FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Toth Misdirection and Revisionist History
Called Out by Patrick and Rinaldi
HOUSTON TX – Rep. Steve Toth’s irrational accusations against the Texas Senate and Lt. Governor Patrick for the failure to pass protections against child gender mutilation are blatantly false.
To support his own twisted narrative, Rep. Toth blatantly ignores the fact the Senate passed SB 1646 by Sen. Charles Perry, which the House then received on April 29, 2021. This gave the House ample time to pass the bill. However, it never received a hearing. As shown in the timeline below, the House waited until the next week to read SB 1646 for the first time and refer it to committee, where it died.
HB 4014, authored by Rep. Cole Hefner and identical to SB 1646, never received a hearing in the House either. Despite the House leadership’s failure to pass a bill banning child gender mutilation, the Senate tried again and passed SB 1311 by Sen. Bob Hall. The Senate knew it was a Hail Mary effort but kept trying. Again, the House never gave the bill a hearing.
Rep. Toth claims he had support in the House, yet his own bill, HB 2693, was never given a hearing in the House. HB 1399, another bill Rep. Toth helped author, also died in the House.
The Senate passed multiple measures to protect Texas children, but every one of these bills ultimately died in the House. Even Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi refuted Rep. Toth’s foolish lies and stated, “Patrick passed the stronger child protection bill early in the session. When the House made it clear it would only pass the weaker bill, he sent that one over too. Dan Patrick did everything we asked for in this priority. It died in the House.”
Rep. Toth has a reputation for blaming others to cover up his own shortcomings on getting his bills passed. He pulled the same stunt last session by blaming the Senate and others for his failure to pass his Critical Race Theory bill. In the end, it was the Senate that saved and finally passed that legislation.
Rep. Toth’s baseless allegations and misplaced blame have cost him any shred of credibility.
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