Michele Maples - Political Analyst & Conservative Attorney Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Six, twenty two, our time here in Houston's Warning News.
Would the third time be a charm for Governor Greg
Abbott in bail reform? Michelle Maples joins us political lionelist
and conservative attorney. What he wants is a constitutional amendment. Michelle,
let's talk about that for a second. How hard is
it to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
It's difficult.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
So a constitutional amendment takes a super majority in both chambers,
So that means you need two thirds in the House
to vote for this, and you need two thirds in
the Senate to vote for this for this thing to
get passed through. It is different than a regular piece
of legislation that only requires a majority. But because it
is this constitutional amendment, it's a little more difficult to

(00:42):
get done.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
And why would it have to be done with the
constitutional amendment versus just a state law.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
That's a good question.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
I think that the Republicans here are making a statement
that we want to make this a difficult thing to
take off the books, right. We don't want to make
it easy to repeal this sort of legislation, and so
if we make it a constitutional amendment, it just makes
it more difficult and it just ingrains it a little
bit more in stone that this is our value, this

(01:09):
is what we believe, and this is what we expect
out of our judges.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
I think one of the things that always surprises me,
and I guess it shouldn't anymore, is how many activist
judges we currently have serving not just around the country,
but in the state of Texas as well.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Harris County alone.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
I mean, look at our own backyard, at these judges
who let repeat offenders out again and again and again.
And we're not talking about misdemeanors here. We're talking about
violent felonies. We're talking about rapists, we're talking about murderers.
We're talking about people that go home and beat the
living daylights out of their families. This isn't pop possession.

(01:46):
And so it is shocking to people like you and
I to think that judges are like, well, all right,
five thousand dollars bail or no bail. You promise me
you won't do it again. Defendant, promise me you won't
do it. And then the defendant says, oh, by pinky,
promise judge, I won't do it again, and they let
them out. Yeah, it's really, really shocking and frustrating.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I wonder too, you know, I realized that you can't
really sue government. Unfortunately, I guess we'd be in court
all the time if we could sue government would make
But it would be nice to know that there is
some sort of recourse here other than obviously an election,
where you can hold a judge who repeatedly does this.

(02:28):
It leads to deaths of other individuals somehow criminally responsible
for what it is they're doing.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Well, that's right.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
So that's how we make judges face the consequences is
by not re electing them.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
However, you might be onto something there.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
We may see some legislation here in the future that
would make judges personally liable.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
And if that were the case, if we made.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Judges personally liable, that could open up a whole new
can of worms. Don't get me wrong, but if you
made judges liable on the crimes that individuals committed and
they're out on the streets because of your decision.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
It may make them think twice. But I don't think
that'll be necessary.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
If this constitutional amendment gets through, and like you said,
three times a charm, let's hope it gets through all.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Right, Michelle, thank you appreciate it. Michelle Maple's political analyst
and conservative attorney,