Good morning, 

Here is the Texas Minute for Thursday, August 24, 2023.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Texas Lawmaker Names and Shames Colleagues for Killing Conservative Bills

• Republican State Rep. Brian Harrison of Midlothian is naming names when it comes to the legislature’s failure to pass certain pieces of conservative legislation, including a ban on Chinese ownership of Texas land and ending COVID vaccine mandates. Brandon Waltens has the details.
      
• Speaking in a radio interview with Chris Salcedo, Harrison said that House Speaker Dade Phelan and two of his main committee chairs – Republicans Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi and Dustin Burrows of Lubbock – were most responsible for thwarting the conservative legislative agenda.
      
• Harrison explained that the outsized influence of Democrats in the Texas House granted by GOP leadership allows them to control the chamber.
        
• “Democrats have a lot of power in the Texas House. Not a lick of it, though, that they earn from the voters,” said Harrison. “They got all their power from the ‘Republican’ leadership of the Texas House. Democrats can’t do anything that the Republican leadership does not let them do. And yet they do a whole lot of killing of countless conservative bills and they are allowed to pass liberal government expanding bills every single day in the Texas House because when you’re in the Texas House, the Democrats win, even when they lose the ballot box and it is past time for that insanity to stop.”

Report: TLR’s Role Against Paxton to be Questioned in Impeachment

• Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal team is reportedly considering calling the founder and chairman of Texans for Lawsuit Reform to testify when the Senate holds its impeachment trial next month.

        
• Despite the Senate's trial rules keeping witness lists secret, the Dallas Morning News was given access to the prosecution and defense lists.
      

• Texans for Lawsuit Reform emerged in the 1990s as a business advocacy group working to stop out-of-control lawsuits, giving to both Republicans and Democrats. Since the early 2000s, it has developed a reputation for blocking Republican social priorities in the Legislature. Politically, the ostensibly Republican group has supported Democrats over viable Republican challengers.

       
• TLR’s founder and chairman is Houston businessman Dick Weekley. He and TLR contributed more than $3 million to former Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, who finished third in her challenge to Paxton in the 2022 Republican primary. Paxton went on to defeat George P. Bush in the runoff. 
      
• Legal observers expect Weekley would have to comment on the role his organization has played leading up to the House impeachment of Paxton.
      
• House prosecutors reportedly plan to call several people to testify, including Paxton as a witness against himself.

L.A. Mayor Complains About Illegal Aliens Bused Into City

• Democrat Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for busing illegal aliens into the city while the area was under a tropical storm warning. Katy Marshall reports this was the ninth bus of illegal aliens to arrive in Los Angeles since Abbott started sending them to the city in June.
        
• Although Los Angeles was still under a flood advisory and experiencing heavy rain when the bus arrived on August 21, the storm had been declared a post-tropical storm and rainfall diminished by the afternoon.
       
• Abbott said Los Angeles’ distinction as a “sanctuary city” influenced his decision to send illegal aliens to the area.
      
• “Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status,” explained Abbott. “Our border communities are on the frontlines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border.”

South Texas Democrat Switches Party Affiliation

• Kleberg County Attorney Kira Talip Sanchez announced at an event hosted by Hispanic Republicans of Texas PAC that she was switching to the GOP – and that border security was the motivating factor.

    
• Emily Medeiros reports Kleberg County has historically been a Democrat stronghold but in 2020 went narrowly for Donald Trump.
      
• Sanchez was first elected to her post as a Democrat in 2014. In her role, she oversees Kleberg County’s Specialized Crimes and Narcotics Task Force.
      
• “There is an unprecedented crisis at our Southern Border. I believe that the GOP’s policies of law and order protecting safety, and backing the blue best align with my values and the values of the citizens of Kleberg County. I look forward to working with my colleagues to keep South Texas safe.” – Kira Talip Sanchez

Fort Worth ISD Ejects Man From Meeting... For Quoting From Library Book

• When Mike Cee attempted to read aloud a review of an explicit book made available to students during a Fort Worth ISD School Board meeting this week, he was ejected from the building. As Sydnie Henry notes, the expulsion was ordered by the school board president.

    
• “Flamer” by Mike Curato is written from the perspective of a child. It includes cartoon characters performing sexual acts on themselves and one another, partial nudity, and explicit behavior.
      
• After a school board member warned Cee that any language considered vulgar would end his speaking time, the audience erupted. Citizens can be heard loudly expressing disapproval – saying that if the material is too vulgar for a meeting of adults, then it shouldn’t be available to children.
      

• Fort Worth activist Carlos Turcios told Texas Scorecard the situation “shows why the community has lost trust with school boards.”
      

• A FWISD spokesman confirmed to Texas Scorecard that “Flamer” has been “permanently pulled from FWISD libraries.”

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