Good morning,

What happens when two wolves and a lamb vote on what to have for dinner? I end the week reflecting on that answer.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, May 31, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Shelby Slawson Announces Bid to Unseat Speaker Dade Phelan

• The race for the next Speaker of the House is getting more crowded. Stephenville Republican Shelby Slawson announced yesterday she will be seeking the position currently held by Dade Phelan. Brandon Waltens has the details.
    
• A longtime supporter of Phelan, Slawson is now slamming his power-sharing agreement with Democrats. She described Phelan as mismanaging the chamber while putting members at odds with their grassroots support at home.
       
• State Rep. Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress) announced his candidacy for the position in March. He issued a statement welcoming "another reformer into the race."
      
• For his part, Phelan (R-Beaumont) has said he will seek re-election to the post and that he will continue appointing Democrats to chair key committees in the House.

Texans React to Trump Verdict

• A New York jury has convicted former President Donald Trump on charges he falsified business records to cover up an alleged affair. Texans have stepped forward to denounce the trial and the verdict.

Democrats Want DOJ to Probe Daniel Perry Case

• After Gov. Greg Abbott pardoned Army Sgt. Daniel Perry for the shooting death of an armed protester, Democrat attorneys general from more than a dozen states are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to open a federal probe into the incident. Emily Medeiros has the story.
    
• Sgt. Perry was stationed at Fort Hood in 2020 and driving for Uber to make extra income. In downtown Austin on July 25, 2020, a group of Black Lives Matter protesters were blocking an intersection. Perry says he honked his horn to get them to move. Instead, they surrounded his car and began beating on his hood. At that point, Perry said protester Garrett Foster pointed an AK-47 at him. Feeling in danger, Perry used his handgun against Foster in self-defense. 
      
• In April 2023, a Travis County jury sentenced Perry to 25 years in prison for Foster’s death. Earlier this year, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended that the governor grant Perry a full pardon and restore his Second Amendment rights.
         
• Now, Democrat attorneys general from Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., are urging U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to open a civil rights investigation against Perry.

INVESTIGATION: School Clubs Are Sexualizing Students

• Proliferating on middle and high school campuses around the state have been "GSA" clubs, standing alternatively for "Gay Straight Alliance" or "Genders and Sexualities Alliance." Robert Montoya has examined what these clubs are doing to students.
    
• Originally, the GSAs claimed to provide a “safe space” but have since morphed into political advocacy groups pushing radical leftist ideologies centered on sexuality. Often, the clubs are found to opportunistically prey on lonely students during a vulnerable period in their lives.
       
• In 2017, Austin ISD's Department of Research and Evaluation urged officials to install a GSA-focused club on each middle and high school campus. Their emphasis was on middle schools.
      
• “The priority is indoctrination. The priority is destruction.” – Brady Gray, president of the Texas Family Project

Texas Teacher Took Explicit Videos of Herself at School

• A Houston-area elementary school teacher filmed explicit videos of herself while on campus during school hours. Erin Anderson reports community leaders are demanding that her teaching certificate be revoked.
    
• Adrienne Harborth was a music teacher at Gray Elementary in Lamar Consolidated Independent School District in Fort Bend County. Censored versions of Harborth's videos, first posted by Grizzy’s Hood News under the title “Teacher Gone Wild,” have gone viral on the internet.
        
• Local community activist Candice Matthews confirmed Harborth’s identity with district officials, who told her the teacher was no longer employed by the district but for reasons unrelated to the videos.
       
• Harborth’s teaching certificate, first issued in 2018, shows she is currently under investigation by the TEA.

ICYMI: Interviews from the Republican Convention

• If you missed our interviews with key activists, leaders, and policymakers at the Texas GOP convention, you can watch those on the Texas Scorecard YouTube channel.
    
• The interview subjects include Kyle Rittenhouse, Corey DeAngelis, GOP Chairman Abraham George and Vice Chair D'rinda Randall, Texas Family Project leader Brady Gray, Ag Commissioner Sid Miller, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, State Sen. Kevin Sparks, State Reps. Steve Toth, Tony Tinderholt, Nate Schatzline, Tom Oliverson, Brian Harrison, and Reps.-elect Wes Virdell, Mitch Little, and Brent Money... among others!

Friday Reflection
Not. A. Democracy.

When Benjamin Franklin was asked in 1787 what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had created, several options were on the table. The Articles of Confederation, which had been barely sufficient during the War of Independence, were found sorely lacking if the 13 colonies were to be united as states.

There were those who were ready to install a benevolent monarchy under King George. Not the guy from the line of Hanover from whom the Declaration of Independence had been declared, but the son of Augustine and Mary who hailed from Virginia. Long live King George of America!

Of course, George and Martha had proven unsuccessful in the “making an heir” department, so the question of “who next” would have no doubt moved rapidly from esoteric debate to spilled blood. Our founders had had quite enough of that.

There were those who wanted a direct democracy. Every question would be subject to a plebiscite. The mob would rule. Slave owners were big on “democracy.” Two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner means mutton every night.

We have, in recent days, watched mobs bent on division and destruction wreak havoc on college campuses. This is the sort of government our founders wanted to avoid.

Monarchy and democracy are two sides of the same coin upon which tyrannies had been built for eons. Both lay claim to a divine right to lord over others by virtue of their own decree. Such governments were built and sustained by might. A ruling class would enforce its dictates by raw force on everyone else, justifying even heinous abuses as a governing necessity.

“Keep your head down” has been the motto of every serf from Nero’s Rome and King John’s England to Hitler’s Third Reich and Xi’s China.

So, something else was created that September in Philadelphia.

“A republic, if you can keep it,” is what Franklin told Philadelphia socialite Elizabeth Willing Powel as the constitutional convention came to an end. (Their conversation occurred during a party in her home, not on the steps of Independence Hall.)

A republic. Yes, the United States would have a king, but the king would be the law: lex rex. Yes, the people would vote, but the passions of the mob were to be tamed by time and process.

Modern exasperation with “gridlock” was considered a key feature of the system devised in the late 1780s. Generally, those who want an efficient, quick-moving government have little regard for the purposefully built safeguards installed by our Founding Fathers.

Liberty is often the first casualty of government efficiency.

The idea of a republic, built to preserve liberty, remains revolutionary. It seems some have grown weary of it, or at least complacent. Generally speaking, it is easier to live under the thumb of a ruling elite than to operate in a self-governing republic. As serfs, we have no obligation but to observe from the sidelines and shrug helplessly at injustice.

As citizens, we must take an active role each day in holding the wolves at bay.

We can keep our republic only to the extent we take personal ownership of—and responsibility for—the rights and liberties endowed to us by God.

Quote-Unquote

"I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country, and the least encroachment of those invaluable privileges is apt to make my blood boil."

– Benjamin Franklin