Rick Green
Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and the Culture. It's Wall Builders. We're taking on hot topics and we're taking them on from a particular perspective. We always look at them from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Hope you appreciate that. You know, if you're a biblical citizen, if you consider yourself to be a person of faith, a Christian that has truly surrendered all, that means everything in your life. The Bible speaks to it and it's all surrendered to Him, and so we want to always ask that question on any issue, what's the Bible say about it? How do I look at this from a biblical perspective? And that includes the issues of the day that our politicians are talking about, that our legislatures are debating, or our school boards, or even our own families as we talk about what's happening in the world today. So biblical perspective, historical, always helps, because then you can see what works, what doesn't work. How can we learn from past civilizations, even, or certainly past generations in our civilization? And then, of course, constitutional, because we live in America under the United States Constitution, or at least we're supposed to be. A lot of that being ignored right now, of course, and we want to restore that. So thanks for being a part of it here with us at WallBuilders.
I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. Tim Barton's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. David's, America's premier historian. We're thankful you're listening and I hope you go to our website, wallbuilders.com and learn how you can be the catalyst in your community for a restoration of biblical values and constitutional principles.
All right, guys, we've got Audria Decker back from the Pro Family Legislative Network and, of course, a lot of bills right now being offered, being debated, some sessions still going, some are just preparing for their next session, but there's a ton of good stuff happening. And, for the folks who don't know, we do a really cool legislators conference every year where the state reps and senators come in and they exchange ideas, they hear from speakers, they get ideas, and Audrey Decker runs that, and she also runs the network where she connects with these legislators. And one of the things that happens, guys, is not just legislation but some of these uniform law codes that sometimes legislators tend to just rubber stamp, and it looks like the left is going to try to sneak some stuff in over the next couple of years with these new sessions.
David Barton
You know it's significant, Rick. You mentioned that with the Uniform Law Commission. But go back to the time of the founding fathers, at the time of the Constitution, and at the time of the Constitution you had 13 states, 13 policies, 13 currencies, 13 everything, and that's where Congress talks about you need a uniform immigration law, uniform law of immigration. Let Congress do that. And so what happened was the states were very involved in immigration. They still were. After that law came through, the Constitution said a uniform law on immigration is what Congress can do. But the states still got to say things. But what happens is Congress is saying is what Congress can do.. And so really, across so many areas we've needed uniformity and it's been a good thing in some areas.
Tim Barton
Well, and dad. This is, too, just back historically. This is even part of what the Northwest Ordinance accomplished, right. It said here is the standard that we use. If there's new territories coming in, new states coming in, there's going to be 40,000 people, there's going to be Republican form of government. They didn't micromanage, but they laid out some basic guidelines, right. So there's still some flexibility. The colonies still had a voice. They still got to work on implementation and some other details. But it was saying we should have some kind of consistent standard so that if you're going to South Carolina, it's not totally different than going to New York and they have such different standards that it doesn't even make sense. Let's have some uniformity in what we do.
It doesn't mean that there's not uniqueness and individuality, but it does mean we should have some similar standards, consistent standards, in some of these areas areas and about a hundred years ago the Uniform Law Commission came up with that same thought is hey, what are the things we can do to streamline the commerce between the states, what are the things we can do to help the economics between the states, because all the states have the right to do their own policies, et cetera. But in some ways it's like having a uniform building code, even among the states. While there's some differences, you do have certain things that you have to have electrical plugs this far from other types of plugs, and you have to have, you know whatever it is. So you have this uniform code and that's always been really helpful and really good. As long as you did not have an agenda, as long as you were just trying to help smooth things out and take things that everybody agreed on and move it forward, that was a really good deal. And that's what the Uniform Law Commission has been for about 100 years. They've looked for areas where they can help streamline things between the states, and so legislatures tend to say, hey, the Uniform Law Commission, they've got no agenda, we're just going to kind of rubber stamp what they want because that's a good idea. Let's get it to where Nebraska and Iowa. We can do this among ourselves, across the border, whatever it is.
Well, what's happened now is in the last year, year and a half, two years, the Uniform Law Commission has suddenly decided to become woke and they've suddenly decided that, no, we don't like the way we've been doing it. We need to be a leader, we need to get out there in front of policies, we need to get everybody prepped for the World Economic Forum policies that are going to guide the world and the World Health Organization, and so what's happened is they've come up with all these radical policies and state legislators many of whom have been in the legislature for a number of years are just so used to seeing the Uniform Law Commission and not thinking about any questionable activity coming from them. But it's really different in the last couple of years. They're coming out with stuff that would absolutely radically change the power that states have, their own state practices within their own government. It would be a radical loss of freedom for citizens in those states, and so some legislatures have started seeing that and they've started responding to it and trying to say, hey, we're not doing that, and they're coming back to rebut that and create actually laws that would strengthen the state rather than weaken it. And so Audrea Decker, who runs a pro-family legislative conference. She's been working with a number of these states.
