of rights to own land, among other issues.

Women Made Up Majority of Home-Based Workers During Pandemic

Women, already the majority of home-based workers in 2019, increased to a slightly larger share of a growing home-based U.S. workforce in 2021, after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

each year in 2019 and 2021 was broadly similar.

Gene Wu, a Democrat who represents portions of Houston in the Texas legislature, does not mince words when it comes to the legislative agenda of conservative lawmakers in his state. “I think there can only be one message, and that is a message of alarm,” says Wu, who serves as Vice Chair of Texas’ Democratic Caucus and has represented the people of District 137 since 2013.

The son of immigrants from China, Wu is an outspoken critic of what he describes as efforts by GOP legislators in Texas to turn the clock back on a wide range of issues, including hard-won rights for ethnic minority, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ communities while resisting calls for tighter gun laws in the wake of several deadly mass shootings.

“The way they do things here… is to hide what they are actually doing, to hide how bad the legislation is, and how many of your rights will be taken away,” noted Wu in a message recorded for EMS and its ethnic media partners in Texas. “You guys have to start paying attention. If this legislation passes it will set back our communities a lot.”

Wu is among a small cohort of elected officials in Texas representing communities of color largely concentrated in the Houston area. His comments come as the Republican-majority State Legislature meets for its bi-annual session which ends May 31.

According to Wu, up for consideration are “dozens and dozens of bills… to ban books, to whitewash history… bills banning the discussion of Black history and Black achievement.”

Among the pieces of legislation Wu and his colleagues are eyeing are efforts to ban Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs in the state, along with an attempt to eliminate preferences for women and minority contractors, which he says would make a bad situation worse for businesses competing for government contracts.

“We have tons and tons of anti-women legislation… bills taking away contraception… criminalizing doctors for even suggesting that a patient might travel somewhere else to get an abortion,” noted Wu. “Either we start fighting now, or it’s gone.”

Anti-trans, pro-gun bills move ahead

Penny Morales Shaw represents the 148 District, which contains northern parts of Houston. She says there are three bills in particular that she and her Democratic colleagues are working to pass. They include the Texas Family Act, a law that would ensure paid parental leave for all working Texans, something Morales says in a post-Roe era is key to “taking care of the family foundation.”

Morales says that while they are working to push that bill forward it appears likely to die on the floor.

Another, the Language Access Plan, seeks to ensure that the tens of thousands of Texans who speak a language other than English or Spanish have access to quality information on state health services. A third is an environmental measure that Morales says is critical to her constituents.

“We’ve got the petrochemical

California State Assembly Passes Landmark Legislation to Ban Use of Dangerous Chemicals in Food and Beverages

Legislation Would Prohibit the Use of Five Toxic Chemicals Banned in the European Union and Others Nations

SACRAMENTO, CA —

Today, the California State Assembly passed first-of-its-kind legislation that would prohibit the use of certain dangerous and toxic chemicals in processed foods and drinks. Authored by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Woodland Hills), Assembly Bill (AB) 418 would prohibit the manufacture, sale, or distribution of any food product in California containing Red Dye No. 3, Titanium Dioxide, Potassium Bromate, Brominated Vegetable Oil, or Propyl Paraben. These chemicals are already banned in the European Union (EU) and many other jurisdictions due to scientific research linking them to significant health harms, including cancer, reproductive issues, and behavioral and developmental issues in children.

“Today’s strong vote is a major step forward in our effort to protect children and families in California from dangerous and toxic chemicals in our food supply,” said Assemblymember industry in our backyard… we have a big problem with contamination from explosions at chemical plants,” including one the same day Morales gave her remarks which she learned about through a headline shared by a resident.

Morales’ bill would create a Special Environmental Remediation Fund (SERF) which would allow any county in the state to draw from monies won through civil litigation involving environmental polluters for use in clean up and remediation efforts.

Like Wu, Morales says SB14 – which would deny gender affirming care to minors – is a major concern that would “alienate parents from their rights” to make decisions regarding medical care for their children and would “confuse the whole medical industry” around what they can and cannot provide to patients.

A press release put out Thursday by the Texas GOP calls passage of SB14 a “top legislative priority.”

Texas being Texas, guns are also at the fore. Morales says the tone this session is one of making guns more accessible, to let them “proliferate” despite a rash of mass shootings, the latest at a Dallas shopping mall that claimed eight lives.

The time for ‘sofa politics’ is over Dr. Suleman Lalani is the first Muslim American elected to the Texas House. Representing District 76, the freshman lawmaker says he had initially planned to submit somewhere in the vicinity of 15 bills this first session.

“We ended up (submitting) over 100 bills and resolutions,” said Lalani, all of which have made it through committee. A career physician, he noted the focus of many of the bills is healthcare, along with education, safety and security, and technology.

Among the bills Lalani authored is HB4762, which seeks to provide better protection for hospital and medical staff, many of whom Lalani says have come under physical attack from violent and mentally disturbed patients. Another would ban smoking in all colleges and universities.

As a candidate, Lalani says he was told to consider when drafting legislation not just which communities will benefit, but which communities will be harmed. “There are some bills (being considered) that will hurt people,” he said, including SB147, which would prohibit the purchase and sale of real estate by people of certain ethnic or national origins. “That is not a good precedent.”

Another bill, HB3, was marketed as an effort to divert more money into education but in fact was a veiled attempt at increasing the presence of guns on school grounds.

“These are very concerning,” Lalani says.

All three lawmakers urged members of the media and communities to stay engaged.

“The time for sofa politics is gone,” said Lalani. “We can’t just gripe and push the baton to others. The change we want to make will come from us.”

