Reviving Core Values: State Legislators Lead the Charge in America's Policy Renaissance

Rick Green

You found the intersection of faith in the culture. It's WallBuilders. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective and we're helping as many people out there as we can to be the catalyst for restoring these values in their community. And that includes state legislators, which we'll be talking about today. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton, and guys Audrea will be joining us, Audrea Decker, who runs our pro-family legislative network, and this is going to feel like a good news Friday, guys, because there's a ton of good news that's about to come at us.

Tim Barton

There's no doubt and it's one of the reasons we want to do this update is it's so easy to look at the national scene and see the drama and the nonsense and to feel overwhelmed at times with all that's happening. And the reality is there's so much good happening in so many places. That reminds me one of the things we like to tell about the American Revolution is kind of the overall battles and the role of Washington, etc. That the overall narrative of how you achieve victory is just different than what a lot of people realize.

David Barton

Yeah, it is and it's. You get healthy from the bottom up and that's what we see with the American Revolution. We had great leadership at the top, no question, but Washington did not fight those 250 battles. He fought 16 of them, won only seven. So it's really what's going on at the local level all the people with all their towns, all the state militias, everything else, and that's kind of what the state legislators are.

We get so much about Washington DC and the gridlock and you know, trump versus Biden and all the fights that go on and what they're doing to attack Speaker Johnson or what they're doing over in the Senate. That's not all of America. That's kind of what's federal. But, man, there's so much more going on and I think we've mentioned before that with the legislative network, I think last year with Audrea and the things that we monitored 152,000 pieces of legislation a lot of that got passed and a ton of it was really really good.

Now, certainly, things got passed in some crazy states doing crazy stuff, like California, but we just didn't hear about all the other good states. And so Audrea has kept up with this she's dealing with I don't know how many numbers of legislators maybe dozen every day are asking for help or need guidance or need connected to something or what I do with this provision. And so she really is as much as anybody in the country up to date on what's happening at the state level and I think we're going to be really excited with what we hear today. We'll be like a good news Friday because I know for sure I've been seeing some of the stuff that's going on in the papers that we're getting some really good progress at the state level. So it's going to be fun to hear from Audrea today.

Rick Green

Well, my guess is we'll only have time to scratch the surface in our little short program here, because there is so much that has been happening with these legislators. But Audrey will keep us up to date, so stay with us, folks, we'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show..

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastors briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the spring, we do one in the fall. This spring it's April 16 and 17. This fall it is September 10 and 11. This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in.

It's in Washington DC and Tuesday night we do an after hours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them. And, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual hairs of the nation or what God is still doing, Moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor and ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at WallBuilders. To find out more, Go to wallbuilders.com and look for the pastors briefing.

Rick Green

We're back here at WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Always good to have Audrea Decker with us from the Pro Family Legislative Network and the Pro Family Legislature Legislators conference. Audrea, good to have you back. Thanks for coming on.

Audrea Decker

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Rick Green

Well, we've got some states in session, others not, and a bunch of those little short sessions that happened, and, of course, we've got hundreds of legislators across the country that are part of our network and, man, a lot of good stuff getting filed. David was like we got to get her on for an update, so, anyway, well, where do we start? So you've got a lot of folks out there doing a lot of good things. How do you pick?

Audrea Decker

Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, I have to say, Rick, when, when people get discouraged was what everything that's happening at the federal level? I always just say just look to a couple of the states and you will be encouraged. I mean legislators even in blue states that are in our network. Blue states, red states, purple states, I mean they are working so hard and they are on the front lines really preserving biblical values, constitutional principles, taking the work that you're doing, you and David and Tim have been doing educating on the Constitution, and they're like living it out in these states, passing it into policy, and it's just really encouraging. So I just want to make sure the WallBuilders audience knows that that things are happening at the state level and, and it's incredible, one of those areas is religious freedom and it's been amazing to see what's been happening in that space.

