Good morning –

Some people want to be thought of as unwilling draftees in the cause of liberty; I feel honored to even be allowed on the team! More on that at the conclusion of today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan
April 28, 2023 

Democrat Pushes Driver's Licenses For Illegal Aliens

• Democrat State Rep. John Bucy of Austin is attempting to ease the way for illegal aliens to receive Texas driver’s licenses. Sydnie Henry has the details.
    
• Significantly, when illegal aliens are "caught" and then released, they are issued a notice of their "pending" status. It is this documentation that Bucy wants to make an acceptable form of identification for the issuance of a driver's license in Texas.
      
• The Democrat wants to allow any illegal alien crossing the Texas-Mexico border who receives a “pending” status from the federal government to immediately receive a Texas driver's license.
      
• Rather than a driver's license, how about we drive them back across the border?
       
• “The Biden Administration has, over the course of the previous two years, abused and circumvented federal immigration law to create literally millions with ongoing pending legal status that may be covered by this bill. If this bill is passed, Texas may be forced to issue driver’s licenses to people who have no legal right to reside in the United States, but who have been given a pending status by illicit programs created by the current presidential administration.” – Chris Russo, Texans for Strong Borders

Lawmakers Slow to Act on Child Gender Mutilation Ban

• With just over a month left in Texas’ 88th Legislative Session, the Senate has approved a measure to ban child gender mutilation but the House has yet to take action. Katy Marshall examines the status of the legislative push in the context of the constitutional calendar.

      
• The issue is one of the Republican Party of Texas’ legislative priorities, calling for a complete ban on "chemical castration, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, genital mutilation, bodily alteration surgery, psychological/social transitioning, and any other methods applied to or performed on children."
       

• Yesterday, the Texas House Calendars Committee – staffed with Speaker Phelan's most loyal legislators – voted unanimously to further delay action on Senate legislation designed to protect children.

House Restores Penalties For Illegal Voting

• Texas GOP priority legislation to restore felony penalties for illegal voting has finally advanced in the state House, with Republicans approving the measure and Democrats opposed. Erin Anderson has the story.

       
• Republicans are fixing a problem they themselves created (at the behest of the Democrats) two years ago. That's when an amendment to comprehensive election reform legislation reduced the penalty from a felony to a misdemeanor. Yesterday's party-line vote in the Texas House restores the penalties to what they had been.
      
• Democrats opposed the fix, calling it unnecessary and claiming it would create a “chilling effect” on voters.
      
• The Senate passed a similar measure more than a month ago.

Corrupting Texas Education

• All week the investigative team at Texas Scorecard has been looking at the influence of leftwing non-profit entities in the state’s public schools – ones that have ties to the Communist Party in China.
      

• The series concludes at noon today with a look at the woke Dell Foundation's involvement in Texas public education.
      

• For the series, a review of multiple documents from the Texas Education Agency, the U.S. Department of Education, and other sources reveal that while the Gates and Dell Foundations, as well as other institutions, market themselves as doing good for underserved communities, they are pushing the indoctrination of students and teachers with leftist propaganda.
      

• In the cases examined in this series, these entities have offered faulty solutions to poorly identified problems, only for their proposed programs to crumble – leaving school districts and parents picking up the pieces.

Texas Cities Want More Debt Backed By Property Tax Burdens

• Ten Texas cities have put a combined $1.7 billion in bond propositions on the May 6 ballot. Bond debt is used to finance spending on big projects, reports Erin Anderson, and all the borrowed bond money must be repaid with interest by local property taxpayers.
    
• Texas cities currently owe a combined $40 billion in property tax-backed bond debt, plus another $50 billion in revenue-supported debt, according to the Texas Bond Review Board. Streets, parks, and even an airport top the list of projects that cities want to finance with the proposed bonds.
      
• The cities are Arlington, Devine, Flower Mound, Frisco, McKinney, New Braunfels, Pearland, Richardson, Round Rock, and Rowlett.
      
• Frisco is asking for nearly $500 million in new debt. The City of Arlington calls their proposed bond package a “five-year” program, but city property taxpayers would be footing the bill for 25 years – until the bonds are paid off in 2048.

📺 WATCH: The Headline

• On this week's edition of The Headline with Brandon Waltens, State Sen. Brandon Creighton discusses the Senate’s efforts to rid higher education of CRT and DEI programs, as well as the status of his school choice proposal.
      
• You can watch The Headline on the Apple TV or Roku apps, on an iOS or Android phone, or on the Texas Scorecard YouTube channel.

Friday Reflection: Stones and Dry Bones

Not long ago I was chatting with a fairly well-known conservative personality. He was lamenting that he “had” to be in the fight. As he talked about all the other things he thought he would “rather” be doing than be engaged in the cause of liberty, my thoughts turned to a bunch of dry bones.

The Prophet Ezekiel was told by God of the rebirth of Israel. In the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel, that prophesy is followed up by a vision. In it, Ezekiel was taken to a valley full of bones. At God’s insistence, Ezekiel spoke words over the bones and they began to regather into men – taking on muscle and skin until eventually the valley was filled with a mighty army.

There are numerous interpretations of that section of scripture which are a lot more theologically heady than what I will offer here.

My read of that passage, and applying it to my own life, is similar to how I take the words of John the Baptist in Matthew 3. There, we find John warning people about the arrogance of their lineage. “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”

In other words, I might not be as necessary as I may like to presume!

With that in mind, I find great joy in being allowed to do what I do every day. I meet men and women who joyfully volunteer their time and fortunes in the fight for liberty in our Republic. They are the rule, not the exception.

But some people – such as the fellow mentioned above – like to grumble. They want to be seen as reluctantly recruited into the fight because of some uniquely exulted quality they possess. They seem to suggest that were it not for being conscripted, they wouldn’t care about the issues confronting our Republic – much less be involved.

That’s exhausting.

If we are honest, very few of us are actually up to the task of saving the Republic. There is little doubt that what we do could be done more efficiently and effectively by a stone turned into a son or a heap of dry bones given new life. I don’t know about you, but I’m just excited to be on the team. Whether I get to make a big play or sit on the sidelines, I think it is cool I get to wear the jersey of a patriot engaged in one of the most consequential battles of human history.

Rather than grumble about our tasks and responsibilities, we should greet each new twist and turn in the journey as a joyful reminder that we get to be in the fight.

Now Available: 'Reflections on Life & Liberty'

• The book comes in three formats: hardcover, paperback, and digital download. For now, "Reflections on Life & Liberty" is only available at Amazon.