‘Betrayed’: Amarillo Sanctuary city for the Unborn vote fails after mayor breaks promise

Days after signaling his approval of a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance, Amarillo City Mayor Cole Stanley led the full city council to vote down that very ordinance. The ordinance would have closed several loopholes by extending the private enforcement mechanism found in the Texas Heartbeat Act from the point of a detectable heartbeat to the point of fertilization, and would have prohibited abortion trafficking across state lines.

“The council’s decision made Amarillo the largest conservative Texas city to reject the proposed policy, which would forbid the use of the city’s roads and highways to seek an abortion out of state. Now, a group of residents who petitioned for the ordinance will decide if the issue goes to voters in the Texas Panhandle city this fall,” the Texas Tribune reported. “Other cities and counties in Texas have passed ordinances to prohibit traveling through their jurisdictions for an abortion outside the state [including] the cities of Athens, Abilene, Plainview, San Angelo, Odessa, Muenster and Little River-Academy, and Mitchell, Goliad, Lubbock, Dawson, Cochran and Jack counties.”

While the ordinance effort began in December 2021, the Citizen Initiative Petition drive started in December 2023, when the Amarillo Sanctuary City For The Unborn (SCFTU) Initiating Committee convinced over 10,000 citizens to sign the petition (6,400 verified). An original proposal of the ordinance was presented to the city council at the end of May.

In full disclosure, I met with the Amarillo SCFTU Initiating Committee last week.

There, I observed the SCFTU Initiating Committee put their final touches on an amended ordinance in anticipation of the upcoming city council vote.

On June 5, 2024, work was still being done to shore up support. I observed that this group of Amarillo citizens, along with Sanctuary Cities founder Mark Lee Dickson, worked around the clock to finalize their amended ordinance, hoping to satisfy the most recent objections of the mayor and city council.

Initiating Committee Meets with Amarillo Mayor

On June 6, 2024, in an unofficial capacity as a Texas resident, I was invited to join the Initiating Committee in a meeting with Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley.

Mayor Stanley stated that he was pro-life and was concerned about the preborn. However, despite his words, something seemed tense between the mayor and Mr. Dickson, who had successfully led nearly 80 prior ordinances in various cities and counties to victory. In the middle of the meeting, the mayor requested that Mr. Dickson and I step into a separate room while he spoke with just the Amarillo citizens on the initiating committee, and we complied.

When we were invited to return to the conference room, the mayor was intent on changing one section of the ordinance, which involved “abortion trafficking.” He was prepared to offer alternative language as something he would be willing to get behind. Discussion ensued between Mayor Stanley, Mr. Dickson, and spokespersons for the initiating committee. No agreement was reached at that time, so the meeting was adjourned, and we left city hall.

Later that evening, the initiating committee met to discuss progress and strategize further. After some discussion about the mayor’s earlier suggestions, the committee decided to accept the mayor’s proposed changes, and proceeded to rewrite that specific section of the ordinance to include his suggested text.

I was present in the room when members of the initiating committee called the mayor that same evening. The mayor agreed to the call being placed on speaker phone, so everyone could hear the conversation. Mr. Dickson read the edited section of the ordinance to the mayor, who replied, “I think that’s where we need to be. I’m okay… Appreciate you guys. I know it’s been a long day, but I think we’re there.”

The committee then expressed their appreciation for the mayor’s help and thanked him.

Mr. Dickson then reiterated to the mayor that sections C, D, E, and F of the ordinance would remain the same, to which the mayor replied, “I wasn’t changing any of them; I’d leave them all just as they were.”

Despite Promises, Mayor Fails to Support Ordinance 

The ordinance was placed on the city council agenda for discussion on June 11, 2024.

A video of the meeting shows multiple pro-abortion people and groups (some from out of the area) represented at the public hearing in opposition tothe ordinance. In contrast, numerous Amarillo citizens expressed support for the proposal.

Following the conclusion of public comment, the mayor failed to publicly lend his support to the amended ordinance. Instead, he polled council members to assess whether “a vote on this amended ordinance is a benefit for this council.”

Describing the issue surrounding the pro-life ordinance as having “huge complexities,” the mayor said to the council: “If we could establish with consensus, we wouldn’t put this into law, then I would prefer to take no action on the amendment and to address the full ordinance in the ballot.”

He added, “I’m trying not to jump out there first and tell you what I think.”

Then he told the council, “I’ve heard a lot about [the] right to travel – do you have the right to travel – does a person have the right to travel? My question would be the opposite… Does the local government have the right to prevent travel short of you being arrested?”

However, the mayor failed to assure the council that the ordinance did not restrict the travel of a pregnant woman, nor did it criminally prosecute anyone who traveled in the city. It merely allowed for the same private right of action (civil lawsuit) included in Texas’ Heartbeat Act (SB8) to be filed against anyone aiding or abetting a pregnant Amarillo citizen to travel to get an abortion.

“What if we had a conversation about jurisdictional limits?” the mayor asked, further confusing the issue at hand in the ordinance.

Unfortunately, a reading of the fully amended ordinance (which may have brought clarity), did not occur.

Instead, after hours of public comment, the council grilled one spokesperson of the initiating committee about their concerns, with the mayor disallowing clarification from additional members, or from Mark Lee Dickson — who was sitting in the front row.

Describing his next “offer” as his “final” “negotiation,” the mayor asked, “Would this committee be willing to restrict and amend your petition… To the six loopholes that only cover within the city limits?”