Rick Green

And that's one of those that you know we've had. We've had Kelly Shakelford on, of course, talking about the, the victory of the Kennedy case, but then people have to know that so they can act on it. And a lot of these legislators, legislators like you're saying, they're not just hearing about this stuff, they're not just doing a constitutional class or coming to the conference or talking about it, they're actually taking action on it. They're saying, hey, let's redeem the time, let's go get some of this done as quick as we can. So religious liberty, big one man we got 10 commandments, cases, chaplains in schools.

Which states are is that happening in?

Audrea Decker

Okay. So the chaplains in school is a really simple bill that that Texas passed last year and it just simply said that schools can, school districts can, hire chaplains or they can allow volunteer chaplains, and that's a really incredible opportunity to welcome faith back into the public square, welcome faith back into our schools. And so we have 16 states to date that have introduced that bill this session alone and, as you mentioned, there's a lot of really conservative states that aren't in session this year, like Arkansas and North Dakota and Texas and others, so more are even going to be introducing this bill next year. Florida just joined Texas and becoming the second state to pass this bill. Just last week they passed the chaplain and school bill. Louisiana just passed that same bill out of committee this week and, like I said, you've got 16 states that are moving forward on this. So, just as we have chaplains for our first responders and for our military, why not allow them into schools? And the statistics on what happens to mental health crisis suicide rates are just incredible. I mean, they improve dramatically. There's not been a single suicide in the 30,000 schools that have chaplains not one suicide. So we want to see more of that in America.

Rick Green

Talk about good stats, I mean what works right, and I mean obviously you could have a bad situation happen, but still, I mean that is and it's just common sense. It's just that those who just really hate religion and do not want any influence that's faith based or any kind of counseling that would come from a faith perspective, they just hate that stuff and of course we see the negative results of that and we see what happens in any area where we remove faith. So this is really good. And the numbers just when you said that I just I had to laugh out loud because it just makes me happy. I mean that's a staggering number 16 states and then another what is it about half of that that have done 10 Commandments cases I mean legislation

Audrea Decker

So we have. We have eight states that have introduced this session legislation related to putting the 10 Commandments back in schools, and there's a couple of different bills here. There is one bill that was run in Texas last year didn't pass, but it was really close that would actually required the 10 Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom, which is just remarkable. And this gets back to those historic Supreme Court rulings that you guys have talked about so much on WallBuilders, which is it's the history and traditions test. I mean, the 10 Commandments are the foundation of our law and our judicial system in America and that should be taught in schools. And so we have eight states running that bill. We have one state, Utah and you guys may have talked about this on the show that they ran a bill that was a little bit different, but it was a great idea and they joined Oklahoma in passing this law. Now this is passed in Utah this session to say that the 10 Commandments are allowed to be taught in school right alongside with the Constitution, the Declaration, the Magna Carta. That is an important founding document for students to understand in our classrooms.

Rick Green

You know, I always ask people when they- Because they're always surprised that anybody would be against this right what wait? We don't want to tell the kids that murder is bad. We don't want to tell the kids still needs bad. We don't want to tell the kids honor mom and dad. You know, again, common sense says this makes sense. You'll want to have some sort of foundation and, as you said, I mean all of our laws. You go back to this based off of this. This is just common sense, and restoring that common sense is what these legislators are, and I have to.

Audrea Decker

I have to just say our one of our legislators, representative Mike Peterson, out in Utah, worked so hard. I mean a lot of these legislators. They start working on these bills in the summer. You know it's six months that they have prepared and studied and prayed over these bills and have to thank our WallBuilders prayer team for praying for these bills, praying for these legislators and encourage the audience. Don't ever underestimate that, because these are massive spiritual battles that these legislators are undertaking as they're welcoming faith back into our schools and our classrooms. And so, yeah, really incredible victories there. Senator Anthony Kern has this bill in Arizona, the 10 commandments. It's already passed out of the Senate there. It's now moving to the house. So really amazing things on this front

Rick Green

 you know, switching gears a little bit, Audrea, you had come on a, I guess, a little bit earlier last year talking about some of the the UCC issues and starting to rally some legislators to prevent a lot of these things from, you know, the digital currency and other things from just getting, you know, running away without the legislators ever really having much of a voice on this. That's right. Yeah, talk to us about that. I mean it have some of the some of the reps and senators stepped up on that one as well.

