Texas Lt. Guv Calls For Schools To Ignore Obama Trans Student Policy

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick speaks at a press conference for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz Monday, Oct. 26, 2015, in Houston. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called Tuesday for all public schools in the state to ignore new guidelines from the Obama administration on how to accommodate transgender students.

Patrick said that he plans on sending letters to all superintendents in the state urging them to disregard the letter from the Education and Justice departments.

It’s not clear what power, if any, Patrick thinks he has over local school policies as lieutenant governor.

“Transgender students deserve the rights of anyone else. It does not mean they get to use the girls’ room if they’re a boy,” he said during a press conference, according to the NBC News affiliate in Dallas.

Texas Republicans have been among the most outspoken critics of the new guidance form the Education and Justice departments. Last week, Texas led several states in filing a lawsuit against the administration over guidelines on how schools should best accommodate transgender students.

On Tuesday, Patrick also lambasted a Texas school district over its new policy allowing transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.

Earlier in May, Patrick called for the superintendent of the Fort Worth school district, Kent Scribner, to resign over the new policy, and on Tuesday Patrick called Scribner a “rogue, runaway superintendent,” according to the Dallas Morning News.

Patrick tied the Fort Worth policy to the Obama administration’s guidelines on accommodating transgender students.

“You have to ask the question, ‘Why did this policy come out of nowhere when there seemed to be nothing to create it?’ I said at the time because it was directly linked to the Obama policies in Washington. Some in the media scoffed,” he said on Tuesday, according to Fox4 News. “36 hours later, I was proven right.”

Patrick called for Scribner’s resignation and said that the superintendent may have broken the law by putting the policy in place without public comment or the local school board’s approval. The lieutenant governor asked the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, to issue a legal opinion on the Forth Worth policy, according to the American-Statesman.

The Forth Worth school district is set to hold a series of public meetings on the new policy beginning on Tuesday.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. And that whole thing about treason and sedition, let’s ignore those laws also. And fraud, that one can go, too.

  2. The more that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick raises his public profile, the more I imagine Dan Patrick the sportscaster must be looking into a name change.

  3. Patrick was also heard to muse “Hey, whatever happened to all the shoeshine boys?!”

  4. The Lt. Governor also advised the school districts that he would immediately call for the state legislature to pass a $10 billion tax increase to replace the Title IX funds they would lose by following his demand for sexual discrimination. Bigotry is not free but as true patriots we must be willing to pay the cost of freedumb.

  5. He’s an idiot and a demagogue, but he has a right to be. The federal guidance was just that–an opinion on the law, not a binding interpretation. That’s what I believe to be the flaw at the heart of the suit that states have brought over the guidance: until some state or local government actually loses, or at least is threatened directly with losing federal funds, there is no case or controversy for the state to sue about. By the same token, school districts and states are free to ignore the guidance and risk loss of federal funds should the federal government choose to take that route.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

27 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for bdtex Avatar for victorabrahamsen Avatar for austin_dave Avatar for sysprog Avatar for old_curmudgeon Avatar for humpback Avatar for chammy Avatar for commiedearest Avatar for steviedee111 Avatar for scottsa Avatar for irasdad Avatar for sniffit Avatar for jimellis Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for magical_panda Avatar for maxaroo Avatar for dnl Avatar for wagonmound Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for beattycat Avatar for antisachetdethe Avatar for mlbx2 Avatar for coimmigrant

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: