Ep. 452 "My Anguish is My Hope"
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
The legislature has left the building, but the Texas Impact team has been hard at work. Last week, we welcomed Texas Impact’s Leadership Council to Austin for its annual in-person meeting. We left there, and several of us went to Dallas for a convening of organizations standing up against Christian Nationalism dubbed Religious Freedom in Public Schools Summit convened by Interfaith Alliance. Joining us to talk about both events are two of two of Texas Impact’s newest policy fellows, Alexandra Lang and Dylan Le.
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Ep. 451 Flooded with Missed Opportunities
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
This week we are talking with friend of Texas Impact, Cyrus Reed, Legislative and Conservation Director with the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. There has been a lot of talk about flooding following the July 4 floods, but spoiler–folks were actually talking about this during the regular session, and a lot of the conversations came through the budget bills. We'll walk down memory lane, all the way back to budget night and see where legislation on water and flooding landed by the end of the last (for now) special session. Read Cyrus' breakdown of the $338 billion budget at...
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Ep. 450 Sine Dud
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
This week, just hours after the Texas Legislature adjourned sine die, we sat down with Texas Impact’s Executive Director, Bee Moorhead, to get an initial response and lay of the land as we (hopefully) move into the legislative interim. Texans of faith did some incredible work throughout this year, but as a state, we can do better. We look forward to conversations about how Texans of faith can visit with legislators and begin the civic engagement work necessary during the interim. If you have ideas for ways Texas Impact can resource your advocacy efforts, please reach out at For now,...
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Ep. 449 Some Explaining to Do
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
As we prepare to head into the Labor Day weekend, many of us thought the second special session would be over, but the work will continue after the long weekend. The Legislature has already passed racially discriminatory redistricting but is still working to finalize bills related to bathrooms, medication abortions and more, while ignoring real problems our communities face like upcoming cuts to health care, disasters, gun violence, and more. Joining the program this week to talk about all of that and more is Texas Impact's Executive Director Bee Moorhead. As always, look for ways you...
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Ep. 448 Not So "Special" Session
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
Texas Impact, our members and many others have been filling the Capitol this week. Texans of faith have hosted daily pop-up worship experiences highlighting our shared faith values and have fully engaged in the process because of the unprecedented assault on faith and faith values during the Texas Legislature’s second called special session. We were lucky enough to speak with some representatives both during and after the Texas House debated the mid-decade congressional redistricting bill. Representatives Rhetta Bowers, Salman Bhojani and Jon Rosenthal join Scott to discuss how crucial...
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Ep. 447 Don't Upend It
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
The second called session of the 89th Texas Legislature is on and reproductive rights are back on the call. Once again bills have been filed to ban medications that induce abortions—but what is flying under the radar in the Senate version of the bill is a provision that would limit the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act or Texas RFRA. The Texas RFRA has historically been a respected, bipartisan law that protects religious institutions and, if passed, this carve out would be an unprecedented breach in the protections those institutions rely on. Here to discuss these...
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Ep. 446 Advocacy vs Resistance
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
The Texas Legislature is midway through the third week of Special Session No.1 and activity has slowed to a halt in the House as Texas House Democrats have left the state to oppose the congressional redistricting plan. Texas Impact's Bee Moorhead joins the program to give us the latest and talk about how Texans of faith can help encourage conversations about community rather than what we are currently seeing. Join Texas Impact's Rapid Response Team on the of our website to recieve a link to attend Marching Order Mondays with Scott and Bee. Join the conversation each week during the...
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Ep. 445 An Ounce of Prevention...
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
The Texas Legislature is nearing the end of the second week of the special session, but in this episode, we want to focus on the Thursday July 31 hearing in Kerrville, TX that focused on the July 4 flooding in Central Texas. Our listeners will remember seeing the news from that day, and our prayers certainly go out to all who were impacted. We hope our prayers are also for leaders to do the work necessary to minimize loss in future disasters and to examine what went wrong and how we need to respond to keep this from happening again. Joining us for the conversation are two Texas...
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Ep. 444 "Communities of Interest"
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
The Texas Legislature is back in Austin for a special session to consider a number of issues the governor has identified, chief among them congressional redistricting. Texas Impact does not take a position on the partisan makeup of those districts, but does believe that it is important that communities are a part of the process. Joining us this week for a thoughtful discussion of redistricting is friend of the program Beaman Floyd, Texas Impact's outside legislative counsel. Get invloved by joining Texas Impact's Rapid Response team to recieve action alerts at
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Ep. 443 Session Wrap-up: Healthcare
Texas Impact's Weekly Witness
In our last episode of our legislative wrap-up series before the special session we welcome Diana Forester, Director of Health Policy with Texans Care for Children to talk about where the Texas Legislature landed on all things health. We recorded in mid-June, and so we touched briefly on action at the federal level and how it would impact Texas, but trust that we will have more content that dives into more detail in the coming weeks. The goal of this series is to be a resource for Texans of faith to understand what happened in the legislative session and use it as a tool as we move into...
info_outlineAs we prepare to head into the Labor Day weekend, many of us thought the second special session would be over, but the work will continue after the long weekend. The Legislature has already passed racially discriminatory redistricting but is still working to finalize bills related to bathrooms, medication abortions and more, while ignoring real problems our communities face like upcoming cuts to health care, disasters, gun violence, and more.
Joining the program this week to talk about all of that and more is Texas Impact's Executive Director Bee Moorhead.
As always, look for ways you can get involved during the (hopefully) upcoming interim at texasimpact.org