Texas Senator Nathan Johnson: Lawmakers must stop deep fake images for fair elections

Unscrupulous political agents are spreading disinformation. This bill will help stop them.

By Nathan Johnson | Dallas News

Seeing is believing. Well, not always. It’s OK — desirable, even — to be fooled by digital images when we watch movies. It’s not OK when we’re deciding how to vote in elections.

As much as we tend to think election outcomes are the foregone conclusions of partisan map drawing, there still are contests in which people struggle to make up their minds about candidates; sometimes in a primary election, sometimes in a general election.

Seeing is believing. Well, not always. It’s OK — desirable, even — to be fooled by digital images when we watch movies. It’s not OK when we’re deciding how to vote in elections.

As much as we tend to think election outcomes are the foregone conclusions of partisan map drawing, there still are contests in which people struggle to make up their minds about candidates; sometimes in a primary election, sometimes in a general election.

The technology for digitally altering images and creating fake videos gets more powerful every day. It gives election saboteurs the ability to make us think and feel things that aren’t real, and to vote accordingly. It’s a growing threat to the integrity of our elections and our democratic institutions.

After all the acrimony over election laws during the past few years, addressing the threat of manipulating voters through digital alteration of images is neither controversial nor partisan.

The threat applies without regard to state boundaries, so you’d think the federal government would have already acted to safeguard the electoral process against manipulation by digital hacks. Alas, this is yet another area where Congress hasn’t performed its duty, and responsible action falls to the states.

In 2019, Texas passed the nation’s first law prohibiting “deep fake videos,” those produced using artificial intelligence, made with the intent to deceive people and influence the outcome of an election.

The 2019 law did not, however, address a simpler manipulation tool — altered still images. This session, I filed Senate Bill 1044 to expand the reach of the 2019 “deep fake” law to include digitally altered images: photos manipulated to change in a realistic way how someone looks, or to show them doing something they didn’t actually do, with the intent to deceive people and influence the outcome of an election.

Any effort to place boundaries on verbal or visual communications inevitably runs into concerns about preserving rights of free expression. Indeed, when it comes to politics, we seem to have an attitude of anything goes regarding criticizing, characterizing and caricaturing candidates and elected officials.

But this isn’t about free speech or damage to reputation or hurt feelings. It’s about protecting voters and the electoral process from malicious manipulation. And it’s not that hard. The bill doesn’t regulate caricatures, cartoons, satire or superficial changes; it applies to only deliberate attempts to trick us.

We needn’t sacrifice free expression to protect the electoral process from deliberate sabotage. And we should not permit ourselves to be played by those who would gain power through deceit. New digital tools require new rules. Texas can and should continue its lead over other states in protecting the integrity of elections from digital sabotage. After all, this isn’t a movie.

Nathan Johnson is a Democrat representing Dallas in the Texas Senate. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Texas Republicans advance bills to expand religion in public schools

BY CHARLOTTE SCOTT AUSTIN

PUBLISHED 8:00 AM CT APR. 26, 2023

Spectrum News 1

AUSTIN, Texas — Cantor Sheri Allen has worked in synagogues for more than a decade, and she recently opened her own in Fort Worth. 

“We have only been in existence since November. We meet once a month at a church in the area and have Sabbath Shabbat services,” said Allen, who’s the co-founder of Makom Shelanu Congregation. 

Even though Allen is a chaplain, she does not support legislation that’s advancing through the Texas Senate. It would allow school districts to bring in chaplains, as either volunteers or paid employees, to do the job of a counselor.

What You Need To Know

• Legislation that’s advancing through the Texas Senate would allow school districts to bring in chaplains, as either volunteers or paid employees, to do the job of a counselor

• If a chaplain is paid, their salary would come from funding intended for school safety

• The bill’s author, Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, said this bill actually falls under the Free Exercise Clause, which is also part of the First Amendment

• This clause protects someone’s right to practice their religion as they please

“First of all, chaplains are not trained in any way to be able to counsel children in anything other than spiritual needs,” Allen said. “There’s no place for this in schools.” 

Allen believes the bill violates the Establishment Clause, which is part of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Commonly referred to as the “separation of church and state” clause, it prohibits the government from supporting a specific religion. 

Allen is concerned that Texas lawmakers are promoting Christianity. 

“It just makes me feel like there is a push to introduce Christian values, Christian liturgy, Christian thought in a public space,” Allen said. “School is hard enough for kids just trying to find their way in who they are.”

But the bill’s author, Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, said this bill actually falls under the Free Exercise Clause, which is also part of the First Amendment. This clause protects someone’s right to practice their religion as they please.

“This is not an establishment clause issue,” Sen. Middleton said. “This is just… one more tool in the toolbox for our public schools to be able to meet the needs of their students.” 

