Good morning,

We're often told, "Government is downstream from culture." But is it? I conclude the week reflecting on that curious platitude of the modern era.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, April 26, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Texas GOP Exploring Options to Close Primary Elections From Democrat Interference

• The Republican Party of Texas will soon be exploring ways to close their primary elections in an effort to stop Democrats from interfering in picking the party’s nominees. Brandon Waltens has the details.

       
• Ahead of the state party convention next month, GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi announced yesterday the creation of a new working group to explore both “legislative and extra-legislative avenues” to close the primary elections. Nearly 73 percent of Republican voters approved a non-binding ballot proposition last month in support of closed primaries. 
       
• While establishing closed primaries has been a legislative priority of the Republican Party of Texas, the state instead operates an open primary system. In some districts, this means Democrats voting in safely Republican districts in order to pull candidates to the left.

Mary Talley Bowden V. Texas Medical Board

• A long-awaited hearing pitting the State of Texas against a popular doctor was scheduled to kick off via Zoom next week but has again been delayed. At issue, reports Daniel Greer, is not just Mary Talley Bowden’s medical license but medical freedom in general.
      
• The Texas Medical Board has been threatening to revoke Dr. Mary Talley Bowden’s license after receiving complaints that she refused to follow government-mandated treatment protocols during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2023, the TMB filed a complaint against Dr. Bowden, alleging unprofessional conduct and violations of the standard of care... despite her treating 6,000 COVID patients with zero deaths.
     
• Dr. Bowden believes the medical board’s actions against her are retaliatory and an attempt to silence her views.
      
• These fights have been costly to Bowden. She recently revealed the financial toll of defending herself has exceeded $100,000. According to the Texas Medical Board, their costs total just $17,593.20.
        

• The disparity in expenditures is a helpful reminder that when the state is weaponized against citizens, it has unlimited resources, and the process is often the punishment.

A.G. Taking over Prosecution of Harris County Judge Staff

• Outgoing Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced yesterday that the Texas Attorney General’s Office would be “assuming jurisdiction” over the public corruption cases of three staff members to Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Charles Blain has the story.
   
• The investigation is based on an $11 million COVID outreach contract awarded to Elevate Strategies, which at the time was a one-person owned by a Democrat political operative. The firm was awarded the contract in 2021, beating out bigger and better-equipped competitors. This spurred questions about the bidding process.
      
• Three members of Hidalgo’s staff were accused of helping steer the contract to Elevate and ultimately received felony charges for misuse of official information and tampering with a governmental record.
       
• Ogg said she intended to prosecute the cases, but since she lost her re-election campaign and the Democrat nominee for the office has made statements indicating that the charges were baseless, she felt the Attorney General’s office would be the best agency to prosecute the matter.

RELATED

UPDATE on Teacher Accused of Trafficking Students

• Grigsby is accused of helping her son, Roger Magee, force troubled teens from Klein Cain High School into prostitution. 

Conroe ISD Keeps Gender Confusion Book on Shelves

• Parents in Conroe Independent School District are pushing back against a book in the libraries that encourages children to change their gender without parental consent. Luca Cacciatore reports the book is available to students as young as 7th grade.
       
• State Rep. Steve Toth (R-Conroe) drew attention to Donna Gephart’s book Lily and Dunkin earlier this week, pointing out that page 335 highlights The Trevor Project’s online resource, “TrevorChat.” 
        
• TrevorChat, which can be accessed without parental consent, has come under fire for the conduct of some of its administrators in promoting young users to go behind their parents' backs on issues of sexuality.

Sixth Texas County Outlaws Abortion Trafficking

• Jack County unanimously passed an ordinance this week outlawing abortion and abortion trafficking within its unincorporated area. Emily Medeiros reports this makes it the sixth Texas county to do so.
      
• The resolution prohibits abortion-inducing drugs and the transport of aborted fetal remains from any abortion provider within the unincorporated area of the county. It also makes it unlawful for any person to "knowingly transport any individual for the purpose of providing or obtaining an elective abortion" whether the procedure takes place in the county or not.
      
• The other counties that have passed a similar resolution include Dawson County, Lubbock County, Cochran County, Goliad County, and Mitchell County.

Friday Reflection:
Downstream From Faith

We’re often told that “government is downstream from culture.” This platitude sounds good as it rolls past our lips. Nine syllables in five words give a sense of refinement.

Sadly, it is often uttered by those looking to excuse their inactivity in government or, worse, their casual endorsement of bad government. “Well, it’s the best we can do… because of culture.”

Culture and government reflect each other like funhouse mirrors. Culture impacts how we see government, but government also impacts how we see culture. Both, though, are merely reflections of something else.

Allow me to switch back to the upstream/downstream analogy.

Culture and government are better thought of as water-front property on a reservoir at the end of a river. The headwaters of that river are neither culture nor government but faith.

Our Founding Fathers understood this.

It is why they were so insistent that this republic would only make sense in the context of a “moral and religious people,” to borrow a line from John Adams.

In a monarchy or other “strong-man” dictatorship, culture and government are a reflection of the “leader’s” will. A benevolent and enlightened king will rule with a gentle hand and promote a happy culture. Once his corrupt, lecherous son gets the throne… Well, not so much.

This is no different in our self-governing republic, where the citizens are in charge. When the citizenry is “moral and religious,” that will be reflected in the laws as surely as in the music, books, and theater.

This makes the question of our individual gaze incredibly important. If our civic faith is placed in the human institutions of “good government” or a “good culture,” both will soon decay. Unless we believe that a Supreme Judge will hold us accountable, we and our republic will fail. Our republic succeeds only to the extent that the citizens, who are the leaders, are looking beyond themselves for wisdom.

Psalm 121 gives us a better direction. “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

As the citizen-leaders of our self-governing republic, we must be about the business of encouraging each other, like the psalmist and like our Founding Fathers, to look to heaven.

To be effective, government reformers and cultural warriors alike must be grounded in scripture and driven by faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Quote-Unquote

“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

– John Adams