Michael Barba Associate Director of Public Policy The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops supports HB 3347. Analysis and Recommendation. Under HB 3347, the board of trustees of a school district can establish before-school and after-school programs for students in Elementary or Middle school. The programs would be maintained through public-private partnerships, and HB 3347 effectively makes…
Read MoreMichael Barba Associate Director of Public Policy I am testifying in opposition to SB 1530 on behalf of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops. SB 1530 seeks to prohibit local cities from establishing payday and auto-title lending regulations. On its surface, this bill violates the Catholic principal of subsidiarity, which notes that governmental decisions are…
Read MoreEditor’s Note: The Texas Legislature’s International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee invited Ricardo Simmonds, Environmental Policy Advisor for the Office of Domestic Social Development, within the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, to address the committee on the Catholic Church’s stance on the environment, from the perspective…
Read MoreMichael Barba The Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops support SB 2144. This is the best first step toward addressing our school finance system, and runs parallel to our work: following the 2017 session, the bishops have charged the TCCB with providing recommendations upon how to improve the finance system. Our work will shed light on…
Read MoreMichael Barba The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops support HB 64 and 1537. We thank Reps. Dutton and Farrar for filing this legislation. Analysis of Capital Punishment. There are four goals or ends of punishment which the bishops use to analyze whether a punishment is legitimate and should be applied: 1. the punishment results in the…
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