Good morning,

I know I harp on this a lot, but I don't think it is possible to overstate the significance of the most important choice we make every single day. More on that at the end of today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan
Friday, March 15, 2024 

Phelan Races to Raise Money from Crony Establishment

• Austin donors, lobbyists, and politicians are scrambling to throw financial support behind Speaker Dade Phelan as he struggles to hold on to his Southeast Texas House district in the May runoff. Brandon Waltens reports on an upcoming Phelan fundraiser in Dallas at the home of billionaire Kelcy Warren.

         
• The host committee for the Dallas event is a who's-who of liberal and establishment Republicans, including the Houston-based Texans for Lawsuit Reform and its founder Dick Weekley. It also includes 13 DFW lawmakers and former governor-turned-gambling-lobbyist Rick Perry, who has emerged as Phelan's chief cheerleader.
        
• Next week, Phelan will host a fundraiser for himself with an unidentified “special guest” at the Austin Club, a notorious hotspot for lobbyists near the Capitol.

Paxton Announces Lawsuit Against Colony Ridge

• Attorney General Ken Paxton sued housing development company Colony Ridge yesterday for “deceptive trade practices, fraud in real estate transactions, and other violations of Texas and federal law.” The housing area has attracted national controversy for its practice of advertising in Central America and targeting illegal aliens. Will Biagini has the story.

        
• In a 2023 letter to Congress, Paxton described Colony Ridge as "attracting and enabling illegal alien settlement in the state of Texas."
      
• According to Paxton's lawsuit, Colony Ridge profits by targeting foreign-born and Hispanic customers who have little to no access to credit. The company promises, he alleges, cheap financing options and ready-to-build land without requiring them to have proof of income. The result is customers defaulting on land financing at “jaw dropping rates” once they discover that they cannot meaningfully use the land.
       
• Located northeast of Houston in Liberty County, Colony Ridge was sued late last year by the Department of Justice for using “bait and switch” predatory loans.
       
• Colony Ridge was authorized by legislation that was crafted and quietly pushed in 2017 by liberal State Rep. Ernest Bailes (R-Shepherd). The issue was a central theme in this month's GOP primary, which saw Bailes defeated by challenger Janis Holt.

Pornography Website Disables Access for Users in Texas

• The world's largest online platform for sharing sex videos has disabled access to the site in Texas in response to the implementation of a new state law designed to protect children. Erin Anderson and Sydnie Henry have the details.  
        
• The new law requires commercial pornography websites to use “reasonable” methods to verify that users are at least 18 years of age before giving them access to X-rated content online. Websites violating the law face fines of $10,000 per day.
        
• “Texas families just keep winning!” said Brady Gray, the president of the Texas Family Project. 

Houston Mayor Announces Police Review Task Force

• Houston Mayor John Whitmire has announced his appointees to an independent review committee that will operate alongside the police department in reviewing 264,000 incident reports that were closed without an investigation. Charles Blain explains that the root of the scandal dates back almost a decade.
        
• Whitmire said he believes now the coding used to close the cases was done in part to manipulate the city's crime reporting statistics. Police Chief Troy Finner has said the only crime rate he was confident in is homicide, because “there’s a body.”
       
• “I want the panel to find out how in the world this existed for eight years without someone having the good sense of sounding the alarm.” – Houston Mayor John Whitmire

Austin ISD Pushes LGBT Indoctrination on Students

• Children in central Texas will return from spring break next week. In Austin, they will be greeted by the school district's radical sexual and gender ideology. Emily Medeiros reports the Austin Independent School District has designed March 18-23 as “Pride Week,” during which teachers and children will be required to “celebrate LGBTQIA+ students, staff and families.”
     
• Each AISD campus will also have “pride swag” that students and staff will be able to pick up from their school’s front office. 
      
• A mother of a student who attends an Austin ISD elementary school told Texas Scorecard that she will be keeping her daughter out of school for the week. 
      
• “We are keeping her out because we want to protect her innocence, and her view on the world is simple. She can’t add or subtract fully. She can’t read a book. She doesn’t understand the fundamentals of life yet. How is someone at her age and functionality going to understand this?” – mother of an AISD student

Friday Reflection:
Making A Choice

As a kid, I loved the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series of books. Maybe you remember them?

As the story progressed, you made decisions for the characters that affected the outcome. In life's daily adventure, we have an even more important choice: choosing our attitude toward the events around us.

In the Gospel of St. John, right before being betrayed, Jesus tells His disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” This comes shortly after telling them they’d always have the poor among them, that they would be persecuted for Him, and the like. Sounds like trouble, right?

“Let not your hearts be troubled.”

He could tell them that because He gave them something better to focus on. Jesus went on to say he was going to prepare a place for them in heaven – that God the Father loves them and that He is with them.

They had a choice. They could let their hearts be troubled by the grind of life in a fallen world, or they could joyfully embrace the future He had prepared for them.

This wasn’t just a choice for those disciples. It applies to each of us.

There is a lot we cannot control in life, and there is a lot of trouble around us. We get to choose our reaction to it. We get to choose our perspective.

In the Book of Joshua, two simple phrases are repeated over and over: “Choose for yourself this day whom you will serve” and “be strong and courageous.” There is a choice implicit in that second phrase: we can choose to be weak and fearful, thereby revealing who we serve.

Will we focus on the ills around us or look for solutions? Will we dwell on our present troubles or press on joyfully toward eternity?

Today and every day in the glorious adventure through life and liberty, we get to choose if we will be strong and courageous. We get to choose if we will serve the God of Creation.

So let your heart not be troubled—be strong and courageous, for we serve a mighty God who loves us!

Quote-Unquote

"We must all either wear out or rust out, every one of us. My choice is to wear out."

– Theodore Roosevelt