Good morning!

This is the Texas Minute for Wednesday, April 24, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Texas DEMs Lose Latest Attempt to Force Universal Voting By Mail

• Texas Democrats lost another attempt to overturn the state’s election law limiting no-excuse mail-in voting to voters 65 years or older. Erin Anderson has the story.
      
• The Democrats' intention has been to use the federal courts to force Texas and other states to accept universal voting by mail. Lower courts have rejected their claims multiple times, including their most recent loss handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. 
      

• Under Texas law, only voters who are 65 or older, disabled, in jail, or outside their home county during an election are eligible to vote by mail.
       

• The Texas Democrat Party filed a lawsuit in early 2020 seeking to make voting by mail universal, using fears about the COVID-19 outbreak as an excuse to push their preferred policies. After losing that case, the Democrats changed their argument, claiming that Texas’ mail-ballot age restriction is unconstitutional notwithstanding COVID-19 concerns.
      

• Democrats nationwide want federal courts to overturn state laws and allow everyone to vote by mail, a process that experts say is more vulnerable to fraud and abuse than in-person voting.
      

• “The only way to truly vote securely and secretly is in person, inside the polling location.” — Christine Welborn of Advancing Integrity

Lawmaker Wants Texas to Reject Federal Education Funds

• With the Biden administration announcing plans to radically change the federal Title IX program to give protections to biological men in women’s spaces, Republican State Rep. Brian Harrison of Midlothian is calling on House Speaker Dade Phelan to conduct interim hearings on removing federal funds from Texas’ schools. Brandon Waltens has the details.
   

• Title IX refers to federal civil rights guarantees that were originally designed to prohibit sex-based discrimination in education. In the 1,500-page re-write of the rules by the Biden administration, “gender identity” is added as a protected class.
     

• Harrison explains that the only reason Texas schools would be subject to this new rewrite of the law is because the state voluntarily participates in the federal education funding scheme.

      
• "It will be a federal offense if students and teachers fail to use preferred pronouns. Men will be allowed to steal academic and athletic scholarships from women. Our campuses will be returned to the disastrous prior policies of sending sexual misconduct cases to campus kangaroo courts. Furthermore, men will soon be federally required to be allowed to play in women’s sports, likely undoing protections our legislature proudly enacted. The Texas legislature has the power to stop this. We must act now." – Brian Harrison

Texas Supreme Court Puts Harris County's Socialist Scheme On Hold

• The Texas Supreme Court has placed an administrative "stay" on Harris County’s guaranteed income scheme that Attorney General Ken Paxton is arguing violates state law. Harris County is trying to give $500 per month for 18 months to nearly 1,900 families. Will Biagini reports the payments were supposed to begin today.
     
• The Texas Constitution forbids “any county, city, town or other political corporation or subdivision of the State… to grant public money or thing of value in aid of, or to any individual.”
       
• The Supreme Court stipulated that no payments were to be made under the program pending further communication from the court. 

Police Union Warns Houston Isn't Safe

• Leaders of the Houston Police Officers’ Union are warning the public that the city isn’t safe due to police staffing shortages and the city allowing suspected criminals to walk free. Emily Medeiros has the story from the state's largest city.
       
• “I would not let my wife or my kids walk down the streets of Houston at midnight under any circumstances,” said Ray Hunt, the union's executive director. “It is not safe in major cities in 2024, and it’s not safe here.”
       
• Houston isn't the only city with an under-staffed police department; Dallas and Austin are also facing manpower issues.

Audit Reveals Fort Bend ISD Bond Failures

• Charles Blain reports that a new audit has revealed failures in the Fort Bend ISD 2022 bond planning.
      
• In February, Fort Bend ISD’s board of trustees received a report from the administration detailing a $133 million gap between the amount approved by voters, $1.2 billion, and the total cost of bond projects.
   
• Among other things, the audit found the prior ISD administration made a conscious decision not to adjust certain project budgets for anticipated inflation. School officials were also blamed for letting their fear of criticism—having already been criticized on the overall size of the bond—stop them from raising early warnings.

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– Thomas Jefferson​

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