Good morning,

In today's One Click Survey, we want to know what you think about Texas schools ignoring the federal rewrite of Title IX.

And Democrats didn't show up for their own convention! This is the Texas Minute for Monday, June 10, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Texas GOP Announces Legislative Priorities for 2025

• With the input of thousands of delegates at their recent biennial convention now tallied, the Republican Party of Texas has announced its legislative priorities for next year's legislative session. Brandon Waltens has the details.
      
• The eight priorities are headlined by the GOP as:
  🐘 Border Enforcement
  🐘 Secure Texas Elections
  🐘 Stop Sexualizing Texas’ Kids
  🐘 No Democrat Chairs
  🐘 Ban Taxpayer-funded Lobbying
  🐘 Secure the Electric Grid
  🐘 Texas is Not for Sale
  🐘 End Federal Overreach

RELATED NEWS

Texas Democrats Bust Quorum at Their Own Party Convention!

• Texas Democrats tried to meet for their biennial convention this weekend, but a quorum failed to show up for the meetings on Saturday, preventing the party from conducting business.

Texas Argues Concertina Wire Fencing Case in Court

• State attorneys argued in defense of Texas’ concertina wire fencing at the Texas-Mexico border, which the Biden administration sued to block. Will Biagini provides an update on the ongoing legal case.
   
• Among other things, lawyers from the Attorney General's office asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to analyze video from September 2023 showing federal agents destroying concertina wire fences—opening the passageway for illegal aliens to cross into Texas.
    
• Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement that the Biden administration has not been straightforward with the U.S. Supreme Court in reporting actions Texas took to increase border security. Further, Paxton noted that a recent executive order from President Biden undermines claims that "all aliens are entitled to asylum protections."

Texas Officials Address Ballot Secrecy Concerns

• A new ruling issued by the Texas Attorney General’s office reaffirms that government entities have a legal duty to redact personally identifying information on voters’ ballots and other election records when a Public Information Act request is made. Erin Anderson has the report.
         
• “In Texas, voters have an absolute constitutional right to ballot secrecy,” said Attorney General Ken Paxton.
       
• Last week, the Texas Secretary of State’s office issued an emergency advisory to election officials offering new guidance on redacting ballots and other voting records to protect privacy. It came after the recent publication of ballot images purporting to belong to specific voters. In certain instances, information obtained from publicly available election records can be used to match a ballot to a voter.
       
• Specific voters’ ballots may be easily identifiable in elections with few voters and low turnout. Countywide voting, which allows voters to cast ballots at any polling place within a county, makes identifying a specific voter’s ballot possible if a voter is the only one from their precinct that casts a ballot at a particular voting center on a specific date.

STAAR Results Show Texas Students ‘Held Steady’ Academically

• Newly released results of statewide academic assessments show Texas students’ performance “held steady” but “has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels” across all subjects.
       

• In U.S. History, the percentage of students meeting grade level declined from 71 to 69 percent. In English II, the percentage of students meeting grade level increased by 4 percentage points to 60 percent.
     
• There was no change in the percentage of students meeting grade level in Algebra I (45 percent), Biology (57 percent), and English I (54 percent).
       
• Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath noted that 24 percent of the state's 5.5 million public school students are classified as "Emergent Bilingual," which is to say, in the process of acquiring English.

Harris County Approves Jail Upgrades

• Over 50 inmates have died in the custody of the Harris County jail in recent years, an issue often attributed to understaffing or poor training. Charles Blain reports that faced with disciplinary actions from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, the county will be spending up to $122 million in upgrades to the facilities.

     
• The dollars will be spent to address problems that include plumbing, electricity, and security.
     
• Last month, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards ordered the county to immediately reduce the number of inmates or increase the number of guards to comply with the state’s inmate-to-guard ratio. 

School Administrator Has History of Calling for Violence on Social Media

• A facilities coordinator for Graham Independent School District has a history of calling for violence against various people on social media. As Luca Cacciatore writes, the man's latest target is school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis.
     
• Mike Carroll, the district’s head athletic trainer and assistant athletic director, appeared to call for violence against individuals at least seven different times on his now-private account on X.
     
• The revelation was first brought to public attention by conservative activist Chaya Raichik, who took screenshots of examples of Carroll calling for violence and using vulgar language.
     
• According to a biography posted by Graham High School, Carroll’s job means he spearheads all aspects of athletic health in the school district. Graham ISD has not responded to requests for comment.

Quote-Unquote

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child—miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."

– P.J. O'Rourke​

Today In History

On June 10, 1832, the first armed conflict between Texian settlers and the Mexican military took place near modern-day Anahuac.

ONE CLICK SURVEY

The Biden administration recently unveiled a rewrite of Title IX. Originally designed to stop sex discrimination in education, the rewrite forces schools to allow biological males to use girls' spaces—such as locker rooms and bathrooms—or lose federal funding.

Gov. Greg Abbott has instructed the Texas Education Agency to oppose the Title IX rewrite, Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the administration, and some local school districts have announced they will ignore the federal dictate.

Is opposing Title IX worth losing federal education money and possibly drawing a federal lawsuit against local school districts?

Once you’ve clicked an answer, reply to this email with any thoughts you’d like to share!