Tony McDonald - Attorney Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, well, part of that comeback is stopping the Biden
era attack on free speech. WEAPONI weaponization against the people.
But it's wild some people want to go back to that.
Dave Falin is the state representative. House Bills three sixty
six would make it a crime to distribute memes. It's
simply nonsensible. Fort Worth attorney Tony McDonald joins us. Now

(00:21):
he's a First Amendment litigation specialist with some thoughts on this.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Tony, good morning, Hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah,
it's good to have you. Tell us about this bill.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I mean, it's got no chance in hell I would
imagine of getting anywhere near Abbot's desk.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
But tell us about it.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Well, it's really you know, it tells a story about
the Texas House of Representatives, where you have a coalition
of a minority of these kind of Rhino Republicans who
joined with the Democrats to put a new speaker in
Date Feelin, you know, had to step down as speaker
because he led such a disastrous house this last time

(00:56):
trying to impeach Ken Paxton had a nasty primary and
it's really interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
He won that primary by three hundred.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
And sixty six votes. And so they set aside these
people think they're really cute. He set aside three, you know,
House Bill three sixty six, which is totally against the
rules to set this thing aside. But they've made it
the top priority of the Texas House to criminalize political memes.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
And this is the bill that they filed.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
It's the very first bill that they're hearing in the
very first hearing where they're hearing bills now all the
way into March. They've they've jacked around for two months,
but they're the very first bill that the Texas House
is hearing in the State Affairs Committee, which is the
most powerful committee in the House, is a bill to
criminalize political memes.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
It's really just amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Now, it is amazing, and it's silly and stupid sounding,
I think. But let me read some of the language
here real quick and then ask maybe a kind of
a devil's advocacy type of question.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Here.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
The language says, it would criminalize political advertising that features
quote image, audio recording or video you're recording of an
officeholders or candidates appearance, speech, or conducted that that did
not occur in reality.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
If I want to look at this from the other side,
can we can we think about AI. A lot of
people are worried that AI stuff is being made and created,
and some people can't tell the difference. There may be
not politically savvy, not tech savvy, and they look and
see and hear something and they think, well it must
be true. I saw it. So is there is there
any room for saying, hey, we got to cut out
AI type stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Well, there is no room for this kind of thing,
because what you know, our First Amendment law says whenever
you make a law that's content based, it has to
be narrowly tailored.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
And here we have these jokers, you.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Know, joking around with bill numbers based on his you know,
margin of victory to come back to the House. These
are unserious people doing this in an incredibly unseerious way.
And so what they've done is they've proposed a bill
that would criminalize political means. I mean we literally had
you know, a mailer where it was Dave feel and

(03:00):
embracing Nancy Pelosi.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, I would say that's the truth because it's what
he did. Now, was it a real picture?

Speaker 3 (03:07):
No, it's a fake picture. And anybody who knows knows
that it's kind of a joke, right, but there's truth
in that joke, and the government doesn't get to decide
whether that truth in that satire is you know, not
allowed or allowed. We get to decide as citizens what
we get to say.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Well, that's the key part of this.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
You just nailed it, I think, and that is that
this it would require the approval of the government. The
government would have to provide the disclaimer saying yeah, this
meets you know, satisfactory standard, so this one can be
seen or that one can't be seen. That's the very
definition of the violation of the First Amendment. The government
gets to tell you what you can and cannot show
or say.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
One hundred percent. I mean, these are refrains that repeat
if you go back through history. These are things that
the king did five hundred years ago, you know, with
censorship and licensing for printers, and it just repeats. It's
all about people and government who have this arrogance, who
think that they can control what people get to read
and what people get to see because they get their

(04:07):
feelings hurt. And it's a tale as old as time
and we just see it here with an arrogant state representative,
former speaker who's now part of the new regime and
the Texas House of Representatives. These people are very arrogant,
they're resentful of criticism, and they want to criminalize it.
It's the same as it's ever, but it's why we
have a First Amendment.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Boy, it'd be a dad gum shame if every Texas
who is listening to us right now got on their
social media and posted memes of Date Phalen, that would
be That'd be a horrible thing. I would hate to
see that happen. Well, don't do that now, that would
be a bad thing. Tony McDonald, First Amendment Attorney.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
I really appreciate you coming on this morning.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Good stuff. Thank you.