If a chaplain is paid, their salary would come from funding intended for school safety. Sen. Middleton argues that having chaplains on campus can help students’ and teachers’ mental health, thereby making schools safer.

Chaplains would not be required to be certified. They also could be hired in lieu of a school counselor, if the school district chooses to spend its money that way.

This bill is part of a bigger push by Texas Republicans to increase religion’s presence in the state’s public schools. But critics like Allen are raising concerns about violating the separation of church and state. The controversy revolves around three bills, including the one to bring chaplains into public schools. Another would mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Such a display sits on the Capitol grounds, but this is the first push for the text to appear in schools. A third bill would allow a period for prayer and reading the Bible or religious texts during the school day. Last year, a law passed that says schools must display "In God We Trust" posters in public schools if someone donates them.

When the school chaplain bill was debated on the Senate floor on Monday, Democratic Sens. Nathan Johnson of Dallas, José Menéndez of San Antonio and Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa of McAllen brought up a variety of concerns. 

“What are the odds that a given campus is going to employ a Muslim chaplain as opposed to a Christian chaplain?” Sen. Johnson asked Sen. Middleton.

Sen. Middleton said it’ll be up to school districts to decide which chaplains they hire. 

“We’re just authorizing our school districts to permissively opt in to this program,” he said.

“As a practical matter, I think it’s unlikely that we will see anything close to parity in representation in terms of which religion is represented by chaplains on a school campus,” Sen. Johnson said in response. “I just don’t think we’re going to see Muslim and Jewish rabbis on campus. Chaplains do a great deal of good in hospitals. They do a great deal of good in the correctional systems. I don’t think those systems are the same as our school system… I still have great concern that we are continuing to break down the wall of separation that framers of our Constitution insisted on having between church and state, and so I would respectfully oppose the bill.” 

A majority of Chaplains are Christian, Sen. Middleton conceded on Monday.

“As you referred to the separation of church and state, that’s not an actual doctrine. That was in a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury baptists. It’s not a real doctrine,” Sen. Middleton argued. “What this does is free exercise [of religion], and I think you’re referring to the establishment clause there.” 

“It’s a pretty real doctrine to some of us, but perhaps not to everyone,” Sen. Johnson fired back.

In an interview with Spectrum News, Sen. Middleton also made the point that lawmakers say a prayer every day in their respective chambers, and they work beneath lettering that says, “In God We Trust.” 

“In the Senate chamber, in the House chamber, it says, ‘In God We Trust’ above everything else,” Sen. Middleton said. “So our schools are not God-free zones. And what this does is to make sure that our students are able to exercise their religion freely and provide them tools that they currently don’t have. So that’s why that bill is so important. So an example right here in this building of why religious liberties are so important.”

Sen. Middleton believes this bill stands on sturdy legal ground because last year the Supreme Court backed a public school football coach who prayed on the field after games.

“[This] expands religious liberties and really gets rid of a lot of the legislating from the bench that we’ve seen our courts do over the years that have limited that Free Exercise Clause in our Constitution,” Sen. Middleton said.

But Michael S. Ariens, a law professor at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, said the legislation Texas lawmakers are pushing cannot be compared to the so-called Kennedy Case.

“The court decided that because his prayer was as a private citizen, and not as a coach — that is, he was not on the clock in the sense of having to just do things related to his coaching activities — it was a violation of the Free Exercise Clause for the school district to forbid him for saying these prayers after the end of games on the 50-yard line,” Ariens said. “I think the sponsors of these bills are reading the Kennedy Case very, very broadly. I don’t think it says what they are asking, and I think that if any of the three bills that have been proposed that have something to do with what we broadly call ‘religious liberty,’ it will be immediately challenged on Constitutional grounds.” 

As for Allen, she remains concerned about students who aren’t Christian — those who practice another religion or none at all — that could be made uncomfortable by framed posters of the Ten Commandments on classroom walls, time set aside to pray or read religious texts and even the presence of school chaplains.

“This is supposed to be a country that is open to all faiths, all religions and the ability to express them, but not in public schools. I mean, the Constitution is pretty clear about that,” Allen said.  

A disagreement about the separation of church and state in schools is likely to go from the classroom to the courtroom. 

State Sen. Nathan Johnson Announces Priority Legislation

March 6, 2023 Maria Lawson

People Newspapers

State Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, announced a set of bills for the 88th Legislative Session aimed at providing Texans with reliable energy, reforming the criminal justice system, equipping skills with necessary resources for students, utilizing early prevention to reduce healthcare costs, and a strategy to expand Medicaid in Dallas.

“Good results come from good systems,” Johnson said. “Many of the bills I’ve filed aim to make the state systems on which we rely — for power, for free and fair elections, for public education, for health and healthcare, and for public safety and law enforcement — more responsive, efficient, and effective.”

The bills are as follows.

