While several organizations and individuals outwardly claimed a bill banning foreign nationals from countries posing national security threats to the U.S. from purchasing land in Texas was racist and discriminatory, what conspired behind the scenes was an aggressive and coordinated effort to kill the bill using a social media platform with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, filed SB 147 to ban foreign representatives not legally present in the U.S. and from countries identified as a national security threat listed on the National Threat Assessment (NTA) from purchasing land in Texas. She did so, she said, because “some of the authoritarian regimes that pose a threat to the United States do not respect private property rights and are willing to use these rights to undermine our constitutional republic.”
The bill passed the Senate but died in the House State Affairs Committee chaired by state Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi. When asked by The Center Square why Hunter didn’t prioritize the bill or move it out of committee, neither he nor his chief of staff responded to requests for comment.
However, before Hunter killed the bill, several reports identified how WeChat was used to coordinate efforts to kill it and ostracize Kolkhorst and supporters of the bill.
An unclassified U.S. Air Force report obtained by The Center Square from a military source, entitled, “The China Threat,” details how the CCP uses WeChat to engage in “information warfare” against Americans, “whose content is thoroughly regulated by the CCP.”
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