Audrea Decker

Yes, they really have. You know, last year, when we were talking about this on the show, nobody really even had heard about the uniform commercial code. If you weren't a state legislator, if you were just an average citizen, you maybe have never heard about the uniform commercial code or the uniform law Commission that actually gets together and write these laws, these model Legislation. Now it still has to be passed through the legislature, but the way it works is the Commission Writes the draft and they hand it to the legislators and oftentimes that bill gets passed without ever being read or considered. And so when we found out about this and some really concerning things in the state code that will paving the way for a central bank Digital currency, last year, you know, we quickly worked with Governor Nome's office. She vetoed the bill, the census held a press conference bringing awareness to the issue and that really set off a whole firestorm of conservative states saying hold up, we need actually read these 100, 200 page bills that have a lot of concerning things in them.

Now that's forward to this year, we're learning more about the uniform law Commission and in fact there was an article published this week in the Federalist and it said meet the group threatening America's freedom that you've probably never heard of, and the reason why is they're now creating model policy.

One is called the Public Health Emergency Authorization Act, and this would actually strip Legislatures of their power, give all the power to governors and put in there really alarming things that would allow them to survey, monitor people in their state during a public health crisis. I mean, it really would turn governors into dictators, which is the the polar opposite of what we saw happen after COVID, where Legislatures took control back to the people, right back to the, the governing bodies, and so these are the kinds of policies coming out of the Uniform Law Commission, and so, while this started out as a as probably a good project to make laws uniform when it came to commercial transactions 100 years ago, it's now involved into a more like a Bureaucracy that is out of touch with the governing bodies that actually represents the people, and so we are Really working with legislators to say let's read these bills carefully, let's make changes to make sure that they are constitutional, that they protect private property and that they're in the best interest of the citizens of your state.

Rick Green

Man, you're so right. It's like this unelected, you know bureaucratic body that that's out there making these laws and then, and then so often, legislators rubber stamp it or the leadership just pushes it through and everybody just I think they are kind of conditioned to it where they think, oh yeah, this is just those tweaks on you know contract laws.

Audrea Decker

so that's right, that's what it used to be, yeah, you know when you were a legislator that's what it used to be, so it's. It's changed so much but I have to say, really incredible progress this year. In fact, just this week in Oklahoma, representatives clay stairs has been working really hard there on a fantastic bill that would protect Oklahoma from a central bank digital currency, from it just being there, were to be rolled out in at the federal level. This state code is really alarming that it would it would allow for that, and so States like Alabama and North Dakota passed really important protections last session, protections last session against the central bank digital currency. Oklahoma just passed out in the house. This week we have other states like Tennessee and Louisiana that are on track to do that as well this session, and so really great progress from last year as states are working to protect their citizens in their uniform commercial code.

Rick Green

Right random question. So, for instance, on the emergency powers thing, you're exactly right. I mean, it took way too long, but the states eventually started passing legislations and hey, we don't want to end up back in that box where something happened and we weren't in session or we couldn't get, we couldn't have a voice in this thing until six months later or nine months later. We want governors to have maybe two weeks at the most a month, but not unlimited ability to shut down a state or do these crazy things, and so we did. We saw a lot of legislators act on that and the UCC going trying to reverse all that and go backwards. In the same way, is there anything that you're aware of where we've got this WHO thing coming up, where the World Health Organization is trying to essentially be the end, all be all on that question, and instead of even giving the power to the governor or the president, we're giving it to a foreign entity, and so a lot of people have been talking about that and warning about that. There's the sovereignty coalition out there.

We've had folks on about that, but are any state? Legislators doing anything on that that you know of?

Audrea Decker

Yes, and our legislators in Louisiana. I've been really hard at work at this and I mean they probably reached out to us on this issue probably eight or nine months ago. I mean they've been tracking it, --legislation on it. We've been working with some of our partners Center for Security Policy on this. We have great model legislation now.

