The move comes after the founder of a north Texas megachurch resigned following sexual abuse allegations
DALLAS — As the fallout continues from a sex scandal involving the founder and senior pastor of Gateway Church, many state lawmakers are calling for action.
Robert Morris recently resigned amid allegations he sexually abused a girl in the 1980s, starting when she was 12 years old.
The Gateway Church Board of Elders accepted Morris’ resignation and hired the law firm Haynes and Boone to investigate the allegations.
State Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, says he’s already working on legislation that would increase the penalties for sex crimes against children.
“I just don’t think our local District Attorneys are clued into the law because any DA could have brought charges against someone from the Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts or a church for that matter,” Rep. Toth told us on Inside Texas Politics. “I want to raise the penalty so that our DAs understand that this is there, and they’ve got to start enforcing it and they’ve got to start prosecuting and indicting people that do this.”
Rep. Toth says the issue is personal because he has a staff member whose daughter was sexually violated many years ago by someone who worked at a school.
The Republican says that the school district let the person go and they went to another ISD and committed the same crime there.
Toth very plainly told us he thinks at a minimum Morris and the members of the Gateway Church Board of Elders should be sued.
“We want to bring total clarity to the fact that you do this stuff, you cover up, and there’s going to be criminal and civil consequences. The civil consequences can include lawsuits of hundreds of thousands of dollars and wipe you out,” he said.
As for the upcoming legislative session in January 2025, Rep. Toth thinks Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, has a “really good chance” of winning the job again, but not with Democrats.
Toth says Phelan would need at least 12 Republican votes if all Democrats back him, but that support would come with a high price.
“If he does that, he will be radioactive and any Republican that votes for him will be radioactive,” the Republican said bluntly.
And if Phelan does become Speaker again, Toth says the fight to pass school vouchers becomes an uphill battle despite recent conservative wins in the primary that emboldened Governor Abbott to claim he now had the votes to get it passed.