Huberty, who announced his retirement in October after more than 10 years as a state legislator, said he believes the recent school shooting in Uvalde that resulted in the death of 19 students and two teachers demanded the attention of lawmakers.
“This is the fourth mass casualty event that we've had in Texas since I've been in office,” Huberty said, noting he has voted for several bills expanding access to guns in the past. “The reality is that I look at this and say, ‘We’re culpable. I’m culpable.’ We’ve got to do something.”
Examining gun policy proposals
Huberty’s call for action came on the same day Harris County Commissioners Court voted to create a commission to investigate area gun violence involving youth members.
While Huberty said he did not support an outright ban on assault weapons, he questioned whether an 18-year-old should be allowed to legally purchase one when the legal age to buy a handgun remains at 21.
“Over 45 people were shot at mass-casualty events [throughout the United States last weekend],” Huberty said. “Ninety percent of those events were [individuals] using AR-15 guns.”
According to Huberty, state legislators are currently conducting interim committee hearings for the first time since 2018. He said the hearings, which were suspended during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, will allow lawmakers from both parties to discuss gun policy proposals in detail before any bills are proposed during the 2023 legislative session.
Mental health needs
Huberty said that while he acknowledges many individuals are tired of hearing about mental health, it is still a chief concern lawmakers are aiming to address next year.
“We're only funding about 50% of what we need for counselors and about 25% of what we need for social workers in our school systems,” he said. “If a kid's dropping out of school, it's still our responsibility to figure out what's going on with that kid and get them the help and the resources that we can.”
Huberty also said expanded access to telemedicine, a roughly $30 million effort to expand psychiatric inpatient bed capacity, and additional pediatric crisis stabilization units—which provide therapy to individuals at risk of admission to psychiatric hospitals—are being proposed to assist children and adults throughout the state.
Additionally, he said he proposed a statewide increase in multisystematic therapy teams, which provide family-focused treatment to juveniles with serious criminal offenses. Huberty estimated the state would need 140 teams deployed at a cost of $575,000 per team each year.
School safety measures
At a public hearing scheduled for July 26, Huberty said he plans on proposing a measure that would require the state to provide funding for police and security services at every school district in Texas.
“Some [school districts] don't have police forces,” he said. “We don't give them the money to be able to pay for those police forces.”
Huberty also proposed a measure that would require the state to provide funding to school districts for additional training for police forces, panic systems for each school and tactical gear for officers.
“It sounds like we're preparing for a war,” Huberty said. “That's where we're at. That's what we're dealing with.”
Huberty said that while the proposals would not end all gun violence, they have the potential to prevent some incidents from occurring.
“You can't stop evil,” he said. “There’s not much that we can do about that, but we can try to at least stop some of it—make it harder, make it more difficult.”
The Texas 2023 legislative session is scheduled to begin Jan. 10. Heading into the session, Huberty’s replacement will be determined in the Nov. 8 midterm election.
In March, Charles Cunningham won the Republican nomination to fill the vacancy left by Huberty. Cunningham will not face an opponent from the Democratic party in November.
