Something I learned while we were winning the Texas Speech Fight: an investigator for the Texas “Ethics” Commission stalked my family, in person and online. They trolled neighborhoods, in hopes of snapping pictures of my wife and kids.
Intimidation, threats and harassment are the hallmarks of those who wish to limit the exercise of Texans’ First Amendment rights.
Something else I learned: efforts to limit political speech and undermine constitutional rights are running rampant around the nation. In state after state, establishment politicians are doing everything they can to silence critics.
So while we won the fight, the war wages on. And we’re not immune from it in the Lone Star State.
It’s not just Democrats like Lois Lerner and Barack Obama who want to use the power of government to bully conservatives, it’s Texas “Republicans” like Charlie Geren, Byron Cook, Dan Huberty and Kel Seliger.
What’s happened in Wisconsin should offer a cautionary tale of where some establishment politicians and their lackeys in Austin want Texas to go. The so-called “John Doe” case has been written about extensively by the Wall Street Journal and is the subject of a major case pending before the US Supreme Court.
It involved pre-dawn raids on homes, gag orders prohibiting targets from speaking even with their own lawyers, and a courageous whistleblower literally risking his life. All over the question of citizens being engaged in their government. All over free speech.
Angered by “outsider” conservatives exposing the dark underbelly of Wisconsin politics, the prosecutors began a “John Doe” investigation – which is one in which they don’t know what crime has been committed or who the perpetrator might be. In this case, they knew they wanted to silence conservatives for shining a light on the state’s union thugs.
I highly recommend the new exposé in National Review.
Simply replace the names of Wisconsin political figures with Texans, and you will see just how easily it could happen here. And, as I have seen first-hand, just how anxious some in Austin are to do so.
As for us, we will never back down.
UPDATE: On July 16, 2015 the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the “crimes” that were being investigated were in fact not crimes at all but instead constitutionally protected exhibitions of free speech. National Review has a great follow up article on the outcome of the case.