Louisiana, I think, will be the first to really push something through substantial on this issue. Once they do, we'll be rolling it out to other states. But that's one of the things I love about our legislators at PFLN is you know this, Rick, I mean they are so innovative and they're always looking at the new issues and the new strategies and the things that we need to be really proactive on and making sure that our constitutional rights are protected. And so I really just have to give a big shout out to Louisiana and our legislators there that have been working really hard on this issue. But you're exactly right, I think that issue will be even a bigger legislative issue next session. But we certainly have states that are trailblazing on it this year.

Rick Green

So many things we could cover, but I do want to try to get one more in in our last few minutes together here. Parental rights that's another one where during COVID and of course with the jab and all that stuff that came to a head and a lot of people started saying obviously school choice and a lot of other parental rights issues as well. But it looked like we had a few of our members also working on that one. Just making sure the medical decisions where parents making that decision, not somebody else.

Audrea Decker

That's exactly right, and it's sad that this has become such a big political battle. Right, you would think this should be a really a really straightforward issue, but we have legislators that have just stepped up to make sure that parental rights are protected, and Representative Barbara E Hart in Idaho just passed this last week in the house a Bill that would really sure up parental rights on medical decisions, and this was a great bill for our listeners. That no representative E Hart. She was the first to pass the save woman sports bill. I think back in I don't know 2018 or something, they was the first state to protect girl sports and Representative E Hart has always working on and championing policies to protect children and protect parents. That was a great bill.

We've also been working on another great parental rights bill in Tennessee, and I mean these are just a couple of about a dozen bills that are moving forward right now on parental rights. Also, a lot of great legislation to protect children to protect children from being trafficked across state lines to get abortions. Minors we're talking about minors here a lot of great legislation to protect children from hormone change therapy and surgeries I mean straight up, child abuse, and our legislators have been really protecting children on that front, and so that's really, really encouraging.

Rick Green

So many good ones. You know you have a really cool job. Can I just say that's a. It's so cool to get to work with all these folks.

Audrea Decker

I have the best job and I tell people it's the best job because our legislators are just cream over the crop. I mean, if you think you're getting discouraged, just call us at PFLN and we'll just tell you all the incredible stories and the way God is really working through states. And I just get amazed at who he's called to the battle to champion these issues. Yeah, and then also the way that the founders designed our system so, when things aren't going great at the federal level, that we can still make incredible Progress at the state level. And that's exactly what PFLN is doing and it's really encouraging.

Rick Green

Amen, amen. Oh, so good, so good. Well, thank you for all that you're doing, thanks for for equipping and coming alongside those legislators, connecting them, all the things that that we're doing at the network, and as you talk to them. Just tell them we are. We're getting our WallBuilders audience to pray for them, to keep lifting them up and tell their legislators to come. You know there's so many others out there.

They need to come to the conference and and

Audrea Decker

 Can I say one more thing, Rick?  I want to invite any legislators and I know we have a lot of legislators that listen to the WallBuilders show Mark the dates on your calendar, save the date November 14th through the 17th, 2024 in Dallas, Texas. Come join us. You're not gonna want to miss this briefing, policy briefing on all the issues as you prepare for your next Legislative session. And then, as you said, Rick, if you are listening to this, this show, we would just invite them to encourage their legislators to join PFLN  attend the conference. And then, as you said, Rick, don't forget to pray for your legislators. They need that and you would be amazed at how much it encourages them.

Rick Green

Yeah, and I'm just thinking about the If for those legislators that are out there you're listening or considering coming. I'm telling you it will. It will rejuvenate you. You'll be worn out after the campaign, like you always are. You'll be looking for that break. This is the perfect break. Bring your spouse hang out with these other Pro Family Legislators for the weekend. That iron sharpening is amazing, the speakers are incredible, the food is awesome and it's just a great time. Yeah, I'm telling you it's a great, great time. So definitely I'd read it again the dates it's November, what is it 14?

Audrea Decker

Yeah, November 14th through the 17th, and obviously Rick you're gonna be there speaking, David and Tim will be there speaking and teaching. I mean, we've already have incredible speakers lined up. Kelly Shackleford will be with here, Matt Stavor will be with us again this year. So the legal strategies that we're working on, that pair right along with the policy strategies, are really exciting.

