Jeff Leach has spent the entirety of his career working against his constituents and hurting the people of Texas.
Like most Republicans in Texas, Jeff Leach is only sitting in office because of extreme gerrymandering and years of voter suppression. Continuously, Republicans in Collin County have voted him in, even when he’s worked directly against them. Perhaps GOP voters continue to vote against their own best interests simply because the person has an (R) next to their name. Or perhaps they are unaware of all of the harm Representative Leach has done in the last several years. Let’s talk about it.
Jeff Leach has consistently voted against women.
Representative Leach has a long history of working to strip away women’s rights. Do you remember, back in 2013, when Senator Wendy Davis filibustered the abortion bill Republicans were pushing? Jeff Leach was that bill’s co-sponsor. The bill passed, and at the time, Texas had the strictest abortion laws in the country. The bill required abortion clinics to meet the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers and mandates that a doctor have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility where they performs abortions. It would have closed 85% of all of the abortion clinics in Texas.
Eventually, a federal judge and the Supreme Court blocked this bill. Of course, that was before radical extremists took over SCOTUS. But it was far from the only thing Leach did to strip away rights from women.
That was only the beginning.
In 2015, Jeff Leach co-sponsored a bill that would only let a minor obtain an abortion without parental consent if a judge approved it. Then, in 2017, he voted to increase the cost of abortions to ensure that women in poverty would have a more difficult time obtaining one.
We all know that Republicans and pro-lifers have lied about women’s healthcare and forced birth circumstances. Jeff Leach is no exception with his 2019 “born alive bill.” There have been zero reported instances of any child born alive after an abortion in Texas. The  idea that physicians deliver and then kill or neglect treating, a viable fetus is unfounded and dangerous misinformation.
To prove that Jeff Leach is anti-woman and not anti-abortion, in 2013, he voted against a bill that would have required equal pay for women. But that’s not all. In 2021 Leach was a co-sponsor of the so-called trigger ban, which banned abortions as soon as SCOTUS overturned it.
Representative Leach has always voted to increase gun violence in Texas.
In 2013, Jeff Leach co-sponsored a bill to prohibit state funds from being used to enforce gun laws, he co-sponsored the bill that allowed guns on college campuses, and he co-sponsored a bill to stop all gun regulations from being enforced at all. In 2013, Leach also voted to reduce the hours required to obtain a concealed handgun license.
Representative Leach was a co-sponsor for open carry in 2015.
In 2019, he voted for the transportation and storage of firearms in parking lots on school campuses. Because where else will a school shooter keep their gun besides in their car?
This last year, Jeff Leach was a co-sponsor of the constitutional carry bill, which allows anyone to carry a gun anywhere without a license or training. He also voted for a bill that allowed firearms in hotels.
Leach has worked diligently to hurt the people of color in Texas.
He was a co-sponsor of putting School Marshals on campuses all over Texas, contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline.
Leach took an anti-Muslim position when he co-sponsored a bill that prohibited Texas from contracting with any company that had a Boycott Israel position.
Over the last ten years or so, countless experts and studies indicate that sanctuary cities drastically reduce violent crime rates and keep all communities safe. The GOP’s war against sanctuary cities has been based on racial hatred. So, it shouldn’t surprise you that Jeff Leach voted to prohibit all sanctuary cities in Texas.
It probably won’t surprise you that Representative Leach was a co-sponsor of the racist anti-CRT bill, the one that banned the teachings of Frederick Douglas and prohibits teachers from telling students about America’s history with white supremacy.
He also co-sponsored a bill that penalized counties that invested in their communities and mental health from their police budget. The legislature targeted larger cities with higher populations of people of color, where police violence is most likely to happen.
Representative Leach hates poor people.
In 2013, Leach voted against a free breakfast program for impoverished children. One in five children in Texas are hungry and live in food-insecure homes. Cruelty is the point.
He voted for a bill that prohibited non-profit organizations from paying the bail money of an arrested person. Leach even voted against waiving a fee for disadvantaged students to have access to the internet for school. And he co-sponsored a bill that prohibited municipalities from raising the minimum wage.
Jeff Leach is bad for Texas wallets and Collin County taxpayers.
Leach voted to require drug testing for each individual receiving unemployment benefits in 2013. This is a law the GOP has salivated over in multiple states in the last several decades, despite the lack of evidence that people who lose their jobs do drugs and the hefty cost to taxpayers. One study in 2016 found that only 369 people tested positive out of around 250,000. The cost for those 250,000 people to be tested was $1.6 million. Forgetting the fact that it’s a violation of our Fourth Amendment Rights, it’s just a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.
In 2013, Jeff Leach voted to cut business taxes, which cut education revenue and increased property taxes in Collin County.
Leach voted in favor of the “Choose Life Grants,” which take tax revenue and fund Christian Pregnancy Centers all over the state. These centers offer low-income women free pregnancy tests, and if the woman is pregnant, they try to talk her out of an abortion. Some of this includes showing women pictures of aborted fetuses and telling them they’ll burn in hell. And it’s all done on the taxpayer’s dime.
Last year, Representative Leach voted against enhancing our grid, so we don’t experience power outages. He also voted against increasing broadband access.
Leach wants to strip away some of his constituents’ right to vote.
The GOP eliminated straight-ticket voting in Texas because they thought that Democratic voters wouldn’t take the time to vote all the way down-ballot. Jeff Leach was a co-sponsor of the bill that did that.
Last legislative cycle, Jeff Leach voted for prohibiting voting clerks from sending mail-in ballot applications, as well as prohibited drive-thru voting. He also voted against increasing polling locations in larger counties.
Leach voted for banning 24-hour polling locations. He voted to prohibit houseless people from voting unless they had a permanent address. And he voted for penalizing county election officials if they didn’t regularly purge their voter rolls.
LGBTQ Rights.
In 2015, Leach co-sponsored bigoted legislation allowing religious institutions to decline to perform a marriage. This was an anti-LGBTQ bill put forward right after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. Then, in 2017, he co-sponsored a bill allowing adoption agencies to deny service to gay couples.
Last year, he co-sponsored the bill prohibiting transgender children from participating in sports.
Who’s funding Jeff Leach?
This year, Leach has so far raked in $355,000, the majority of which has come from far-right PACs that focus on taking away individual liberties in favor of billionaires and corporations.
Collin County has a choice.
Even though HD67 and Collin County have been heavily gerrymandered, it’s still flippable. Most of the precincts that went to Trump in 67 in the 2020 election, only did so by a few points. If Democrats in Collin County have a high turnout (which they usually do), we can flip this seat.
The Democrat running for this seat is Kevin Morris, who is running on a platform of improving the daily lives of Collin County residents. Check him out on his website, Twitter, or Facebook.
He also needs volunteers to help flip this district. So, iIf you live in the area, consider signing up.
In November, make sure you vote. Make sure your friends and family vote.
Collin County needs a change. Texas needs a change. It’s time to dump all the Republicans who work so hard to take away our rights, raise our property taxes, and make our lives harder.
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