Working from home was among the safety measures adopted during the COVID-19 public health emergency (which has since been lifted) to reduce transmission of the novel coronavirus. As a result, the percentage of home-based workers in the United States tripled from 5.7% of all workers in 2019 to 17.9% in 2021 — an increase of nearly 19 million workers, according to American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year data.

This shift has had social and economic impacts including on caregiving roles, actual or perceived workplace productivity, professional advancement opportunities and commuting burden.

In 2021, the majority (52.8%) of workers were men but women made up the majority (51.4%) of home-based workers.

Despite the increase in homebased workers, the share of women who worked from home to Black Californians based on a statement he made last week about broadly advancing equity and inclusion. Newsom clarified his comment.

Working from Home More Common in Some Occupations Certain occupations may lend themselves to home-based work more than others. ACS data show a strong relationship between occupation (organized into five groups for this analysis) and the percentage of workers who worked from home.

In 2019, a relatively small percentage worked from home in every occupation group but the highest share was in management, business, science and arts occupations like insurance underwriters, mental health counselors and marketing managers.

The percentage of homebased workers rose for each occupation in 2021 but the biggest share (about 28%) of home-based workers was still in management, business, science and arts occupations.

In both 2019 and 2021, production, transportation and material moving occupations (bakers, machinists and taxi drivers) had the lowest percentage of home-based workers (2.3% and 5.3%, respectively).

Gov. Newsom Releases May Budget Revision; Addresses Reparations Cash Payments...continued from page 3 oil drilling, deliver 90% clean electricity by 2035, and more.

· Investing $1.6 billion for all students, regardless of income, to access two free school meals per day – up to 12 million meals per day statewide.

“With the May Revision, the Governor is again putting money where his mouth is -- and where California needs to be -- investing in bold and transformative proposals to advance equity and address pertinent disparities in Black communities and in the classroom,” said Assembymember Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City), chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC).

“My posture is that let me receive the final report, continue to work with legislative leaders and the task force and assess where to go from there,” Newsom told California Black Media. “We put out a statement that was amplified, no small part by Sen. (Steven) Bradford and Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer and others. We look forward to reviewing the details of the task force’s recommendations.”

Jesse Gabriel. “It’s unacceptable that the U.S. is so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to banning these dangerous additives. We don’t love our children any less than they do in Europe and it’s not too much to ask food and beverage manufacturers to switch to the safer alternative ingredients that they already use in Europe and so many other nations around the globe.”

Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated the connection between the chemical additives named in AB 418 and alarming health outcomes, including increased risk of cancer, behavioral issues in children, harm to the reproductive system, and damage to the immune system. As a result, the EU and many other nations already have prohibited their use in food, and many major brands and manufacturers—including Coke, Pepsi, Gatorade, Dunkin

California State Assembly Passes Landmark Legislation to Ban Use of Dangerous Chemicals in Food and Beverages... continued

Donuts, Papa John’s Pizza, and Panera—have voluntarily stopped using these additives in their products. Unfortunately, chemical companies in the U.S. have been able to exploit a major loophole in federal regulations to avoid meaningful independent review by the FDA of numerous food additives, thereby placing the U.S. far behind many other nations when it comes to food safety. If signed into law, AB 418 would require companies to make modifications to the recipes for products sold in California and likely prompt a nationwide transition to safer alternatives.

“For decades, the FDA has failed to keep us safe from toxic food chemicals,” said Scott Faber, EWG Senior Vice President for Government Affairs. “The chemical companies keep exploiting a loophole that allows for food additives that have not been adequately reviewed for safety by the FDA. And the FDA consistently fails to reassess chemicals, even in light of new science. The food and confectioners industries know the review process at the FDA is broken.”

AB 418 now moves to the State Senate, where it is expected to be heard in committees in the coming weeks.

Wilson applauded the “accountability measures” in the budget that “leverage the entire $80 billion in Local Control Funding Formula to focus on low-performing student groups and schools, and require districts to publicly identify and address where Black student performance is low, while providing additional services at high-need schools using the complementary $300 million Equity Multiplier are what the Black Caucus has been fighting for – for years.

During the press conference, Newsom also addressed repreparations payments, a potential budget issue that could come to the forefront soon. The California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans will submit its final report to the legislature on June 29 in Sacramento.

Among other proposals, the nine-member panel recommends a formal apology from the state of California that lessens the gravity of circumstances that historically caused hardships for the Black community.

In addition, the panel suggests that descendants of slavery living in California should be entitled to receive up to $1.2 million in compensation.

Last week, reports surfaced that Newsom said he would not “endorse” direct cash payments

After July 1, the panel’s two-year charge will end, and state lawmakers will have the opportunity to consider the proposals for legislation. The final report is expected to be about 1,000 pages.

The final meeting for the Task Force is June 29 in Sacramento.

Responding to the Governor’s budget proposal, California Republicans criticized Newsom’s and California Democrats’ “reckless policies.”

“Today’s massive $32 billion budget deficit should be a wakeup call to all Democrats that after years of increased spending, they should have better results to point to than an outrageous cost of living, surging crime, rampant homelessness, a fentanyl crisis, failing schools and inadequate water storage,” said California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson. “Now is the time for smarter policies and responsible spending that California Republicans have long advocated for.”

Despite the looming deficit, Sen. Steve Bradford (D-Inglewood), CLBC vicechair, remains confident.

“As a person who was here in the Legislature during the state’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, I know we have the skills, the know-how, and the resolve to address this budgetary shortfall and keep California moving forward,” he said.