Controversial immigration law causes legal whiplash
Back-and-forth rulings from the nation's highest courts over Texas' new immigration created legal whiplash. Amid the fight for his political career, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan appears with Gov. Greg Abbott publicly — and addresses the fact that Abbott hasn't endorsed his reelection bid. President Joe Biden raises millions of dollars in Dallas. Jack spoke with one of his key supporters in the city about why his reelection campaign is fundraising and advertising earlier than normal.
Jack Fink covers these stories and more in the latest edition of Eye on Politics (original air date: March 24).
Legal Whiplash
The past week Texans witnessed legal whiplash at our nation's highest courts involving SB 4, the new Texas law that allows state and local law enforcement officers to arrest, prosecute and deport migrants for crossing into Texas illegally.
Here's the timeline just this week alone:
- At the beginning of the week, the state's law was not in effect.
- At around 1 p.m. Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the legislation to take effect and sent the case back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to fully consider it.
- Just eight hours later, at 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, three judges at the Fifth Circuit blocked the law — meaning it was no longer in effect.
To understand why there was so much back and forth, you have to go back in time:
- On Feb. 29, federal district Judge David Ezra ruled SB 4 was unconstitutional and he blocked it from taking effect.
- The next day, after the state appealed, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals filed what's called an administrative stay and reversed Ezra's ruling without explaining why, allowing the Texas law to go into effect while it further considered whether its constitutional.
"If the Fifth Circuit had simply said, let's just keep it where it is, nothing's going to change what Judge Ezra said until we can get a full briefing we consider ourselves, it would have been a much smoother run of things in these last couple of weeks," said David Coale, an appellate attorney in Dallas who's not related to the case.
The Fifth Circuit is set to hold a hearing April 3. But the case could go back to the Supreme Court before then depending on what happens.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who has championed the law, was campaigning in Rockwall when the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect Tuesday afternoon.
"Texas can begin enforcing the immigration law," he announced after a staffer handed him the note with the news.
Jack interviewed Abbott exclusively at the time.
Watch below:
Critics of the law say state and local law enforcement aren't equipped to handle immigration enforcement.
"These police officers that are supposed to implement SB 4, they don't have a minute in training on how immigration laws work," said Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights. "For us, this is illegal and unconstitutional, and the basis of this law is essentially a racist discriminatory version of Texas."
A bruising political battle
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan is fighting to save his political career at the Texas Capitol. He's in the May 28 runoff against challenger David Covey, who's backed by Attorney General Ken Paxton, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and former President Donald Trump.
If he wins the runoff, he will face a challenge to remain in his role at the Capitol.
Four-term Republican Representative Dr. Tom Oliverson of Cypress has announced he will run for Speaker in December.
"It became clear to me that the status quo is too dysfunctional to continue and change from top to bottom is needed," Oliverson told KEYE, the CBS affiliate in Austin.
Earlier last week, Speaker Phelan was in Dallas and spoke with reporters after an official event. He said he's "extremely confident" he'll make it through the runoff and be reelected Speaker.
"I've delivered on conservative policies," said Phelan. "No one can deny that."
For the first time in months, Phelan appeared side by side with Gov. Abbott at a news conference at UT Dallas about a public-private partnership for manufacturing semiconductor chips.
Abbott has stayed on the sidelines in the Speaker's primary and hasn't endorsed him or Covey. Phelan said he's not disappointed by that.
"There's the big three and typically we stay out of each other's races," Phelan said. "That's been the tradition here in the state of Texas. Of course, the lieutenant governor decided not to follow that tradition."
For months now, Attorney General Ken Paxton has campaigned against and criticized Phelan for allowing the investigation and impeachment against him to take place in the House.
Phelan said he has no regrets:
"I go to bed every night proud of the courage of my convictions and I think Mr. Paxton at the end of the day is going to have convictions."
Paxton will be back in a courtroom in Houston on Tuesday. There will be a hearing on the felony state fraud charges he has faced for nine years.
Biden raises millions in Texas
President Joe Biden raised millions of dollars for his re-election campaign in Texas last week, including Dallas.
CBS News quotes a source familiar as saying the Biden-Harris campaign raised close to $7 million during two fundraisers in Dallas Wednesday evening and one fundraiser in Houston Thursday.
President Biden did not hold any public appearances while in the Lone Star State.
Jack spoke with Regina Montoya of Dallas, a co-chair of the Women's Leadership Forum at the Democratic National Committee. She explained why Biden's campaign started fundraising and advertising earlier than normal.
Watch that interview below:
The Biden-Harris campaign and Democrats nationally and in Texas are making abortion rights a campaign issue in conservative states where the procedure has been banned since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June, 2022.
Jack spoke with Republican State Senator Bryan Hughes of Tyler, who wrote the state's abortion laws, to get his take.
Watch that interview below:
Every week, CBS News Texas political reporter Jack Fink breaks down some of the biggest political stories grabbing headlines in North Texas and beyond. Watch the latest episode of Eye on Politics in the video player above and watch new episodes every Sunday at 7:30 a.m. on air and online.