But it's really important that every citizen know that your state, your legislators, deal with the Uniform Law Commission and they're not used to seeing them as agenda-driven groups. They're used to just seeing them as neutral. So you need to know about what's going on in your state because this is happening. The Uniform Law Commission goes to all 50 states. They introduce this in all 50 states, so it's being introduced in your state. You need to know about it. They introduce this in all 50 states, so it's being introduced in your state.
You need to know about it. You probably need to call your legislator and say, hey, have you seen the stuff from the Uniform Law Commission this year? Because it's not good. It's not what they normally do, and a lot of legislatures most legislators will not want this, quite frankly, once they know, they just need somebody to help point it out. So we thought it'd be really good to get Audrea on there. Let Audrea kind of show what's happening and describe what these new laws are, and then we as citizens, can take and make calls to our own friends, our own legislators, others, and say, hey, fyi, this is not a good deal, just wanted you to know about it
Rick Green
Stay with us folks, we'll be right back. Audrea Decker, our special guest. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back to Wall Builders. Thanks for staying with us. Audrey Decker, back with us from the Pro Family Legislative Network Another big issue hitting across the country the Health and Safety Act. And, Audrea, first of all, thanks for coming back on. Appreciate you joining us again.
Audrea Decker
Absolutely Thanks for having me.
Rick Green
Well, we had a listener that sent in a question about this, wanted to know more about this Health and Safety Act, and the concern is, of course, putting too much power in the governor's hands. We saw that abuse throughout the covid crackdowns. What is this all about? And is there? Is this new legislation that's starting to? You know legislators are considering now when is this? What's the source on this?
Audrea Decker
Yeah, such a great question from the listener on this. Yes, this is actually a model policy from the Uniform Law Commission. So I know you guys have talked a lot about that on the WallBuilders Show and essentially it's a commission states are a part of and they come up with these recommended model policies that they think should be quote unquote uniform across all 50 states. And so back in 2021, the Uniform Law Commission started meeting on this. They ratified this model policy in 2023. And it's called the Public Health Emergency Authority Act and essentially what it does is it rules back a lot of the really good protection that state legislatures put in place. After COVID, you know, we all experienced a little bit of governors acting as dictators.
Rick Green
A little bit.
Audrea Decker
Yeah a lot of it right. As they decided who could worship and how we could interact in society and all of those things. Legislatures tried to come back and put some policies in place that would rein in that power of governors getting to act like dictators. And so what this Public Health Emergency Authority Act does is it actually rolls back a lot of those protections and it gives more power to governors. It defines public health emergency really broadly. I mean anything that could cause a large number of deaths, serious long term disabilities, widespread exposure to toxins or any impact on medical health resources. And it is so broad, in fact, the governor doesn’t even have to prove really, uh, their his or her justification and for, you know, shutting a state down. They basically have to provide a memo of sorts to the legislature and clearly said, based on whatever information is available, which we know that in in the case of covid and this doesn't even address the fact that a lot of that information was flawed, completely flawed right.
And they shut entire states down over limited information, flawed information, all of that. So this gives governors the ability to issue these emergency, you know, health orders that would shut states down, to continue to issue them, to redirect agencies accordingly, and it does it without the authority and power of the legislature, and so this is really concerning. One of the things that's interesting to note about this is it's defined so broadly that if the World Health Organization were to come out and issue any kind of emergency health declaration or anything, that would be enough justification for governors to shut down under this Public Health Emergency Authority Act.
Rick Green
Which essentially puts the authority. Well, begins that process at least with these crazy international organizations and associations that should not have the authority to do that. Of course there's even a great grievance in the Declaration about these, as Jefferson called, pretended acts of legislation, these entities foreign to our Constitution, was the way Jefferson said it there. But you know, Audrea, I got this so wrong. I thought that people would just have a guttural reaction, negative guttural reaction, to the idea that one person could make these kind of decisions shutting down a state, telling people to stay home. I mean all of that, the idea of that much power being in one person's hand instead of the legislature, I thought would be repulsive to Americans.
So I was shocked throughout COVID when people just accepted that and said well, he'll save us or she'll save us from dying, and they wanted safety more than liberty. And so here we are, four years later and they're trying to bring about more of that single person decision making and, as you're saying, through the non-legislative process. So again, I wish more people would get upset about this. To me it's just like it literally destroys a republic. It's like the opposite of the American way, and yet very few people are talking about it.
Audrea Decker
It is, and the one silver lining to this that I have to point out is this is a model bill that the Uniform Law Commission has put forward, and so it does still have to be passed by legislatures, but this is a really sneaky way that they're trying to do it,
Rick Green
because it's almost a rubber stamp, right?