Electrical Grid Resiliency: Power in Numbers

• Senate Bill 1212 (Distributed Energy Resources): this bill brings small-scale residential electricity generation, such as rooftop solar and local microgrids, onto the grid by creating a standardized framework for their integration into power distribution systems.

Building Public Health and Criminal Justice Systems That Protect and Improve People’s Lives

• Senate Bill 86 (Fentanyl Test Strips): reduces deadly fentanyl overdoses by decriminalizing the use, possession, delivery, and manufacturing of testing equipment that identifies the presence of fentanyl.

• Senate Bill 623 (Overdose Prevention Testing): reduces deadly overdoses by broadening legal forms of drug testing and tightening the definition of “paraphernalia.” This will allow individuals to use the latest forms of drug-testing equipment to detect fentanyl and newer deadly drugs.

Providing Public Schools with Resources, Stability, and Respect

• Senate Bill 88 (Basic Allotment Inflation Adjustment): raises the per-student basic allotment and ties it to inflation to help public schools manage finances with stability and keep prior promises to public education.

• Senate Bill 89 (Pre-Kindergarten for Teachers): offers pre-K programs to the children of public school teachers and provides teachers with automatic qualification for their children to enroll in public school pre-K.

• Senate Bill 90 (Charter School Campus Application): raises the threshold of transparency and accountability in the establishment of new open-enrollment charter school campuses and sites. It requires charter expansion applications to include a study of the financial impact on the local school district and approval by the full State Board of Education.

• Senate Bill 263 (School Enrollment Funding): changes the Texas school finance system to be based on enrollment instead of attendance.

• Senate Bill 350 (Paid Parental Leave Policy): requires school districts and open-enrollment charter schools to adopt a paid parental leave policy and reimburses schools for associated costs.

Fair, Accessible, and Secure Elections

• Senate Bill 92 (Online Voter Registration): creates an online registration system for mail-in applications and Volunteer Deputy Registrar applications to make it easier to register to vote and save the state and county election officials time and money.

• Senate Bill 94 (Earlier Voter Pre-Registration): changes the pre-registration age to 17 years to help kids pre-register in time to vote in the year they turn 18.

• Senate Bill 293 (Against Intimidation of Election Officials): establishes a criminal offense for a person who harasses an election official, intentionally interferes with or prevents and election official from performing their duty, or disseminates personal information about an election official.

Lowering Healthcare Costs Through Early Prevention, Early Detection, and Administrative Efficiencies

• Senate Bill 290 (Health Information Exchange): authorizes the Texas Health Services Authority, a statewide Health Information Exchange, to collect and analyze clinical data as permitted under HIPAA to promote statewide interoperability of electronic health records. It ensures oversight of Texans’ clinical data by a Texas HIE and protects the privacy of patients.

• Senate Bill 294 (Asthma Medicine in Schools): allows schools to stock quick-relief medications to treat children in respiratory distress, such as inhalers, by aligning requirements to those currently in place for epinephrine.

• Senate Bill 550 (Express Lane Eligibility): reduces administrative burdens and streamlines the eligibility process for CHIP and Medicaid enrollment or re-enrollment by allowing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to use previously verified income data.

• Senate Bill 244 (State-Based Exchange): established the Texas Health Insurance Exchange Authority to implement a state-based exchange to reduce net monthly premium payments, apply savings to higher enrollment, and lower out-of-pocket expenses.

• Senate Bill 619 (Early Hearing Program Reform): provides newborn and infant hearing screenings by enhancing provider understanding, improving reporting and referral rates, and reducing the state’s loss to follow-up/documentation.

Leading the Charge for Medicaid Expansion in Texas

• Senate Bill 195 (Live Well Texas Program by 1115 Waiver): expands access to state Medicaid health insurance while preserving state control over funds and generating positive net revenue for the state. It directs HHSC to seek a waiver expanding eligibility for Medicaid benefits to all individuals for whom federal matching funds are available, encourages personal healthcare responsibility, encourages personal healthcare responsibility, increases healthcare responsibility, and ensures Medicare rate parity for Medicaid providers.

• Senate Bill 71 & Senate Joint Resolution 10 (Medicaid Expansion by Constitutional Amendment): a constitutional amendment to be submitted to voters on Nov. 7, 2023, that would require the state to expand Medicaid. If voters approve, the amendment provided in SJR 10 directs Texas HHSC to adopt rules pursuant to Senate Bill 71.

• Senate Bill 72 (Medicaid Expansion by Legislature): would require Medicaid expansion by simple legislation vote.

• Senate Bill 343 (Medicaid Expansion by 1115 Waiver): directs HHSC to use its discretion to craft a federally-acceptable section 1115 waiver to expand Medicaid coverage to all individuals for whom federal matching funds are available, encourage personal healthcare responsibility, and increase healthcare accessibility.