HOUSTON — It was raw.
It was profane.
It was something the public doesn’t often see on the floor of the Texas House: one lawmaker loudly admonishing another lawmaker after he tried to cut off debate on a controversial bill.
And it was all caught on camera.
“I had no idea that a camera was on the encounter,” Rep. Armando Walle told us on Inside Texas Politics. “It was an encounter that I don’t regret, because that’s how I felt, and that’s how I feel.”
Lawmakers in the lower chamber were debating HB 4 into the early morning hours, when state Rep. Cody Harris (R-Palestine) tried to cut off debate by blocking any more amendments to the controversial bill.
HB 4 would give state and local law enforcement the power to arrest and deport undocumented migrants and create a new state crime for those who cross the border into Texas illegally.
But the attempt to shut off debate led Walle (D-Houston) to confront the Republican trying to do it.
Walle tells us he’s representing many others who feel the same way as him.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people in this state, that love this state, that are proud Americans, but sometimes feel that those that are in power try everything in their power to marginalize communities that look like us, look like me,” he said, still fired up less than 24 hours after the encounter.
Some local officials have already threatened to sue if HB 4, which passed the House and is awaiting action in the State Senate, becomes law.
Dallas County commissioners, for instance, call it an unfunded mandate that would make jail overcrowding even worse, leaving them to shoulder the extraordinary financial burden.
Walle says the legislation could also easily lead to mistakes, with Americans being deported and families unnecessarily torn apart.
He, too, believes the issue would end up in court.
“I anticipate some legal action being taken. One, particularly on preempting federal immigration law, particularly on the unlawful entry, I think it’s a state jail felony,” the Democrat said.