TALKING POINTS — PRESENTING THE RESOLUTION
One page. For the member who moves it.
OPEN WITH THE QUESTION, NOT THE ANSWER
“I want to ask one question tonight. Who voted for this? Not who approved it — who voted for it. The Legislature has never passed a law authorizing a statewide vehicle surveillance network. No Texan has ever cast a ballot on it. It was built by contract and by permit, and the first most of us heard of it was when we noticed the cameras.”
That framing wins the room. Do not open with the Fourth Amendment. Open with consent.
THE FOUR POINTS
1. Nobody authorized it.
No Texas statute authorizes these networks. DPS built a statewide system
administratively, installed cameras in state right-of-way under TxDOT
permits, and extended access to more than two hundred local agencies.
Counties signed contracts, sometimes with no recorded vote and no
competitive bid.
2. It tracks the innocent, by design.
An ALPR does not photograph suspects. It photographs everyone. The
database exists to be searched later — which is precisely the practice
the Supreme Court addressed in Carpenter v. United States,
holding that assembling a comprehensive record of a person’s movements
is a search requiring a warrant.
3. A private company holds the record.
The largest vehicle surveillance database in the country is operated by
a private Atlanta corporation answerable to no Texas voter. That same
vendor was ordered by DPS in July 2024 to cease regulated private
security operations here; its license lapsed and was not reissued until
December 2025 — while deployments continued.
4. This is our failure to fix.
Republicans hold the Governorship, the Lieutenant Governorship, the
Speakership, and both chambers. ALPR reform was filed in the 89th
Legislature and died in committee. No one else can be blamed for
that.
ANSWERING THE THREE OBJECTIONS YOU WILL GET
“This ties law enforcement’s hands.”
> “Section 3 preserves AMBER Alerts, Silver Alerts, and imminent
threats to life. What it does not preserve is the ability to search a
database of innocent people’s movements on a hunch. If the case is
strong enough to justify tracking a Texan, it is strong enough to
justify a warrant.”
“It solves crimes.”
> “Some of it does. So would a camera in every living room. The
question a conservative asks is not whether a power is useful — it is
whether it is authorized and whether it is limited. This one is
neither.”
“It’s already everywhere. This is too late.”
> “It was everywhere because nobody was asked. We are asking now.
And these are subscription contracts with renewal dates — every one of
them comes up for a vote.”
THE CLOSE
“This resolution does not ask anyone to choose between safety and liberty. It asks for four things a Republican should be able to support without hesitation: that the Legislature authorize it, that a judge approve the search, that the data be deleted, and that our own commissioners court take a public vote before signing our county up for it.
If a member of the Legislature cannot support those four things, the voters of this county are entitled to know it. That is all Sections 14 and 15 do — they ask, and they publish the answer.”
PRACTICAL NOTES
- Talk to your sheriff before the meeting. If he does not object to a warrant requirement and a thirty-day purge, say so on the floor. If he does object, you need to know that in advance.
- Bring one local fact. The date your commissioners court approved a contract, the dollar figure, whether it was bid, whether the public was heard. One local fact outweighs three general ones.
- Do not accept amendments to Sections 2, 3, or 11. Those are the load-bearing walls. Trim WHEREAS clauses if you must.
- Do not attack a named legislator from the floor. The argument is that nobody voted for this. Keep it there. Accountability comes after the record exists, not before.