A Texas state lawmaker who recently blocked a Democratic attempt to filibuster in the state Senate once suggested using the phrase “shoot, shovel and shut up” to handle immigration, according to a new report.
Last week, state Sen. Charles Perry, a Republican from Lubbock, acted to stop Democratic Sen. Carol Alvarado’s filibuster over the state’s new Trump-backed congressional redistricting map. Perry cited a campaign fundraising email from Alvarado promoting the filibuster, saying it was unethical and a misuse of Senate resources.
On Friday, Democracy Docket shared a video from a 2022 hearing where Perry made the controversial comment.
“I’ve got a phrase I want to say so bad. But I won’t throw you under the bus. It was extremely good,” Perry said at a Water, Agriculture & Rural Affairs committee meeting about cattle.
“You might as well go ahead,” replied Scott Williamson, then-executive director of law enforcement at the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, who was testifying.
“I can do that?” Perry asked.
“You’ll have me wondering the whole time,” Williamson said.
“It kind of addresses the immigration issue up in my area of the woods, I’m afraid,” Perry added. “Shoot, shovel and shut up.”
Williamson laughed and asked, “Wonder where you heard that?”
“I don’t know where I heard that, but, anyway, all joking aside, on that issue, I’m very concerned,” Perry said.
Democracy Docket reporter Jen Rice called the remark “disturbing” and warned it could backfire in a legal challenge to the state’s redistricting plan. She said it might help show a “racial animus against Latinos” among white lawmakers.
“Usually elected officials don’t say the quiet part out loud, but this whole process started with the quiet part being screamed,” Dan Vicuña, director of redistricting and representation at Common Cause, told Democracy Docket.
Perry has a history of controversial statements. In 2014, he used his inauguration speech to compare a government without God to the Holocaust under Nazi Germany.