Rick Green

Yeah, it's good stuff. It's good stuff. Folks Go check it out and the website. One more time for him to be able to quickly go there and

Audrea Decker

November 14th through the 17th and they can go to profamily.com to get more information.

Speaker 1: 22:12

All right folks profamily.com will have a link today at the website as well. Share it with your friends and family. Make sure you send it to your legislators for sure. Audrey, thanks so much. Appreciate you coming on things I appreciate you. Stay with us folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to tell you about our new book, the American story building the Republic. We start with George Washington as president and we've already become a nation. So really now it's how do we function as a nation? And if we look back in American history, the stability, that prosperity, success we enjoyed as Americans is because of the foundation that our early presidents laid, because the examples they set. How do we live in America under the Constitution? What is the role of federal government and really what part did each one of these early presidents play? We go to the first seven presidents and a lot of people probably know the names Washington, Adams, Jefferson in Madison. Very few people know about Monroe or John Quincy Adams or Andrew Jackson. Now we might know some of their names, we really don't know their stories. We want you to relearn, rediscover American history and see how it applies to today. Go to WallBuilders.com and get your copy of the American story building the Republic.

Rick Green

We're back here on the WallBuilders Show thanks to Audrea Decker and the team at pro-family legislative network and all of those legislators out there doing great work and guys. Not only the stuff that's passing I just want to give a shout out to all those legislators that filed, maybe didn't get it past this time, but they're fighting the good fight, they're doing the hard work and, as you guys know well, sometimes it takes teo or three secessions to get some of these big things done, but just a lot of good efforts taking place in a lot of states. I mean, when she said 16 states, oh I was like wow, that's. I mean that's overwhelming, that's really good stuff. 

David Barton

Yeah, and what do you think Now? I admit I was blown away with 30,000 schools with chaplains and no suicides, zero? I mean, oh my goodness, with all the health crisis that's been going on, that we've been hearing about, and it's not going in these schools with chaplains. That is a significant commentary. I mean that's amazing.

Tim Barton

Well, and Rick, as you pointed out, right, I mean that doesn't mean there can't be an anomaly and it doesn't mean that you know, just because there's chaplain, no bad things will happen. But it does show a pretty stark contrast of what the founding fathers used to know and understand. Right, when you are helping set up the future of the republic, which is what education was supposed to do, right? Equip and train the rising generation and who they are, what they're going to do, how they're going to be leaders in the nation.

The founding fathers universally agreed that we owe these trees to be self-evident. Is it a divine creator? Because all men are created equal. They're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. They start with this basic premise that there was a God. Our rights come from God. Government exists to protect those rights. And you know, we're now living in this weird world where you have people on MSNBC saying that if you believe in God giving a right, you must be a Christian Nationalist, which is crazy, because you're accusing every single founding father of being a Christian nationalist, what they universally held to be true.

But one of the things the founding fathers understood so well that we have forgotten in modern culture is the impact, the influence, the importance of understanding that you are not the center of the universe right, there is a God, there's creators. Also why she talked about even the 10 Commandments bills that are happening and they're being filed all over the country as well, because there's so many opportunities to once again restore some of those basic premises of education that were stripped away over the last 30, 50 years from really bad Supreme Court cases, and now we're at a place we can see a lot of restoration and the advancement of religious liberty or protecting girls in locker rooms and sports. I mean, there's so many things we could talk about, so much good news happening from these state legislators and this is again we've mentioned it before but when people support WallBuilders, this is one of the things we do is help encourage and promote this kind of legislation and these legislators doing this all over the nation.

Rick Green

Yeah, Tim, like you said, man, they would all. In fact, maybe that's what it was July 1776, the Christian Nationalist Convention. That's what it was. It wasn't the Continental Congress, it was the Christian Nationalist Convention. I think that they had there. Yeah, it's crazy, man, but such good stuff. We're beating back all these crazy labels that they're coming up with the values and the principles or what count, and these legislators are doing a great job at restoring them. Thanks so much for listening. Today, folks, you've been listening to The WallBuilders Show