(José Niño, Headline USA) State Rep. Dade Phelan, R-TX, is standing strong against criticism about his controversial legislation to regulate memes.
His legislation, House Bill 366, which would mandate disclosures on altered media used in political advertising, received a hearing in the State Affairs Committee last Wednesday.
During the hearing, the former House Speaker claimed the bill was mostly focused on dealing with artificial intelligence in political advertising. However, critics note that the bill itself doesn’t make a difference between AI-generated content and mere Photoshop edits, potentially raising free speech concerns.
As Brandon Waltens of Texas Scorecard noted, Phelan’s legislation could “criminalize even rudimentary image manipulation in political speech.”
This bill was introduced as a response to a campaign mailer from Club for Growth in the 2024 presidential election cycle that showed Phelan standing to next to Nancy Pelosi. The mailer’s purpose was to call attention to how Phelan received significant campaign contributions from a PAC that also supports Pelosi.
David McIntosh, the president of Club for Growth Action, said to Texas Scorecard, “Despite Phelan’s attempts to regulate speech and humor, he’s still a joke in the eyes of Texas conservatives.”
Phelan attempted to pour cold water on concerns about the bill’s reach, asserting it wasn’t applicable to social media.
“I’m not coming for your memes. If you like your memes, you can keep your memes. This has nothing to do with X or Facebook or anything on social media,” he said in defense of the growing criticism his bill has faced
However, after further inquiry, Texas Ethics Commission General Counsel James Tinley revealed that social media posts could fall under the scope of the bill’s jurisdiction.
“I think it’s possible for certain communications that are expressly advocating … It wouldn’t target memes in particular, but if a candidate says ‘vote for me’ on their social media, that would be a communication … that could be subject [to the rules],” Tinley said in a testimony.
Phelan went on the defensive by also arguing that his bill was only focused on political advertising, proclaiming, “Again, this bill is solely within the election code. It has nothing to do with social media and nothing with someone posting something funny or not funny on the internet.”
Tinley’s response raised doubts about Phelan’s arguments about his bill’s allegedly narrow scope. “Political advertising is a communication that supports or opposes a candidate for nomination or election to public office … One of those ways is if it appears on an internet website,” he stated.
Further, Greyson Gee, a policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, argued that the bill was needed to stop politically deceptive AI-generated images.
“HB 366 addresses one of the most pressing threats to election integrity today—the use of artificial intelligence to create deceptive political content,” testified Gee.
In addition, TPPF pushed for changes to the bill, highlighting that the introduced version “does not include exemptions for satire” and made the suggestion that “the criminal penalties be changed to civil penalties to align with other instances where disclosure is not complied with by a candidate or campaign.”
Phelan did not back down from his support of the bill, suggesting that its penalties be more stringent.
“Quite frankly, I don’t know if a Class A misdemeanor is enough,” he said, adding that “the folks who are willing to do this don’t care about a $500 slap on the wrist.”
Those who commit a Class A misdemeanor could face up to a year in jail.
So far, this bill is still in committee and could be voted on in a future hearing.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
