Texas law states that when a semi-truck driver can’t read or speak English and crashes his 60,000-pound semi into you or your loved ones, the jury automatically learns the driver violated state and federal law and doesn’t know our language. In 2025, Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) tried to change the law to stop juries from automatically learning when a semi-truck driver violated state and federal law and can’t read or speak English.
Caught red-handed, TLR is now lying about what their bill did.
TLR claims their bill would have allowed evidence of a driver’s inability to speak or read English in SOME circumstances, ignoring the fact that current Texas law automatically alerts the jury in ALL circumstances. TLR tried to waterdown current Texas law and is now lying to cover it up. There’s nothing Texan about lying.
What TLR tried to change is the automatic admission of a driver’s inability to read or speak English in accordance with state and federal law. So, if a semi-truck driver is drunk and crashes into your wife or child, killing them, under TLR’s bill, the jury will never learn the driver couldn’t read or speak English because the “cause” of the crash is the driver’s intoxication, not their inability to read or speak English.
Or if the truck driver is watching Netflix on his phone and crashes into you, the jury would never know he couldn’t read or speak English, as that was not the cause of the crash.
Why does TLR want this? Because TLR works for the insurance companies! The insurance companies, in hiring these foreign drivers who can’t speak or read English, want to limit their risk and keep Texas juries from knowing when a semi-truck driver can’t read or speak English as required by both state and federal law.
TLR is squarely at odds with President Trump, who called English proficiency “common sense” and said “Proficiency in English…should be a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers.”
Even Governor Greg Abbott said, “Every commercial driver license operator on Texas roadways must be able to communicate clearly in English to ensure compliance with traffic laws, follow safety directions, and prevent accidents,” and directed Texas DPS to enact zero-tolerance enforcement on the ability of semi-truck drivers to speak and read English.
Further, in a recent US Supreme Court Case, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito stated “An illegal alien who cannot read English road signs cannot drive an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer.” They go on to say that due to “systemic non-compliance with federal CDL standards” many truck drivers in America can not read or speak English, even stating that crashes involving non-English speaking drivers “Are disturbingly common.”
Lest one thinks this is just a problem for blue states like California or New York, Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched a statewide investigation into trucking schools in Texas for certifying non-English speaking drivers. The Texas Department of Public Safety also recently changed their rules so the written knowledge portion of the CDL test must be conducted in English. The hands on skills test for CDL drivers has always been conducted in English.
TLR has been exposed and now seeks to rewrite history. They cannot hide that two staff members, including their President, testified in support of changing Texas law to ban automatic admission of a driver’s inability to read or speak English, or that 2 of TLR’s lobbyists testified in support of HB 4688, by State Representative Jeff Leach, which also sought to repeal automatically allowing that evidence in trial.
This type of deceit is not to be tolerated by Republicans. TLR clearly stood with illegal aliens and those who cannot read or speak English over law-abiding Texas citizens. Barring this evidence from automatically going to the jury puts the citizens of Texas at a distinct disadvantage. Juries in Texas must continue to automatically learn if a semi-truck driver is in violation of state and federal law when they can’t read speed limit signs and slams a 30-ton rig into you or your loved one’s, causing irreparable harm.
This is just one of the many examples of TLR’s deceit. TLR has been caught in their web of lies before. They play word games, oppose Donald Trump and Greg Abbott, and then are audacious enough to lie about it all. Did you know they also funded liberal Democrats with over $6,000,000.00? Or that they also tried to eliminate religious, community, and family values from Texas Courts?
There is nothing Texan about this deceit. Republicans should reject TLR.
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