The THSC Watchmen hoped to see several important bills they were advocating for pass during the legislative session, but they spent most of their time in Austin analyzing the impacts of the hundreds of other bills filed in the Texas Capitol.

A week after the November 2020 general election, state legislators started pre-filing bills for the 2021 legislative session. By the time the Watchmen arrived in Austin in January, upwards of 300 relevant bills awaited them, with more to come.

Each Watchman was responsible for analyzing bills in different subject areas, looking for anything that could negatively affect the right of families to raise their children.

Ansley analyzed all CPS bills, Quincy examined the family law bills outside of CPS, and Jayla analyzed education bills and all other relevant legislation.

Depending on the length and relevance of a bill, the Watchmen might spend anywhere from ten minutes to three hours analyzing the bill. The Watchmen aimed to review 20 to 25 bills a day, but might analyze fewer bills on certain days if the bills required more complicated legal analysis.

What were they looking for? Often, legislation can appear not to contain anything that harms families at first glance. However, the team knows bills that seem innocent can have severe unintended consequences.

The Watchmen pay attention to the wording of legislation and look at bills from multiple angles. They often ask themselves, “Can this bill be used to do bad things?” Even changes to deadlines or definitions could negatively impact freedom for families.

At the end of each week, the Watchmen reviewed their bills with more experienced analysts on the THSC team. By the time THSC takes a final position on a bill, at least two analysts have reviewed the bill and THSC’s Policy Director has signed off.

The Watchmen have nearly finished analyzing the accumulated pre-filed bills, but more bills are filed daily. 6 weeks into the legislative session, the Watchmen had already reviewed over 500 bills and fully analyzed over 350 of those bills. By the end of the session, they reviewed and analyzed over 2,000 bills.