joining me to weigh in on the move, texas state senator brian hughes, thank you for being here, his whaties to cities with populations above 250,000, compares police funding to the previous year and if the never stone that up casts property tax rates in the city of cuts funding from the sales tax revenue. was the response from your constituents? >> this bill says to big cities if you defund the police we defund you. texans are happy about this. only one city in texas has tried this, our capital city of boston, beautiful city, the government does not reflect always the views of the people of texas and so the city of austin voted to cut its police budget by one third swinging cuts. the first thing is to do is cancel new cadet classes and recruitment and what happened? a spike in violent crime, murders are up to the highest spike in 20 years, we know this doesn't work and even in austin the governor is responding and starting those cadet classes back up so the people of texas support the police, we support law enforcement and this bill makes sure our cities do the same thing. >> let's get t

. >> one of the republican sponsors of this bill, state senator -- his name is brian hughes, he recently said this about the bill. this isn't about who won or who lost, it's really to make the process better, we want to make the elections more accessible, and more secure, make them smoother. have you been in conversations across the aisle? what are you hearing from republicans? or what are you trying to tell them? >> we were in a conversation across the aisle for eight hours over saturday night and into sunday morning. we didn't leave the chamber until 6:30 a.m. after an eight-hour conversation with our republican colleagues on the senate floor. they remained unmoved. but the evidence is clear that this bill does not add integrity. it actually adds more than ten criminal penalties and criminal enhancements. they are criminalizing people who are seeking to vote. >> why? why are they doing this? >> they are doing this, it's no surprise that republican leadership doesn't want democrats winning but republican leadership also doesn't want to let in certain kinds of republicans. the current re

i interviewed brian hughs, one of the people who co-authored the texas bill.aid, what do you say that this is you trying to block african-americans and people of color to vote and making it harder to vote, he said, it's about making the case that the election should be more secure. when i pressed him and said, in texas, house republicans and republicans overall did very well, he said, that's true. we did do very well. he couldn't give me an answer -- a clear answer on where the voting fraud was in texas in particular. that echos the stance of so many republicans. they say it's about voter integrity. when you say, show me voter fraud, where the election was rigged, show me where there's any evidence of the big lie we heard from former president trump over and over, and they can't point to anything. overall, when you zoom out, that's why you see representative veasey being urgent about the need for voting bills to be passed. it comes down to the filibuster. i remember pressing president biden about this saying, are you going to throw your support behind this, th

here is texas state senator brian hughes sponsored the bill.we must teach the truth about our history and judge others based on the content of character and not the color of their skin. a democrat from texas with a very different version of events here. this is royce west, people shouldn't be judged by the color of their skin but unfortunately that's the plight today for african-americans. latinos and minorities in this countruntry. let's not whitewash it because yes, we should be teaching our kids the history of this country so they don't make the same mistakes made by generations before us. when we put up things like this i think it's a disservice. parents are arguing don't teach my kid this, let me decide what i want to teach my kid. >> you are right. this is something and a debate taking place in states, cities, towns across the country. and the debate is very clearly laid out there where you have supporters of critical race theory saying it allows white people to empathize with minorities and then opponents of it say that it is divisive an

hughes. officer brian sicknick. sergeant jay crumpler. first sergeant timothy howell. lieutenant william gardner. conservation officer steven reagor. officer arturo dee agas. officer tyler britt . master corporal brian levin. agent luis diaz. agent luis condi. agent elisa hernandez cartagena. officer melton gore. sefrpblt fred rake cameron. detective steffen defoss. officer hector moia. chief of police morton. constable sherry k. lankford. lieutenant treva preston. officer alfred jimenez. officer jerry hemphill. sergeant edward markrala. lieutenant john ronalds. officer joseph martin. deputy sheriff adam gibson. officer brandon salker. warrants officer tobey kaiser. deputy sheriff jacinto navarro. lieutenant frank arnold. special agent wayne snyder. captain michael gergen. lieutenant juan rafael rivera padua. deputy sheriff frank gonzalez holigan. auxiliary sergeant luis levitino. director of field operations beverly good sergeant tommy good. special agent robert meyer. sergeant william highham. correctional officer juan giannis. sergeant grace bellamy. lieutenant mich