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Ep. 425 "Do Something to Show You Care:" Perspectives from the Gun Sense Majority

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

Release Date: 02/28/2025

Ep. 441 Session Wrap-up: Immigration show art Ep. 441 Session Wrap-up: Immigration

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

Weekly Witness is back after a quick two week break.  This week we continue our legislative wrap-up series as we welcome Kristin Etter, Director of Policy and Legal Services with the Texas Immigration Law Council. We'll discuss some of the key immigration bills that passed out of the Texas Legislature and touch on what is happening at the federal level. We hope this series will be a resource for Texans of faith to understand what happened in the legislative session and use it as a tool to look back on as we move into election season next year.   Find more resources and...

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Ep. 440 Better Together show art Ep. 440 Better Together

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

The Texas Impact staff gathered this week in Austin for a planning retreat and we will have some exciting opportunities for you soon. It also created a perfect opportunity to gather four members of Texas Impact’s Lobby team for this week's conversation. They spent the legislative session lobbying on behalf of Texas Impact priorities throughout the session, staffing our issue champion teams, and helping resource advocates throughout the state.  Joining us for the program this week are Bobby Watson, Rev. Dr. Becca Edwards, Rev. Kyle Riley and Grace Bonilla.  If you are excited to...

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Ep. 439 Session is Finally Over—Now What?! show art Ep. 439 Session is Finally Over—Now What?!

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

If you hear shouts of joy and celebratory sounds coming from Austin, that is because the Texas Legislature has adjourned Sine Die and legislators are returning to their communities. Joining us for the conversation this week is Beaman Floyd Texas Impact’s Outside Legislative Counsel Beaman Floyd to begin to help us process what happened during the 140 day legislative session and what comes next. Find ways you can get involved during the interim at

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Ep. 438 The Final Countdown show art Ep. 438 The Final Countdown

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

Texas Impact's Executive Director Bee Moorhead joined the program again this week with only days remaining before the Texas Legislature adjourns Sine Die. Scott and Bee talk about the last week and offer some reflections on the legislative session in the waning hours as we start to look forward to the interim and what comes next.   Find out how you can get involved at   

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Ep. 437 Passing Period: Moving Bills Before the Bell Rings show art Ep. 437 Passing Period: Moving Bills Before the Bell Rings

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

With 11 days remaining before the Texas Legislature adjourns Sine Die and the congressional passage of one of the worst bills in modern history, Texas Impact's Executive Director Bee Moorhead joins the program to talk about it all, with conversation about health care, reproductive health, religion in schools and public school funding.  Plus, we talk about steps listeners can take as we move toward the legislative interim. Find more ways to get involved at and subcribe to our for the latest news and updates

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Ep. 436 Back to Basics: The Basic Allotment is the Funding Texas Schools Need show art Ep. 436 Back to Basics: The Basic Allotment is the Funding Texas Schools Need

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

  The Texas Legislature is hitting key legislative deadlines with sixteen days remaining before they adjourn Sine Die. The action in the Capitol is hot on many issues important to Texans of faith, but maybe none more so than the debate over public school finance. Here to talk with us about all of it this week is Texas Impact's Executive Director, Bee Moorhead. 

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Ep. 435 Pluralism, Decency and Love for All show art Ep. 435 Pluralism, Decency and Love for All

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

This week, Weekly Witness highlights the voices of Texas faith leaders who spoke during the Texas Impact Leadership Council's press conference on the south steps of the Texas Capitol on May 8th as we call out religious extremism.   Joining us today are: Rev. Phil Dieke, Horizon Texas United Methodist Conference, Dallas Rev. Matt Gaventa, University Presbyterian Church, Austin Elyse Rosenberg & Bettie Forman, National Council of Jewish Women, Austin Darlene Alfred, United Women in Faith, Salado Joanna Redfield Vaughn, South Central Yearly Quaker Meeting, Austin Rev. Laura Walters,...

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Ep. 434 Stay With It show art Ep. 434 Stay With It

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

As the Texas Legislative Session enters its final month things are hot-both in terms of public policy and feelings, and Texans of faith are working to be effective advocates through it all. Joining us for this week’s program is the man who has seen it all in the Texas Capitol, Texas Impact’s outside legislative counsel, Beaman Floyd. He is going to give us the lay of the land and talk us through how advocates can navigate the final few weeks of the session.  It's not too late to join an Issue Team in the  on the Texas Impact website. 

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Ep. 433 Don't Hide Your Faith show art Ep. 433 Don't Hide Your Faith

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

The Texas Legislature is now entering the final third when bills make it to the floor for a vote or begin to die. Last week, Bee Moorhead joined the program to talk about the House passing the Voucher bill, and it seemed like immediately after, we began to see a TON of bad bills start to move... and a few good ones.    One of the issue areas that was particularly in focus this week has been the return of anti-trans legislation, so we are going to welcome to the program for the first time, Texas Impact’s Policy Consultant, Rev. Keats Miles Wallace, an ELCA pastor and staff member...

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Ep. 432 The Beloved Community—in Case We Forgot... show art Ep. 432 The Beloved Community—in Case We Forgot...

Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

We jumped right in this week because most of the Texas Impact staff stayed up late Wednesday night to watch SB 2, the Texas Senate's school voucher bill, be brought before the House. There were some great and no-so-great conversations between legislators about the impact of a bill that appropriates a billion dollars that could go to public schools to privately run entities, and many amendments that aimed to fix issues with the bill be ultimately tabled with little to no debate.    We are tired, we are cranky, but we are glad to have Bee Moorhead, Texas Impact's...

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This week, we are joined by several of the speakers and participants in the Preventing Gun Violence Advocacy Day. First we talk with Jasir Rahman, a student at Rice University and Texas Youth Advocacy Coordinator with Team ENOUGH. Later in the episode we hear from Nicole Golden, Director of Texas Gun Sense, and Rev. Stephen Sanders from Oak Hill United Methodist Church shortly after the rally for gun violence prevention was held on the Texas Capitol steps on February 27th.
 
Gun violence is always such a hard topic. Because so many of the folks who show up have traumatic stories to explain what brought them to this work. We heard stories from Uvalde families. We heard from people who had family members take their lives or who had friends involved in accidental deaths. And, while we marched to the Capitol with about 1,000 other advocates from across the state to rally on the South steps, we passed by over 1,000 t-shirts with the names of Texans who needlessly lost their lives to gun violence as part of a giant Vidas Robadas display.
 

I want to give props to Texas Impact’s Gun Violence Prevention team for their work on this event and to the Texas Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence for their work. If you want to learn more about Texas Impact’s involvement or how you can get involved check out Action Center at texasimpact.org

 

Find out more about the work of Team Enough and Texas Gun Sense:

https://www.bradyunited.org/take-action/join-movement/team-enough

https://txgunsense.org/