I mean they bring this in as part of a big package or whatever, and that's right.
Audrea Decker
You know as a former legislator, a lot of these Uniform Law Commission bills a lot of the time don't get the same level of scrutiny and consideration that a normal bill does. And so and they use this argument that it has to be uniform, that Louisiana has to pass the same thing that Texas passes, that in the same thing, that Pennsylvania passes in the same thing Florida does. That's not true. We know that right. According to the 10th Amendment, states have their right to make their own state law and their own state code and they don't have to take orders from this commission. That that isn't answering to the people and to the constituents, like the lawmakers are, right. So the only encouraging thing I will say is that our legislators in the pro family legislative network all across the country have been on the lookout for this bill, have been on the lookout for this bill. We have been warning them about this bill for over a year now and this bill has not seen the light of day this session, like the Uniform Law Commission probably thought it was going to. I mean, usually these model policies just sweep the nation.
This one has not, and so really encouraged by our legislators and the fact that they are remaining vigilant on this, and then a really great piece of news to share is that they're actually passing bills that do the opposite of this. And so there's a great bill in Louisiana, a great bill right now in Alabama, that specifically states that the World Health Organization, that WHO, that the United Nations, that they do not have jurisdiction in these states to make these decisions. If that treaty is not ratified by Congress, those orders will have no standing in those states. And so they're actually taking it a step further, and we're so encouraged to see that legislation as I said, first of its kind legislation. Louisiana is leading with it, Alabama is leading with it. Our friends at the Center for Security Policy did a great job drafting that legislation, and so, again, we are seeing states take positive steps, but we just have to stay vigilant to make sure the Uniform Law Commission's model policy don't get rubber stamped.
Rick Green
Yeah, I love offense. Right, let's play offense, not just defense. And that's what that sounds like to me. They're getting that legislation in line. They're not waiting until something horrible would happen, where the WHO could declare something and then, all of a sudden, all these people, the dominoes are falling across the country. So very thankful for- you said, Louisiana has already passed it. Is that right?
Audrea Decker
It is through the process right now. So it's passed one chamber, it's moving forward. So I anticipate. Louisiana will be the first, and probably followed by Alabama.
Rick Green
All right, all right Sounds good. Well, I wish Texas would lead on everything. We can't lead on everything, you know, we did chaplains first. Okay, at least we got that one done first.
Audrea Decker
Well, it puts us at a disadvantage that they only meet every other year. Some of these ideas, ideas, but they're just going to have to run all that that harder and that faster when they get back in session well, as we used to say when I was there.
Rick Green
You know, our legislature meets 140 days every two years and the people of Texas would be better off if we met for two days every 140 years, uh, but actually probably not, they wouldn't be. We need that right. No, that would be worse, because then the governor would have total control during that longer period of time, so that actually was.
It's interesting, I've always been for less meeting of the legislature because you know lawmakers tend to just want to make laws, so they just get more government. But that that two year cycle, like you're talking about, it actually did become a disadvantage because it gave the governor you know a lot longer to have just total control by himself.
Audrea Decker
Yeah, since COVID. Yeah, since COVID, that really changed. Now I would say it's better for a session every year, but shorter sessions just make everybody work really fast.
Rick Green
Yeah, I like that. I like that. That's very good. Well, listen before I let you go. Any other highlights from the Pro Family Legislators Conference coming up in November, or any legislation that we need to have, people, I know you got.
Audrea Decker
Yeah, you know we've talked a bit about religious freedom. I mean, all of that legislation is really exciting. Louisiana is moving forward on a bill that would actually require the displaying of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. That would actually allow that to happen, which is really neat. Then at the conference this November, 14th through the 17th if you're a legislator, we'd love to have you come, bring your spouse.
We're going to be covering a lot of what we're always covering innovative policies. You know what are things that are on the cutting edge of things we need to be looking at things that need to, laws that need to be passed, that need to be worked its way up in the court system to reverse bad precedent. So we're looking at things on marriage and gender and family, and how do we really restore that? We think you can't restore marriage until you restore gender, and so we're working on a lot of policies related to that. We're also looking at a lot of policies related to the sanctity of life. That issue is not going away, especially with it being an election year, and states have taken some great steps on that incredible progress. But, boy, the floodgate is open now for what needs to be done at the state level on that. So, yeah, super excited for what our legislators are working on and we're seeing great progress this session and looking forward to our conference in November.
Rick Green
Good stuff, good stuff. Audrey, thank you so much. Thanks for coming on. Keep up the good work. It's always a good news kind of thing, because we realize, you know, most people don't realize there's a lot of good legislators out there, there's a lot of people that are in public office right now doing everything they can to restore the republic and, you know, bring back the old Superman truth, justice and the American way. That's what they're all fighting for. Thank you for being on the front lines.