Stunningly, the mayor seemed to be throwing out the same objections given prior to his amended text being added to the ordinance. “What you’re asking me to do is put forward an ordinance and enact it into city law that would exercise an authority that I basically am telling you that I don’t believe I have,” he said in the hearing.

The mayor seemed hung up on the phrase “abortion trafficking,” claiming that he had no jurisdiction over this. But again, his own edits were included in that section of the amended ordinance, which left several members of the initiating committee baffled.

City Council Vote

Following the mayor’s discussion, a motion was proposed to “reject the amended ordinance as stated.” That motion passed by a vote of 4 to 1, with only Councilman Don Tipps opposing the rejection. The mayor and three other councilmen voted to reject the very amended ordinance the mayor helped craft just days prior.

Within minutes, the mayor convinced the council to propose a second motion, offered by another councilman, to reject the original version of the SCFTU ordinance. That, too, passed with a vote of 4 to 1.

The initiating committee was informed that they now had fewer than three weeks to send the ordinance to the city council to be placed on the ballot for a full vote of the citizens of Amarillo, and the meeting was then abruptly adjourned.

Pro-abortion Advocates Cheer

Following the vote, Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the pro-abortion Women’s March, sent out an e-mail which claimed that “organizing” won the defeat.

“I want to thank Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance [ARFA] for all the laser-sharp, tough-as-nails organizing that got us here today. Y’all did the damn thing,” she wrote.

“VICTORY: Amarillo has rejected an anti-abortion travel ban after community members spoke out against the proposed ban for 5+ hours. Congrats to the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance for leading the effort in stopping this harmful ban,” posted the Twitter “X” account of the ACLU of Texas.

Members of Initiating Committee Express Disappointment 

Members of the SCFTU Initiating Committee were understandably shaken, expressing anger, disappointment, and outrage at the mayor’s actions, and accusing the mayor and other councilmen of being on the same side as the abortion industry and its supporters.

“In meetings the previous week with the mayor and council members individually, and with Hope Choice Executive Director, Candy Gibbs, and members of her Board collectively, the committee came to a gentleman’s agreement on the wording of an amended ordinance,” Steve Austin, a spokesman for the Sanctuary City for the Unborn initiating committee, told Live Action News. “It quickly became obvious during Tuesday’s city council meeting that the council was worried how this ordinance would affect companies in our area such as Amazon, who provide a travel reimbursement to their employees for out-of-state abortions up to $4,000 annually.”

Jacob Meyer, an initiating committee member and president of the Amarillo Area Young Republicans, claimed the mayor and council had “effectively stabbed us in the back, and this won’t be forgotten, not in November and especially not in May next year when they are up for reelection.”

“It is frustrating that the mayor and City Council chose to side with ARFA, and the radical Left over the thousands of pro-life constituents who signed our petition, especially after the Initiating Committee negotiated the Ordinance with them in good faith between the May 28th and June 11th Council meetings,” Meyer added.

Committee member John Barrett said in a written statement, “I have in my career negotiated multiple millions in contracts, some of which were seven figures alone. I have spent untold hours, days and weeks negotiating clauses and terms in contracts. Never in my life did I ever expect I would be negotiating for the life of an unborn child. Yet, here I am.”

“What I also never thought I would ever see in my life was to see a city council reduce the value of the life of an unborn child to a clause in a city ordinance,” he added. “That is exactly what this council did. It’s a shameful act beyond the pale. To see a cabal of four people reduce the value of life to a line on a page.”

Austin said, “I feel betrayed by, lied to, and manipulated by each of these people we have worked so hard to please. The council has gone against the platform on which they ran for office. They are now being praised by… ARFA, ACLU, and all of Rachel O’Leary Carmona’s followers. I am beyond belief that they changed their minds and voted to keep abortion trafficking legal in Amarillo.”

Initiating committee member Peggy Thomas told Live Action News, “I can’t get my head around how any of them could have chosen the cheers of the left over saving the life of an unborn child by any legal means possible.”

“I’m incredulous. It reminds me of the… German Churches who remained silent rather than stand against Hitler,” Thomas added.  “Their passive silence allowed Hitler to take over and the Holocaust to take place. How many unborn babies will die between now and the vote in November? It grieves my heart. Their blood is on the hands of our ‘Elders at the City Gates’ — our mayor and City Council, with the exception of Don Tipps. I pray God showers him bountifully for the gallant stance he took.”

“By deferring to a city-wide vote, this council has displayed true weakness,” claimed Barrett. “They caved to fear. You will NEVER please everyone in this city. Never. This council is trying to straddle the fence and keep both ears to the ground… unable to recognize their own moral bankruptcy.”

Peggy Thomas acknowledged Mark Lee Dickson “for his unrelenting, God-given passion to save the lives of unborn children and to extinguish abortion from our God-given country,” saying, “We owe a debt of gratitude to him and his benefactors for helping us and guiding us in Amarillo to accomplish our goal to make Amarillo a Sanctuary City for the Unborn. His godly character shines brightly. We are blessed to have him here. No doubt William Wilberforce, who fought tirelessly to end slavery [in Britain] would be proud of the work Mark is doing to end abortion in America.”

Author’s Note: Live Action News reached out to Mayor Cole Stanley’s office for comment but did not receive a response at the time the article was submitted for publication.

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