Briscoe Cain

Voting record and interest group ratings

In 2017, Mark Jones from Rice University in Houston released a study of votes in the 85th Texas legislature that indicated Cain was considered the "most conservative" legislator in the Texas House.^[12] The interest group, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, founded by Michael Quinn Sullivan, scored him 100 percent and rated him as one of the top 10 "Best Legislators of 2017".^[13][14] Texas Values, a Texas-based organization that advocates for traditional family values, scored him 100 percent and named Cain a "Faith & Family Champion".^[15] Young Conservatives of Texas rated him 100 percent.^[16] The Texas division of the National Federation of Independent Business, an organization that lobbies for small businesses, gave him a 100 percent rating.^[17][18]

Cain was named one of "The Worst Legislators of 2017" by Texas Monthly, which wrote "We tried really hard to give Briscoe Cain a pass. But he left us little choice" and described him as "uninformed and belligerent."^[19] Texas Monthly detailed a 2017 House session during which Cain "offered an amendment to defund a state council that promotes palliative care. He called it a 'death panel.' Under questioning from his colleagues, it became clear that Cain didn't know that palliative care is the treatment of terminally ill people for pain and anxiety to ease their passing. He eventually withdrew his amendment, but not before he'd very nearly zeroed out funding for a good program without actually knowing what it does."^[19]

Texas Southern University protest

On October 10, 2017, protesters at Texas Southern University (TSU) prevented Cain from speaking at a Federalist Society event on campus.^[20] Cain was invited by the president of TSU's Federalist Society student chapter to speak to students at the traditionally black university. He planned to talk about the Texas Legislature's most recent special session. During that session Cain proposed an amendment to a budget bill which would prevent the state of Texas from paying for sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy for inmates in prison, and he voted in favor of a proposed "bathroom bill".^[21] Protesters claimed that Cain "has ties to the Alt-Right and is anti-LGBT" and drowned out Cain's attempts to speak. They were removed; as Cain began to speak again the school's president ordered the protesters be brought back in and canceled the event, saying the Federalist Society chapter was an unregistered student group and the event was "unapproved".^[20][22] Cain said in a statement that the talk had been scheduled for months, and that he was "brought into a room in which the administration had specifically requested the talk occur. Then Black Lives Matter came in and bullied the administration into ending the event."^[20] James Douglas, the interim dean of TSU's Thurgood Marshall School of Law, said the event had been cleared with him and that he was investigating the incident. He said, "We have a process here in the law school, and they went through our process. The speaker had a First Amendment right to be heard by the students that invited him." A student who had helped organize the protest said that "[w]ith his First Amendment right to espouse hate comes our First Amendment right" to protest.^[23][24][20] Cain, a partner at a law firm where he practices First Amendment law, said he intended to sue the school and its president for infringing upon his First Amendment rights.^[24]

Stephen Hawking tweet

On March 13th, 2018, Cain tweeted about the death of prominent physicist Stephen Hawking. In his tweet, he stated "Stephen Hawking now knows the truth about how the universe was actually made. My condolences to his family." The tweet was largely perceived to be insensitive and was criticized by legislators on both sides of the aisle.^[25]