Audrea Decker
Thanks, Rick. You too, thanks so much for highlighting these. We appreciate it.
Rick Green
with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.
Rick Green
Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on Wall Builders. Thanks to Audrea Decker for not just joining us today, but all the good work over at ProFamily Legislative Network and all the legislators across the country. There are so many good men and women Godly men and women serving in state legislatures across the country doing everything that they can to restore our constitutional republic and common sense legislation and fighting a lot of this nonsense that we were just talking about with Audrea, where governors want to have too much power when it comes to these emergency situations.
Tim Barton
Well, one of the things, guys, we've seen consistently from state legislators is the positive traction they're getting the good things they are doing. We've talked several times in the show, probably in the last couple of weeks, that we think we're probably in some kind of great awakening. When you look back historically what the first and second great awakening were, you see a lot of similarities to what's happening in our nation today. God is on the move, there's chaos, there's friction, there's debates over truth and morality, and yet, in the midst of the first great awakening, second great awakening, part of what happened in the awakenings is that people were waking up in all spheres, in all areas in the nation. That people were waking up in all spheres, in all areas in the nation. And if you look at what's happening in state legislators or state legislative bodies, with these state legislators, there's no doubt that there are people who are beginning to ask the kinds of questions of how can we go back and restore a separation of powers, how can we go back and protect the rights of the people, how can we do the basic premise of a biblical foundation but really American government, why it exists and even one of the things that Audrea pointed out about something like the pro-life issue. Just recently President Trump was talking about that. He really thought the abortion issue was a state's rights issue and that rubbed people the wrong way all kinds of thoughts and reactions. But fundamentally he is correct that abortion is not in the Constitution and so when he said it's a states' rights issue, I would disagree to some extent, the same way that I would disagree that slavery was a states' rights issue, that’s not an issue that’s state should determine where some states say, hey, we don't value unborn children, and some states say, no, we believe that unborn children are a gift of God, that God is the Author, the Creator, that we need to preserve life. Every state should have that position, because that's the premise of American government that there is a God who gave rights. The first of the inalienable rights is a right to life. But all that kind of let's put that on the shelf for just a second when Audrea talked about we're even seeing some gains and victories in the pro-life issue.
This is where I think sometimes we don't recognize the value of what's happening in a lot of these state legislative bodies that we often hear about immigration, or we hear, not just hear. We see the economic issues right. We all go to the grocery store. Economic issues, right, we all go to the grocery store. I was blown away when I went to go pick like 10 things. I got 10 things from, I think, Walmart and it was a hundred dollars for 10 things, right. And as I'm having to pay for this right, it's hard for me and me and my wife and we have two little girls and like that's not easy. But man, there's people out there that's way harder for them and so it's easy to look and go.
Okay, number one issues economic issues, immigration issues there's some of these issues that are easy to be in the forefront of our mind, but sometimes then we lose perspective that we are making such good ground and gains in some of these areas where it's again easy to overlook and not recognize that really good things are happening.
If people don't listen to Good News Friday, they should, and a lot of what we cover in Good News Friday is what's happening in some of these states, with some of these leaders doing things, and guys, it's been really fun over the last several decades to get connected with some of these state legislators to see what they're doing, how God's using them in their state, to hear new ideas that are coming up and how people are working to preserve the Constitution, restore a Biblical foundation. There's some really cool things that we have seen and it really is neat as Audrea has taken a leadership role of the legislative network to see what all has happened and how much this has grown over the years. And a lot of those legislators, tim as you pointed out, they want to do the right thing. They are trying to do the right thing and this issue with Uniform Law Commission, you can help them know what the right thing is, because a legislature is going to have between four and five thousand pieces of legislation introduced every year and they won't see everything that comes through because they can't read that many. They just need some help. And so you need to say, hey, we just want you to know about the Uniform Law Commission thing. It gives the governor all the power. You guys will lose separation of powers. You as a legislature won't even have control over the governor. You can't check his power and you lose all the sovereignty because now we're going to give it to the World Health Organization. This is not what these new guys want. They want the sovereignty for their state and for the nation. They want the independence for the citizens and they want constitutional freedoms. So let your legislators know about this stuff. It is in your state right now. It's in all 50 states. Let them know about this Uniform Law Commission, that this health act that they're trying to do is a really bad idea. They need to look at it and vote against it.
Rick Green
Alright folks out of time for today. Make sure you tune in. The rest of the week got some more great interviews coming up and then, of course, our Foundations of Freedom Thursday and Good News Friday. It's going to be a great week. Look forward to being with you throughout the week and then hope you'll share the program, be a force multiplier, take those links and send them out to friends and family. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show.